Dear Doulas at The Doula Group,
I had a baby a few years back. I listened to all the family and friend stories. I read the books, I took the classes. I tried to keep an open mind. I decided what I wanted. I discussed with my partner and we had ideas about what was important to us.
Then birth day came. It wasn't really about whether I had an epidural, or not. It wasn't about vaginal vs.cesarean. It wasn't about home or hospital, midwives or doctors. It wasn't even about the baby. It was the whole picture. I felt like someone was leading me down a path and they knew the path and the outcome before I did. I felt like I had no choices. I felt like they listened to what I said, but didn't care or act on it. I felt like they talked about me and not to me. No one helped us. Yes, I bonded with my baby. Yes, I loved my baby. I just felt like this experience, this mind-body experience, this mind blowing experience, this life altering experience was actually an out of body experience and I didn't feel like anyone understood that, not even my partner.
I dwelled on this for a while because I knew we wanted more babies but I did not want to have them. I started quietly researching online. I did not want people to know how I felt so I kept it to myself. I "accidentally" heard one of you speaking about your job when I was getting my hair cut. You sounded so passionate, like you really understood the feelings of birth. It was a game changer.
Last year, we had our second baby and one of you was with me. I don't think I ever even told you just how many feelings I had about that first birth but I wanted you to know, I wanted ALL of you to know - having you there, it made a difference. You are all, quite sadly, the most underused birth commodity of our time. You made me feel the things I needed to feel, you helped me to heal from that first birth and you helped me acknowledge all of that, but privately, on my own, in my own way and on my own time and that was exactly what I needed. Most importantly, you kept me present. If only you had been there from the first birth, but maybe, I needed to have that experience in order to have this last one and that's okay.
Thank you. I am pretty sure you don't even know half of what you did for us. So just thanks.
A Grateful Client
PS - I got a tattoo. You're in it :)