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My Birth Story

When I was 18, I discovered I was pregnant. This came as a complete surprise and I was utterly unprepared. I had just enrolled in college and I had big plans ahead of me. But I was always one for a challenge and I thought, how hard could this whole parenting thing be?.. I look back at the girl and think, you had no idea!

It's HARD. 

But oh, so worth it.

When I was pregnant, social media was in it's infancy and there was not a lot of information out there.  I did not have any friends in the same stage of their life so it was very lonely and my support system was minimal. Midwives and Doulas were not yet common practice.

I battled with morning sickness, sciatic pain, extreme tiredness and severe anxiety. I was very afraid and full of so many questions. Am I eating right? Will my baby have 10 fingers and 10 toes? Will it be healthy? Will I be a good mother? What have I gotten myself into? I pictured being pregnant as the time where people fawn over you, tell you that your glowing and rub your belly, instead I felt like a bloated whale who would fall asleep standing up. And where have my ankles gone? Now it wasn't all bad, hearing the first heartbeat, the first kick, the subsequent kicks, I was madly in love with this being growing inside me. 

At 40 weeks though, I was ready to be done. My stretch marks grew a centimeter everyday I went overdue. All 10 days overdue. The funny thing is, all my energy had been focused on how I was going to know I was in labor. How will I know when my water breaks? How will I know what contractions feel like?

Ladies, you WILL know when it happens. 

All this time spent on worrying about how will I know when it happens and absolutely none spent on what will I do when it happens! I was in for a surprise. 

Contractions started at 7am on Valentines Day. We went immediately to the hospital. When we arrived they said we were definitely too early and wanted to send us home but there was meconium in the water so we were admitted. I was not handling the situation or the contractions well. I was very much unprepared, I had no birth plan and no tricks or tools to use. A very nice nurse told me I needed to keep it together, the day was young and I had a long road ahead of me. When they offered me morphine, I was relieved but it stopped my labor. Then, they had to induce me which made the contractions harder and faster. When it became too much, I had an epidural which slowed everything down again. I was on the intervention road and it was like trying to put out one fire just to start another one somewhere else. After 21 hours of labor, I was told I needed an emergency C-section. I was devastated. Within 30 minutes, my baby girl was delivered. Within another 3 minutes, she was taken for testing and I was moved to the recovery room. I was confused, scared and absolutely alone. 

The next 5 days were a blur. My daughter was in the NICU for monitoring and was only brought to me a few times a day. She was hooked up to an IV so she was not interested in breastfeeding. The beautiful bonding time I had imagined looked very different. When I was finally able to go home, we were still strangers. 

Postpartum was hard. My partner was there as much as he could be but I didn't even know what I needed. My mother offered her help but I was afraid that because I wasn't flourishing, I was a bad mom. I had this vision from the movies of a new mother with her hair washed and styled, well dressed, looking refreshed and confident in a spotless house, baby in one arm and fresh baked cookies in the other. Meanwhile, I looked at myself in the mirror and that is definitely not what looked back at me! The laundry piled up, the dog needed to go out, the baby cried and I did not sleep. It was a very lonely experience. I look back on it now and know that it did not need to be that way. I did not ask for help, I did not have a support system put in place.

Against all the odds, we figured it out. It took time but the laundry was finally done (is it ever though?), the baby was napping, breastfeeding was working and I started to feel like myself again.

Through the years it has been my daughter and I against the world. We are inseparable. She is my best friend, my biggest supporter and my greatest accomplishment. To think of where we are now considering where we began, is still surreal to me.

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In 2020, one of my best friends got pregnant and immediately hired a midwife and a doula. I was so interested to see what difference, if any, that was going to make to her experience. The day came and her partner called me to come support. The doula was so much more than I imagined. She was so many people over the course of the afternoon. She was a motivator, a cheerleader, a soft spoken companion, she had ideas, tricks, positions swaps and endless knowledge. As the labor progressed she knew how to answer every question. She knew how to put us all ease, we trusted her implicitly. She knew how to put us all on task so we could be helpful, we knew our positions for every contraction. It was a cohesive bonded experience led by a very brave young woman. 

The labor progressed and we went to the hospital, my nephew was born soon after. The doula stayed and assisted with breastfeeding and departed only when everyone was settled in.  


That day is imbedded into my memory, it was one of the most beautiful, empowering and raw events I have ever witnessed. 

This what was birth was supposed to look like.

This moment inspired me to become a doula. To be so instrumental to someone at one of the most important times of their lives, is the most rewarding feeling in the world.


My friend and her baby have such a beautiful bond and the doula has become a great friend to all of us to this day. She has also become my mentor; coaching me and guiding me and encouraging me on my own path to becoming a doula for which I am forever grateful.

My story, that used to sadden me, has embolden me to help change the narrative of birth and, if I'm lucky, to be that pivotal piece of the puzzle that makes the difference in someone else's story.  


"If a woman doesn't look like a Goddess during labor, then someone isn't treating her right" -Inna May Gaskin

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