by Amy Nevland
I don’t know why she did it, but she did. My good friend let me come to the birth of her first baby, and her doula gave me a job. Which seems like a smart idea, but, in retrospect, when you invite someone to watch a birth for the first time, you should probably NOT put them in charge of taking the videos. That was her bad. I took a steady, 2-hour long, crotch shot video. Full on. With her mortal portal front and center. That was my bad.
The attending Dr. was a gem and didn’t say anything to me about my obvious lack of birth decorum. Not immediately, at least. But after 2
days of laboring unmedicated and 3 hours of pushing, 2 hours of practically crowning, (un-mercilessly filmed by yours truly), I was asked to put the camera down, as forceps were applied to the little head that appeared to be playing peek-a-boo with each push. This tool was tried, several times, unsuccessfully. And then, the thudding of the baby’s heartbeat slowed with the next contraction, and stayed slow, loudly slow, and didn’t perk back up, at all. I don’t know how long it took, (It’s been 20 years since that night), but it felt like half a minute…max…, and my friend was whisked out the door, bed and all, and put under general anesthesia for an emergency c-section. It feels like almost in the same slow-motion breath, my line-of-sight pans back to my friend’s husband, falling to his knees, hands outstretched to an empty area where a labor bed used to be. Everyone is gone…family, nurses, doctor…everyone, but the doula and the dad…and me, stupidly standing in the corner holding a camera. I watch her, the doula, gently walk over to my friend’s husband, the one whose world is hanging in shaky, silent limbo, waiting for any words. I watch her kneel to his level, gently put her arms around him, and hug him. He cries. Of course. I mean, he just loses it. She says something. Something I couldn’t discern. But it gives him action. A purpose. And he gets up and walks to the nursery and asks to hold his baby boy.
I would like to say that it is that moment that caused me to want to be a doula. Though it was inspiring, and my first introduction into the world of doulas and births, but alas, my motives were possibly less altruistic. You see, my family was struggling financially at that time. Y’all know the story. It was cheaper to stay home than go back to work as a teacher, only to find that your whole paycheck goes to pay for childcare, so, like why? So I needed something to do, anything, that would bring some money into my family. I tried tutoring, in-home health care, cleaning houses, praying…
Then I saw it… A doula workshop training, in my town. Maybe this could be my way to work a little and make some money for my family. I couldn’t afford the workshop, so I asked my mother for an advance. She somewhat reluctantly agreed to help me with half the fee. This is when something amazing happened. I emailed the doula trainer, explaining my plight, and she agreed to let me come for half the price. I really couldn’t have done it otherwise, and she really didn’t have to offer me a sliding scale. She could have said no. She could have offered a payment plan. But she didn’t. She made a choice to just be generous. And what I learned in that birth doula workshop wasn’t groundbreaking or necessarily completely revolutionary. I honestly felt like it was just a relearning of knowledge that I should have had all along as a woman and a mother. But it did change the trajectory of my life up until that moment. It helped me find not just a job, but a calling. Plus, on a very practical scale, it helped me to form doula bonds with other like-minded women who would then become my co-workers and doula back-ups for years to come.
Fast forward 1 year after the workshop, and this same doula trainer, again, agreed to be generous. She, who had trained dozens and dozens more doulas, had also, simultaneously been working on becoming a midwife. She agreed to be the midwife for my third baby, for a lower sliding scale fee, and I agreed to be her first client. The day my daughter was born, she didn’t just guide me safely through the unknown of birth, she embodied what it meant to mother-the-mother, hold space, be present…all of it.
14 years later, I’ve had the incredible privilege and honor of walking with hundreds of parents during their big days. It’s a messy, humbling, yet sacred time, and I’m well aware of what a big ask it is to be invited into that intimate space. Being that birth is so sacred and life-alternating, one may think that birth work is glamorous. It’s really kind of not. Ha! A lot of nights, I’ve laid curled up on my coat like a puppy on a cold hospital floor, one eye open, listening, while the laboring mom is trying to sleep with an epidural but can’t because she’s super nauseous and maybe will need another throw up bag at any moment. And If being awake for 36 hours straight rubbing a used-to-be somewhat stranger’s left butt cheek so it doesn’t cramp up, then rushing to the nearest bathroom to pump and dump between contractions so that your boobs don’t start leaking as soon as the word “baby” is mentioned doesn’t make you question your life choices, I don’t know what will. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought over the last 14 years, “And why am I doing this again?” I mean besides the fact that a lot of these families have become some of my really good friends. (Although to be honest, there are a few of them I really can’t remember, even when they say hi to me at Costco. I went to way too many births at one point in time, and got way too little sleep.). And besides the fact that my family is doing better financially. It’s not really that completely. Honestly, I think it’s because the more I’m stretched to serve and stay present, the more I feel the heart of God for people in our most vulnerable, and humble, yet glorious state. And man. Is it ever-present, above and beyond generous, and so, so good.
Written in memory of Jessica Atkins…Thank you for your generous spirit.
