Being a doula means living in the unpredictable and the unknown. All humans must face and accept that they are not in control of how events in their lives unfold, but to work in birth means to live in that crack of awareness so you feel it acutely and constantly. To be a birth worker means you need patient friends or a patient partner, those who have also accepted their day may be interrupted by a “My client…” that will change the shape of that date, day, weekend. The amount of love and preparation that goes into one baby’s arrival, that you would never even consider… all invested in that new life being born as gently and surrounded by as much loving support as mama and baby require.
For me being a doula means always having a candle burning. For the families who come into your experience, for the women you may have never even met in person, who bring their story to you. It is being priestess of home and hearth, wearing red bracelets round your wrist. It means hoarding tender secrets and truths like a gentle, soft breasted and bellied dragon. When my teacher Ana Otero was asked what advice she would give to women looking to start their own spiritual business, how she did it herself, she answered “I pray.”
Already this weekend I have posted a placenta pack to a client who has rebooked for her second baby (one of my favourite things!), had a beautiful conversation about planning a mother blessing I will be space holding for (another one of my favourite things!), and agreed to be backup on-call for a dear doula sister of mine who is currently having her own experience of accepting things that are not in your control.
All those things interspersed with preparing meals, washing dishes, having conversations, going to the market, poking round the charity shops, hanging out washing. The landscape of my day could change in a minute, as indeed your could too. I am, as ever, in that crack of awareness.
Ahava and blessings,
Jenny xxx
