I haven't yet been called at any strange times or in any strange places. I always wonder if I'll be called in the middle of a movie, or if I'll end up catching a baby in the car on the way to the hospital, etc. I've been trying to find out if any doulas have had any strange experiences to share. Below are a few I know of:
If you're a doula,
1. Where is the most unique time and place you have ever gotten a labor call? Or maybe the most inconvenient?
2. Has a mom ever chosen to labor, or accidentally ended up laboring, in an a-typical location?
3. Have you ever witnessed/caught a baby being born in a strange location or at an odd time?
Here are some unexpected situations that have happened to real doulas:
Calls:
-Thanksgiving dinner
Labors:
- Mom walking up hospital stairs so fast during contractions that doula couldn't keep up!
- Moms singing through contractions
- Moms who drive themselves to the hospital in transition
Births:
- By a creek in the moonlight
- On the front lawn
I'm not a doula YET and I haven't attended any births, but the strangest place I LABORED was at church. When I was pregnant with my second my water broke at 3am on my due date which was a Sunday morning. My husband and I sing on the praise team (kind of like a church choir) and we went on to rehearsal and church with my contractions at a very steady 30 minutes apart and gradually changing to 15 minutes apart. No one at church knew. We went on to lunch with my mother-in-law and only told her after lunch so that she could come home with us to watch our older son. The people at church still talk about it. We sang a song that morning called "There is a Stirring" and everyone thought it was so funny to find out that I was actually in labor at the time.
ReplyDeleteHi Kayla! What a cool story!
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting :)
I didn't want to take on any women until my daughter was a little older, but I offered to help a woman 3 weeks ago and my daughter was only three weeks old. Luckily I had family very willing to lend a hand. I had bags of milk pumped, but I wasn't sure it was going to be enough since I had no idea how long the labor would be. Every 1-2 hours I would sit by her side and pump more milk while I talked her through contractions. When her mom would come to see her, I would leave briefly to drop my milk off to my family and nurse my daughter - just to get some skin to skin time (I think I needed it more than her). I'll never forget the looks on the nurses and doctors faces as I pumped right out in the open and continued doing my job at the same time. :)
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