DoulaMamaWolf

Welcome back to The Novice Doula! I feel that my doula was a HUGE help & support for me in labour, as well as a guiding force for why I ultimately decided to become a doula myself. I wanted to share my experience with her, and what techniques she used that were extremely helpful for me - while I know every labouring mother is different, and I will need to learn many other skills, I want to remember how these things helped me, so I know what I want my labouring moms to feel when comforted by me. Last post, I shared my birth story - my favourite memory, the day my beautiful son was born. In that post I did mention some of the things my doula did for me, so please scroll down to read that post if you haven't already. Today I'll be going deeper into my doula's involvement, and how she affected my labour in the best way possible. I met my doula at 37 weeks pregnant, outside a little coffee shop, sitting outside on the shaded patio. Immediately I got a very professional but m...

Welcome back to The Novice Doula! Today I wanted to share my birth story, as I believe this was the moment I realized I loved birth - the intensity, the calm before the storm, the beauty, the mess, and the incredible love in the moment a mother sees her child for the first time.  This is my beautiful belly at about 37 weeks. I went 4 more weeks after this photo, to have my son at 41 weeks 1 day. For most of my pregnancy, I truly believed in letting a baby come when they were ready, and in the end I was grateful to have a support system that encouraged me to stick with this in my most vulnerable moments.  My original plan had been a beautiful, serene home waterbirth in my living room with a midwife team, but the end result was a beautiful, serene, perfect hospital birth due to moving and needing to find a new practitioner late in my pregnancy - I ended up finding a wonderful doctor that was completely on board with my natural birth plan, even when my certainty wavered and I sug...