Being a doula is difficult, rewarding work. It is different than any other labor I’ve done, yet I am able to make connections. In the past, my jobs have always involved teaching, whether I was assisting in a fifth grade classroom in Tucson, or teaching in a bilingual kindergarten in Paris, teaching high school English in Vermont, or college freshmen in Florida and Utah. I love teaching, and though doulaing is quite different work, I know I am a better doula for the pedagogical skills I can bring to my practice. My teaching background is part of the reason why I love Childbirth Education and helping my clients learn what they need to know to make sure they have the healthiest pregnancy and the safest labor and delivery. I’m a wealth of knowledge, and I love to share what I know! One thing I love about my job is that when people find out what I do, they usually voluntarily launch into the telling of their own birth stories. Storytelling is woven into birthwork and this aligns perfectly with my other job as a poet.

I’ve always told stories, even before I knew how to write. I would dictate my imaginative fancies to my mother who would dutifully record them and post them on the fridge. My love of storytelling grew into its expression as poetry. I love telling stories through my poems, even if the story isn’t immediately apparent. Here is a poem I wrote after attending my first birth:

Birth Recollected in a Dream

You were born on the first cold day of autumn.

I walked slowly to the hospital.

Dogs ran for me, a woman in labor, each time I howled.

There is a smell to birth; not bad, just feral.

I held you in my hands, all seven pounds of you.

I watched you emerge, watched your body give way

to oxygen, milk, your mother’s smile.

There is a rhythm, a ritual to birth. I felt the ache

in my hips, the tightening of the fundus

how easily the placenta slipped away from me.

I awoke, a mixture of blood and breast milk

in the air, womb to cradle remaining.

Poetry was my first calling. I have always done it and loved it and knew I needed to make a place for it in my life. My love for poetry and teaching poetry has kept me in school and grad school for ten years now, as I work on completing my PhD. But the more births I attend, the more I realize I need to answer another calling: I have decided to pursue midwifery. I want to be able to help pregnant people and their families even more than I do now, to provide well woman exams and homebirth services. I want more power than I have as a doula so that I can turn around and hand the power right back to the birthin woman, to help her tune in to her own body and birth the way she instinctively knows how to do. For me, birth is spiritual and sacred. Being allowed in to that space when people become parents, when a new soul comes earthside, is the most incredible experience life can offer. I feel so honored to be able to devote my life to helping families achieve their best birth. I’m answering the call. I start midwifery school in May, and will serve as a doula and midwife’s assistant as soon as I find an apprenticeship.