What a student can teach her mentor...

With my 14 years of experience, I feel pretty confident to joke around the pushing phase saying:

"No baby has ever fallen out of her mom's vagina". Well, no more jokes around it.

My wonderful student from last year, Dorit, called me on her way back from supporting a birth client, still under what may sound like panic reaction to what happened at the birth. I listened, I was shocked and amazed, I grounded myself  and helped her understand what happened ,and calmed her down. My advice was: Sit down now, as soon as you are home, to write this experience for yourself. It will help you not to forget details and time frames, and will assist with processing this experience.

Here is what she wrote to me and to her sister doulas the next day (posted her with her permission):

I got the first phone call at 4am. Alex (age 21, second birth) told me that her water broke and she is going to the hospital with her husband and will call me at the morning. Around 11:30 am I talked to her. She updated me that they just started the induction and she started to feel the contraction. I arrived at the hospital at noon. Alex was sitting on the bed. I encouraged her to take a walk with me (her husband told me that they all tried to convince her all morning) . We took a long walk and after that went to the shower, Alex was great with the contraction, and she planned to take an Epidural close to Transition phase.

From the minute I arrived, the nurses all the time asked her to take the big E (Epidural), they didn't know what was her dilation. Alex asked not be checked virginally until the E (she said that she can’t stand that). She got the E at 2pm, when she had a 6 cm dilation!

At 3:30 pm the nurses changed shifts. Around 3:45 we called them and asked to switch sides, Alex asked if it's OK to be seated for a while, since she was coughing heavily all day. We put her in a sitting position and continued chatting with a very nice student nurse, who attended L&D the first time in her life. About 10 min after, the nurse came back in and asked Alex to turn on her side in order to monitor the baby better. We helped the mom turn, and the nurse was looking for the baby's heart beat...nothing....for me it looks like for ever, she asked us to help the mother fix her position, and in that moment the student nurse picked- up the blanket and said "THE BABY IS OUT"!! We called for help and in seconds had 15 people in the room. Alex was in a big panic (me to). I was with, her holding her hand, trying to calm her down, until we heard the baby first cry and were relieved.

Little Julien delivered himself at 4:04, 6.30 pound.

So, want to be a doula? How amazing is our job? Having doula students is exposing me to so many situations in labor, I am enriching my knowledge and experience through mentoring. I love having amazing strong women like Dorit as my students.







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