My First Postpartum Doula Experience
Author: Ali Davis, NREMT, BLS, CLC
About a decade ago, I was in grad school, having just moved to Texas from Alaska a couple of years prior. One of my close friends back home had just given birth to her first child, and had endured a significant amount of birth trauma due to medical complications in the process.
Due to these complications, her support system at home was also overwhelmed and at max capacity. Overdue for a visit back home, I flew back once I finished my term’s final exams.
Arriving at my friend’s house, I saw my beautiful friend in her element but hanging on by a thread due to sleep deprivation.
She is an amazing mother, yet was unable to fully access the depths of her parenting skills due to sheer exhaustion. Having taken care of infants pretty much my whole life, I talked with her and her family about a plan to help her get some rest. Everyone agreed to the plan, and we got started.
She showed me how the baby was eating, handed me her Moby wrap, and I lovingly sent her out to the guest cabin and told her to go to sleep for as long as she needed. If there was an emergency, I would call her or go get her; otherwise, she should take all the time she needed for herself.
I don’t remember how many hours she was out there. I simply remember feeding, rocking, changing, shushing, singing, feeding again, rocking again… and suddenly it had been dark outside for a few hours and my friend appeared in the doorway.
The spark was back in her eyes. Her face was no longer pale. Her baby nestled into her arms and I remember the look of peace and contentment on both of their faces.
I went home to my grandma’s and slept soundly knowing my friend was okay again.
We visited again a couple of days later, and I accompanied her on her first postpartum walk - assisting as needed with babywearing, and talking with her about everything that was on her mind, and on mine - she got to be a friend AND a mom for a while.
That little baby is in school now and my friend and I don’t talk as often as we used to.
But that rainy week in August changed the direction of both of our lives.
I draw on that experience frequently with my postpartum clients, remembering how much of a difference one load of laundry or a few hours of sleep can make during those first few blurry, exhausting, confusing weeks postpartum.