Within 24 Hours: A Snippet of Doula Life

Within 24 hours I travelled from Niagara Falls to Montreal, listening to music which reawakened an old and overwhelming desire to learn to play guitar like a man. There is nothing like being a passenger and immersing oneself into music, mind, and scenery, only interrupted by sporadic fights in the back seats by 3 bored kids and Tim Horton's pit stops.

I attended two beautiful births (even though still technically on vacation). How can one say, "I'm still off call" when one is called by a lovely labouring woman, the powerful craving for the sanctity of the birthing room (what one can salvage of sanctity in a hospital, anyway) infusing one's blood? And since that one went quickly and I still had energy, why not just tend to the next equally beautiful and sacred labouring woman, who, thank God, birthed quickly and smoothly too?

I watched an episode each of True Blood and Hung(between babies). I admit to an HBO addiction. I don't watch any other tv, but I do love my Louisianna vampire and awkward girl pimp dramas.

After the next birth, I ran into my nurse friend Jodi, and both of us swaying in the hallway with exhaustion (me from working, her from being kept up all night by a 2 year old), we passionately created an outline for a doula-training-for-new-nurses. The date is confirmed, and I couldn't be more excited. The energy sizzled and flowed in those few minutes in a way that made us resonate with a huge YES in terms of the training's content and intention, after a year of musing and wondering and not being sure how to most delicately but authentically approach it. Inspiration vibrated through those hallways, punctuated by labour sounds and the buzz of a busy hospital staff, and we tapped it and created something special.

I took a bus home, and fell into a short, but deep slumber for a few hours after saying "hi" to the kids.

I woke up to 4 new requests for my services, glad for my team of MotherWitties to take on these lovely ladies, as I am already booked for all the dates for those requests. It is an amazing thing to have abundance doing something I so love to do. Something I need to do. I count my blessings.

I awoke to my healthy, amazing children, and am waiting for my husband to come home so we can restock our empty, post vacation 'fridge, and hope to watch a movie tonight before tackling a huge day tomorrow of catching up on administrative work.


A doula never knows what her day is going to be like when she wakes up. It is a rich and good life. There are days in which my life sounds like something out of the strangest of Tom Waits songs, days I end up doing things I would never have imagined in a million years I'd be called upon to do. The rhythm is always spicy, and boredom is never an option.