Hi, friends! I missed a couple of weeks here, but I have been writing! Please take a look at my recent post that originally appeared at https://www.blessedarrivals.com/post/certainty-in-the-unknown.

Certainty in the Unknown

My first call came at 4 o’clock in the morning. It was just as I had been imagining for years! When my cell phone pulled me out of sleep, I sat up quickly, heart pounding. I listened as my client told me that she was on her way to the birth center. Contractions were strong and regular. It was time.

I first learned about doulas in 2008 when I was preparing for the birth of my second child. I was intrigued. When the time was right, I dove into my training with joy. Finally, I would be able to provide the continuous support and encouragement that I believed every new family deserved. That first call came only one month after I completed my training. I had the knowledge; I had the passion, but I would soon learn that the unpredictable nature of birth means I will always be learning, always remaining alert, and always adapting to changing scenarios.

My first birth as a doula was relatively quick, and the parents were experienced, knowledgeable, and beautifully attuned to one another. The experience reinforced all my idealistic daydreams about birth and doula work. I walked away in awe. Birth #2, on the other hand, would last over fifty hours and would require me to dig deep to overcome fatigue, nerves, and a complex medical situation. Of course, my efforts and sacrifice were small compared to the tremendous work of the new parents. These two initial experiences were the education I needed to understand the changeability of my role and the unpredictability of childbirth.

Now, more than five years later, I talk to every client about the mercurial nature of birth. We can create birth plans, but birth is ever-changing. I have heard people scoff about the birth plan, saying “I’m not making a birth plan. You can’t plan birth.” Or some people may say there is no point in trying to “control” birth, so why bother? Knowing what I have seen in my doula work, I can see the temptation to throw up our hands and simply take what comes. Yet, I maintain the importance of recognizing where we do have power and focusing on those factors.

First, I encourage the people I serve to assemble a birth team that reflects their priorities and provides the relationships and resources that allow them to feel safe and supported. A calm, comfortable birth begins with these relationships. Know the statistical outcomes of your local hospital or birth center. Investigate home birth providers in your community. Speak with medical providers about the births they typically support and any factors that would potentially disqualify you from their care. Ask them about how they feel about a variety of scenarios and the elements of birth that are most important to you. A doula who aligns with your goals and understands the atmosphere you wish to create will bring an additional element of stability and confidence.

Secondly, I urge clients to not think of a birth plan as documentation of exactly what they want their birth to be. It is not a script. Rather, the birth plan is a concrete place to record choices and preferences so that parents are not forced to make difficult, uninformed decisions while laboring or during a challenging moment. They can make those important decisions when they are rested, relaxed, and able to do research. Then I encourage them to hold their plans with open hands, knowing that circumstances can bring unexpected scenarios.

Childbirth can bring one surprise after another. Many people feel anxious and even fearful about the unknown of birthing their babies. They may wonder about which doctor or midwife will be on call. They may have concerns about when labor will begin or what pain management might be needed. True, we cannot control all elements of childbirth, but as a doula, I am prepared for the need to make quick pivots in the birth process while always holding a client’s preferences as priorities. When you hire a doula, you still must face many unknowns, but you have the certainty of an unwavering, nonjudgmental companion who is well-versed in the details of pregnancy, birth, and babies. You can know that you will not be left alone, and someone will be cognizant of your needs at all times.

As I wait for my next client to call, I still have many of the same feelings that I had before that first call in 2015. I feel the anticipation of a new experience and the joy of seeing new life. I am humbled by the invitation to be part of a client’s intimate experience. I have an overwhelming sense of responsibility for my client’s well-being and security. I recognize that nobody can anticipate each step and stumbling block of any single birth experience, but I am ready to be a steadfast presence no matter what comes.

I am a fan of the “little holidays.” They are low pressure with high fun potential. Many of them come with interesting history and even geography lessons.

Today, we read Tomie dePaola’s Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland. (https://www.amazon.com/Patrick-Patron-Ireland-Tomie-dePaola/dp/0823410773) We had a good discussion of truth versus legend and how legends often grow out of a grain of truth.

We watched a beautiful tour of Ireland on YouTube. Wouldn’t you know — the most impressive part was the number of times beer was mentioned! We got a good laugh out of that and enjoyed some gorgeous landscapes and historical sites.

Dinner tonight is shepherd’s pie and Irish soda bread. It is a joy to make little celebrations into happy memories.

Today, I am giving thanks for sunshine and warm temperatures after many gray, cold days. We took a big walk with the dogs, and we made a trip to our neighborhood Little Free Library. (We washed our hands afterward.)

Everyone was in a good mood! It’s hard to be grumpy when the weather feels perfect and an outing was much needed.

I also want to say THANK YOU to YOU! I have been back to weekly blogging for over a month, and I have loved your warm welcome. I love knowing that someone is reading! Some of you have been part of my little audience from the very beginning, and others are new. I am grateful that you are here, learning and growing alongside me and my family.

We are in the middle of winter when days can seem awfully dark. Here in western Pennsylvania, skies are gray, gray, gray. Add in almost a year of a pandemic and a contentious political climate, and a gloomy attitude is totally warranted. We each experience difficult times differently, and those emotions are valid.

I feel the heaviness, too. However, I was built to be optimistic. I experience grief and sadness acutely, but I seem to be hardwired to find a silver lining, to look on the bright side, and to push my rose-colored glasses up my noes and get on with it. I am a sensitive person, but I also go through life assuming things will get better and all things are temporary.

Social media during the quarantine taught me a new concept: toxic positivity. Truthfully, the term scared me! Was I toxic? When I point out a potential good side effect of a terrible event, am I dismissing others’ experiences? Am I indicating with my own rosy outlook that my way is the best way or only way? I certainly hope not!

My work as a doula is all about encouraging new or expectant parents to examine emotions and own their experiences. I am teaching people to value their needs and to advocate for those needs. Through out this pandemic, I have been afraid to voice my experience for fear of splashing my “toxic positivity” all over my friends and family. Messy stuff.

And then a thought occurred to me. Toxic positivity is real, but it is also a concept that comes out of world that has been hurt and shamed for all kind of things. The term itself shamed me! I started to examine the many things I say from a very genuine place, and I can’t let this word, this worldly term, take away my joy or the joy that I share with others.

I will continue to be mindful, of course, to let people claim their experiences and dig into the ramifications of them. But I will not hide my light and my good cheer. Mathew 5:16 says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (ESV) God put a certain kind of light inside of me. I have experienced people noticing ME and being encouraged by who I am, and I have also felt the twinge of being pushed aside because my cheerful ways bring out something different–not so positive–in someone else. As a people-pleaser, not connecting with someone feels like a major FAIL, but I know that the Lord doesn’t want me to hide my light under a basket, especially when that feels like the easy thing to do.

Our family appreciates coziness and downtime. I wrote about it a little bit here in a previous post. We love our home (in all its imperfection), and I think most of my gang would choose home over any other place. This was confirmed in a sweet little moment we had last Sunday.

I was in the kitchen with my nine-year-old daughter and twelve-year-old son, making a very typical lunch of grilled cheese and soup. My daughter asked, “Mommy, what was your favorite age?” I named a few that I liked — 11, 17, 26, 30. She seemed satisfied with my quick descriptions of these important years in my life. Then her brother chimed in. He responded sincerely, “I liked 11 best because we got to do the quarantine.”

GOT to do the quarantine.

My boy wasn’t being cheeky. For him, the quarantine was fun! We played more games, watched more movies, and even bought a virtual reality headset for which he had pined for over a year. More importantly, the best thing that has happened to him in his young life was a nationwide quarantine that gave him permission to stay home and just be–to enjoy his room and his Legos, to stop having his mom nagging him to hurry all the time, to get his shoes, to find his jacket, and to go out to some place he didn’t really want to go or some activity he didn’t really want to do.

Maybe we can learn from a twelve year old’s perspective. Certainly, I understand the complexities of the shutdown more than my son does. I understand the losses that many people experienced–the loss of health, the loss of loved ones, the loss of “normal,” the loss of financial security. With those losses come many valid emotions of grief and fear. This is the reality, and it is on-going.

Despite the difficulty this pandemic has presented, I experienced an unprecedented stillness that allowed me to think. Why have I not valued my need (and clearly my child’s need) for downtime and solitude until the world gave me “permission” to do so? Why have I always scolded myself for not really wanting to hang out with friends or go out to dinner when home seemed so much more inviting? Why have I decided to ignore comfort for all the “shoulds”? Why did it take a PANDEMIC to make it okay for me to value downtime with my snuggly kiddos and recognize that as a real NEED in my life? Not just a preference, a need.

I have learned that our brains need periods of relative inactivity in order to form memories. Our brains can consume and consume and consume, but if we don’t sleep or have periods of “wakeful rest,” that information will not become part of our long-term memory (“Mental Down Time Affects Learning,” Psychology Today).

Hmmm.

For me and probably others, the pandemic and its subsequent shut down, allowed a kind of hibernation that opened my eyes to the need for quiet. I live with five active children. Obviously, I don’t mean quiet like a hushed library. I mean a state of not being socially taxed, a time of not taking in every headline, Facebook post, and news broadcast at any and all hours of the day. Yes, I am an introvert, and that fact becomes more and more obvious as I grow older. But I believe the lesson I learned is bigger than just my enjoyment of occasional solitude. I am off balance if I consume but do not rest, and I am finally realizing that I need to deeply examine why I so easily set aside my needs when faced with probably imaginary pressures to be more social or more…something…

It is almost laughable that I needed a world-wide virus to show me that it is okay to speak up for my needs, and as I navigate a half-open world with the virus still doing its thing out there, I am getting more and more practice at standing up for what my family and I need. As of this publication, it still isn’t easy.

I am a fan of COZY. Like a paint-yourself-all-over, throw-some-confetti, and wear-a-crazy-hat kind of fan! I love tea, blankets, slippers, and jammies. I love fireplaces, potbelly stoves, and candles. I love snowy days and gray skies, mittens, scarves, and tossle caps. Snow and ice might not seem cozy, but for me, all the cold, wet things outside simply act as crisp backdrops to all the wonderful, warm things inside. They make the tea and slippers necessary and appreciated. When winter shows up, I’m ready and waiting!

Today felt like a perfect winter day. We woke up to a light layer freshening up the weekend’s snow. The morning gave us pretty sunshine that glinted on the new snow and seemed to cut straight through our sunroom windows. I, a forty-one year old woman, did a little spin where the rays of light dappled the hardwood floor. My fifteen year old laughed at me as he did his Chemistry lesson, and I didn’t mind one bit!

We jumped into our school day–everyone in jammies. We sat around our dining room table, and I noticed that the little tea roses I bought spontaneously on Friday are opening and doing their part to brighten our home. The three older kids had music lessons over Zoom this afternoon, so our house was also filled with the sounds of a young fiddler, a pianist, and a flute player.

I stepped outside only once to feed the chickens. I crunched my way up to the coop in my “chicken boots,” breathing deeply and savoring the clean air. I took the moment to feel the sharp contrast between a snuggly day indoors and the sharpness of January air. It’s a good juxtaposition. A comfortable place. I blew out a breath and turned back toward the door where the smells of dinner cooking invited me inside.