Mama Raw

Our house is packed and the movers load everything tomorrow.  It’s a cozy little place with plenty of natural light and a quirkiness I adore.  It’s not big.  It’s not trendy.  But it suits us.  It’s home.

It’s where our beloved dog died and our mama’s boy was born.

Here.  Right here he entered the world.  Right where I now sit typing.

Tonight I said goodbye to my uncle, who lives an hour away.  Until we came to Texas I hadn’t lived in the same state as a family member since January 2002.  It’s comforting to have family around–if you like them.

When I considered becoming a doula it never occurred to me the extent to which I would be let into other families’ lives.  Sure, I knew I’d see a human being come out of the mom’s vagina, and there was a possibility I’d use my hands to help make a “breast sandwich” for her baby, but I did not foresee the emotional welcoming I would so often receive.

This afternoon I had a postpartum visit with a client who gave birth to a son one week ago.  Over the 31 weeks since she hired me I have become privy to the tales of both parents’ upbringings.  Their experiences make me thankful for the family I come from and the one my husband and I created.

I will miss this couple (maybe more so because they remind me of my husband and me ten years ago), but that is the nature of the doula-client relationship–transient.

I will miss others I’ve met here, too.  The stay-at-home dad two doors down with whom I can commiserate about never getting to do anything I want to do.  The neighbor who, even after our relationship (temporarily) crumbled when I presented her with information on circumcision, I trust completely to care for my children happily and eagerly, without resentment or expecting anything in return.  The “mom friends” from school.  Yes, I’d have you as my sister-wife, too.  And yes, I hate that I won’t be able to be your doula in September.  The older man whom we lived next door to for only a week and a half, but who became my first Texas friend (and daily screwdriver supplier as we awaited our respective spouses’ return from work) and is now dying of cancer.  I wish I’d met you sooner.  I will miss your smile.

We knew when we arrived almost three years ago that it would be a temporary stop.  Moving now I have no such convictions.  Will it be for one year or forever?

As I begin to grow weary of transience, forever sounds awfully appealing.

Goodbye, Texas.  I will not miss you, but oh, how you have shaped me.

When a couple hires me to assist in their journey into parenthood one of my tasks is to understand the mother’s goals for her baby’s birth.  Wanting a healthy baby is a given, but what else does she desire?  To avoid a c-section, have a VBAC, make her own decisions regarding her care, forgo pain medication?

Please trust that if I’ve been hired by a couple, and particularly if I’ve had 30 weeks to understand the mother’s desires for her baby’s birth, any actions I take during her labor are only to move her in the direction of her goals.  (Please trust, too, that her partner is doing the same.)

So when the mother inquires about pain medication and I interject assurances that she is doing well and can give birth without it, know that I am acting in accordance with her wishes, that she has expressed time and again she does not want pain medication–even when laboring under pitocin and especially when laboring with such composure that I, her husband, and her OB maintain complete faith in her strength and ability to carry on.  I am not bullying her, nor do I have an agenda for every mother to birth without an epidural.

In working with a mother I look toward the future.  Will the mother today regret her decision to deviate from her birth plan?  Doubtful.  But will she in six months or a year look back and regret not sticking to her guns?  It’s a strong possibility.  And will her husband have to face her wrath for not encouraging her to go farther, for not discouraging her more from using pain medication–even though in the moment he did everything just right?  That’s also a strong possibility.

I know you must respect your patient’s wishes, but please recognize that I know her better than you do (and her partner better than I), and I am also respecting her wishes.

I am very conscientious of the way I present myself to both the couple and the hospital staff.  I am confident I have not betrayed the mother’s trust in me.  However, I fear the assumptions you may make about doulas due to your perception of me and one particular situation.

I ask you to acknowledge that childbirth is not, and should not be, a cookie cutter event.  Each mother’s situation is unique.  What may be one mother’s biggest nightmare may be another’s greatest dream.

I also ask that you have faith in me, the lowly doula, as I have faith in you.

When we look back on “the Texas years” we will recognize that our experiences were vastly different.  He worked full-time; I stayed home.  He spent his days in a small town and in the forests; I spent mine in suburbia.  He was accompanied by people with limited geographic experience and paychecks larger than his; I surrounded myself with those who’d explored other territories and earned paychecks significantly larger than his.

Before the Texas years, during our time in Missoula, our life experiences were roughly equivalent.  Employment in the outdoors, regular social gatherings at the house we shared, and mutual friends.  I understood what went on in his life, and he in mine.

Today was his final day of work.  Nearly three years have passed since we arrived in New Waverly, TX on a Sunday evening and drove to the ranger station he would begin at the next day.  Our hopes were high, yet our instincts reined us in.  We couldn’t have predicted how our lives would diverge, but we knew they would be forever changed.

We were a team when we got here, and a team we remain still.

But I dream of overlap–the laying of our lives upon one another as they once did–before the Texas years.

I spent an hour scrubbing kitchen counters, cabinets, and appliances, readying our house to sell.

My mind freed by the quiet, monotonous work I considered our fight this evening and what it means for our family.  When we move I will give up the sporadic work of a doula for something I’m less passionate about.  I hope it will not be employment at a gas station, but if that is what makes my heart whole and our family healthy then that is what I will do.

My time at home with my kids is coming to an end.  Not because they’re all grown up, but because I cannot do it anymore.  I’ve been suffocating for so long I’ve become toxic to my family.  Besides, my kids deserve to see their mother soar.

Nature Conservancy land. Five minutes from our new home.

As I wiped down the toaster, the handles of the refrigerator door, the corner of the counter on which recipes are tossed, I thought too of the friend I most likely lost last week.  A neighbor, the person I relied on to care for my kids during my first birth as a doula, during a training I attended, during that one morning when it was far healthier for them to be with her than with me.

I found out she was pregnant with her third child on the same day she did.  Some weeks later, knowing I would move before she found out the baby’s sex, I gave her some information on circumcision–just in case.  Just in case it is a boy.  Just in case she wants to know the truth.  Just in case she wants to make a different decision than she did for her oldest child.

In time perhaps we could repair and move forward, but I have only a month left and I know the fierce grip the beast that is circumcision has on so many.  I am sad our friendship is strained and concerned about her future sons.  However, I rest assured I did the right thing.  I was true to myself, the facts, and the wellbeing of another.  I acted on the right side of history.

Still, my heart weighs heavy.

Lake Tahoe from the Nevada side

We spent four days away from the home in which our son was born searching for a new one in which to create sacred memories.  It was our first trip together without kids since having them.  I slept, thought uninterrupted thoughts, and went to five different bars.  Perhaps there was even “wild monkey sex,” as per a friend’s suggestion.

We found a house to rent for the next 10 months.  Another stop in a life that crisscrosses the country.

“Home is where the heart is

Ain’t that what they always say?

My heart lies in broken pieces

Scattered along the way”

-Steve Earle

I don’t know what we’ll find as our lives take root there.  Beautiful scenery, hiking, camping, and skiing, for sure.  But what kind of work will I find?  Will I be able to save the world based out of a 1970′s rental in a small town?  Could this be our forever home–the place in which all the scattered pieces of my heart are reunited and I am content at long last?

It is a daily challenge for me to separate my feelings towards motherhood from those of stay-at-home motherhood.  I’ve always despised being a stay-at-home mom and felt stuck in my role as such.  So often my discontentment with stay-at-home motherhood mixes with my feelings towards motherhood as a whole, and I begin to believe I also hate being a mom.  I think to myself (and have many times said out loud) that my life was much better before I had kids, and while I don’t regret having them, there are often times when, knowing what I know now, I think I might have made a different choice.

I spoke to a friend a few days ago who is the mother of a three-year-old and two-month-old, a college professor, a resident in a town I love, and part of a close group of friends.  I jokingly told her I hated people like her–women who are content and fulfilled and who could happily envision their lives with yet another child.

I count down the years until my son starts kindergarten and wonder how in the hell I can make it until the fall of 2017.  Twenty seventeen.  And once it arrives, what then?  What will become of me?

I need a life plan.  I’ve needed one for years, but it is easier said than done.  I created a weekly schedule of what I’d want to be doing if I didn’t have kids (not because I want to get rid of them, but so I could see past them)–doula work, time to write/blog, Friday evenings with friends, Saturdays in the outdoors.  Simple, but unrealistic.  “I’d have to make more money for you to do that,” my husband said.  (If I hadn’t sworn off blogging with emoticons I’d insert a big ol’ frowny face here.)

I don’t remember what life was like not being tired, bored, frustrated.  Feeling like I’m suffocating.  Feeling like every day is a struggle to keep my head above water.

We are moving to a new state in May.  I have no doubt my soul will be more free there than it is here.  We will exchange the big city, the suburbs, and the traffic for the high desert, views of the mountains, and endless opportunities to engage in the outdoor activities–hiking, camping, canoeing, backpacking–I once loved.  Tension leaves my shoulders and my breaths deepen just envisioning it.

However, little voices ground me in reality again.  I will still be isolated and alone, unfulfilled and struggling to get through another day and then another year, biding my time until my real life resumes.

I am fortunate to have in my Texas life a friend who will read these words and understand them fully.  I share my thoughts here because if there are two of us in this boat, then there are probably three, or four, or 164.  This is for you.  May we all get our shit together–and until then, enjoy the company of the remarkable women seated bow to stern.

Good grief, it’s been awhile, and not for lack of want.  During the first two years of this blog I generally wrote during Maisie’s afternoon nap.  After Elias was born, and while Maisie still took naps, theirs rarely coincided.  Now, I have about four hours a week to myself–on Thursday and Friday afternoons while Maisie is at school and Elias is sleeping–and I’m usually too burnt out to create a coherent sentence.

I have several half-finished posts–meaningful thoughts I’ll never complete–sitting in my WordPress account.  This is not one of those posts, however.  This is a “Dear Diary” moment.

Dear Diary,

We are moving to Nevada!  Can you believe it?  I’ve survived almost three years in a place I first hated, then learned to tolerate.  I’m excited to start a new life, but just thinking of the challenge of doing so makes me tired.  It was once so simple to pack up and start again.  Not now.  Certainly not now.

Aaron will be moving mid-April, and I will be here alone with the kids for another month after that.  I have a doula client’s birth to attend and teaching obligations at the school, which I’ll cut out early on.  I wish we could finish the school year, but four weeks alone with the kids is intimidating enough.

Elias is 18 months old and nursing once or twice a day.  Unfortunately, my milk dried up a month ago, so it’s only for comfort now.  People often say children should no longer be allowed to breastfeed when they can “ask for it” (although a newborn can “ask for it” in his or her own way), but there is something so endearing about my boy asking to “nuh nuh” and more recently, “nuhse”–words he had not spoken until after I’d stopped making milk.  If I had weaned him then, I’d have never received the gift of him asking with words, and I wouldn’t have understood just how much of the nursing relationship is about closeness and comfort instead of milk.

I’ve attended three births now as a doula.  I’m eager for the day I’m busier, but I’m also in awe of the fact that people hire me–me–to walk alongside them during the birth of their child.  And honestly, there aren’t many things in my life I’ve been really good at, but doula-ing is one of them.

I’m now a Lactation Educator Counselor.  (Well, the final grades haven’t been posted, but I’m pretty sure I passed.)  I took the course to supplement my doula work, but now I think I’d like to teach breastfeeding classes as well.

I’m also going through bereavement doula training, so I’ll be prepared if the worst should happen.

I don’t know, Diary, I’d like to write something useful, but I don’t have time or inspiration.

What I do have is a truck load of “doulas” and “buts” in this post.  Oh well.

Ashley

I wish I could tell my new-mom-just-want-the-baby-to-take-one-nap-not-on-her self that yes, one day your little girl will lie down on the sofa all by herself and fall asleep. . . and your heart will flash red hot with yearning for her newness to sink between the crooks of your elbows as you admire the eyelashes gifted to her by her father, listen to her soft breath, trace the outline of her bowed mouth with your fingertip.