My friend Vicki called me on Saturday, March 8th asking if we wanted to bid on doula services in her daughter’s preschool’s silent auction. Another parent, a CPMC Labor and Delivery nurse, was offering “$1000″ worth of these services and Vicki thought we would like her.
Jenn and I had discussed using a doula in the past but decided that our 2 evening intensive birthing workshops were more than enough to get us through. We had seen videos! We made moaning sounds together! What could a doula tell us that we didn’t already know? Of course, I secretly wondered how much of the 6 hours worth of training I would actually remember when push came to scream, but I still put on a face of total confidence!
On the other hand, I knew that someday I would also be calling on my friends to purchase things in the name of my daughter’s education. I also suspected that, if those delivery videos in class were any indication, I would need all the help I could get. I gave Vicki the green light. A few hours later, after what I imagine to be an intense bidding war with someone that thought a doula was a wine bottle twice as big as a magnum, we owed $300 for Lauren, our shiny new doula.
The following Monday, Jenn visited the chiropractor who noted an elevated blood pressure and suggested she visit her doctor. At the doctor’s office, they noted an even higher reading and suggested she stay on a monitor for a few hours to better understand the situation. Her blood pressure came back down and they sent us home with instructions to stay on bedrest until we could see Jenn’s doctor.
I have to say, that we were not overly concerned but we were looking forward to meeting our doula, even more. To us, this all seemed like a matter of course. “Preeclampsia” was a mysterious word, “hypertension” was more familiar but we were still not sure what it would mean to us. A knowledgeable nurse might be just what the…um…doctor ordered (sorry).
Lauren (aka Lo, Loey or LoLo) came by on her way to the hospital a couple days later (March 13th, if you are following the timeline) and it was all we could do to not adopt her right on the spot. She sat with us until she was late for work, explaining what she could about pregnancy, blood pressures, etc. and making us breathe a sigh of relief that we had someone to talk to about…well…everything.
In those first couple hours we learned that Lauren is nighttime Labor and Delivery Nurse at CPMC, wife of a South African transplant (he was her college rugby coach when they met), mother of two adorable and energetic little girls, soon-to-be-certified lactation consultant, board member of the preschool (I got tired just typing all of that)…and we have since learned that she sews, drinks and swears, in her spare time. She showed up the other night at the hospital, just a few short days after Grace’s birth, with the blankets she is holding in the picture above, complete with little tags that say “Gracie”. Jenn and I harbor a secret hope that when we aren’t around her, she lounges on the couch eating bon-bons and listening to the children cry in her house filled with food scraps and raccoons…you know…just to give us a sense of balance, justice and self-worth.
That night, we also learned that she was trying out this doula thing since she already had all the knowledge and looooved to be involved with the birthin’ of babies (and she clearly needed something to do all day). So there wasn’t a set number of doula-hours that we would get or doula-dollars we could spend. She would just be there for us in whatever capacity she could. If she was working when we were delivering she would be our nurse, if she was not working, she would come to the hospital and help me say “breathe, honey” and convince Jenn that none of this really hurt at all. And this would all happen in late May or early June.
Four days later, the doctor said that he did not think this was preeclampsia but we should do the 24 urine catch. Three days after that, we were calling LoLo and racing towards the hospital. Fifteen minutes after we got to the hospital, she was there too, doing her doula thing, reassuring us that Grace was ok and helping us understand what was going on around us. She stayed with us through the ultrasounds, introduced us to the nurses, settled us into room 231 (for what would turn out to be the rest of the pregnancy), and quietly mentioned that almost all the nurses (including her) would be going on strike the following day.
There is, of course, much more to Lauren’s involvement in our story, but I wanted to introduce you to her. Now that we paid our $300, we can’t seem to shake her.
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