Motivation
When I tell people I’m training to be a postpartum and fertility doula, their first question is: “What’s a fertility doula?” (See this page for the answer!) Their second question is typically: “What made you want to do this?”
I found out I was first pregnant with Isabella on my 30th birthday. Literally, my best friend was driving down from New Hampshire with a bunch of champagne so I figured I’d take a pregnancy test… yep. We didn’t conceive her on our own, but all it took was one round of Clomid from my OB/GYN, so we considered ourselves lucky. After an uneventful pregnancy, I started waking up in the middle of the night with extremely itchy feet around week 37. While perusing the (usually-extremely-unhelpful) message boards one night, I saw a post about a disease called cholestasis… and the symptoms of this are itchy soles of feet and palms. At my 38 week appointment, I sheepishly brought up my Internet research to my OB who suggested that we induce the next day because cholestasis can be so serious and the tests take over a week to come back, at which point it might be very dangerous for the baby. After lots of Pitocin and 30 hours of labor, I was fully dilated, but Bella wasn’t descending while I was pushing. Her heart rate was spiking and dropping, and after a failed vacuum extraction, she was born via an emergent cesarean. (By the way, it turns out I DID in fact have cholestasis, as was confirmed by blood tests weeks later. Cholestasis causes stillbirth if untreated so it is very serious. Read more about it here, and spread the word!)
Bella’s birth rocked my world. I was FULLY unprepared for a cesarean, and like many other new moms, we struggled with weight gain issues for the first month. I will never forget the teary weigh-ins at the pediatricians office, or the tiny office for outpatient lactation support at Mt. Auburn Hospital that seemed like the only place anyone GOT what I was going through. On top of that, she was not an easy baby. My husband, Tom, is an amazing partner, so thankfully I was not alone… but that fourth trimester is a doozy! Bella would basically only sleep while laying on one of us until she was 4 months old.
When I think back at this challenging time, what stands out in my head are the amazing people that supported me and taught me to be a mom: the lactation consultants (shout out to Mickey at Mt. Auburn!), the postpartum nurses, the moms I met at the postpartum support group, and my own family. When I think about a new mom WITHOUT these resources, it makes my head spin! I also have, for better or for worse, been through a LOT as a mother, and I can’t wait to share my ideas and experience with my clients. My major motivation for becoming a postpartum doula was to make myself available to be a resource to new moms who might need that extra help. I know it can make all the difference.
My journey to becoming a fertility doula was also motivated by personal experience. We decided to try to have a second baby soon after Bella’s first birthday. I unfortunately suffered two chemical pregnancies before seeing a fertility specialist, and then a miscarriage while under their care. I was feeling so many emotions: I was raising my beautiful, bright, cheerful little girl, but also going through so much pain. Although my husband was there for my every step of the way, this journey was lonely, scary, and devastatingly sad. I spent hours, sitting in bed in the dark, Googling fertility terminology, success rates, percentage chances of miscarriage at certain weeks gestation, and reading endless message board anecdotes to try to contextualize my experience. Even after my second daughter was successfully conceived through an IUI cycle, the first trimester was fraught with worry and anxiety. She was delivered via a scheduled cesarean on December 19, 2018, and I am so grateful every day that she is here.
Infertility is so isolating and terrifying, and as soon as I decided to start in the birth business, I knew I wanted to make fertility support a part of my practice. Just as with the birth of my first daughter, I felt lucky to have been surrounded by many support people, especially my therapist and again, my OB, who supported my second cholestasis pregnancy. I want to be the person that families can rely on to support them through this process so I am absorbing new information about fertility treatments like a sponge! I want to be able to present families with all of the facts that they need to feel comforted and confident in their own fertility journey, and I hope to be able to alleviate even a small amount of worry and anxiety as they go through the process. I hope my story is an inspiration.