Be the brand

I am struggling with text and how to present myself. I have a web site www.doulasophie.nl and business cards, which I love, but trying to make a flyer in dutch and one for expats in English is killing me.
I have come to the conclusion that I have spent too much time on it now, trying to perfect it. I don't know how I want it or what I want to say any more. Over kill!!
Had a great conversation about it with Rogier, my husband, at the weekend. Having your own business is always challenging especially when you are it, a one man show. You have to be it all, do it all.
Be the brand! That's our new motto and I like it. We came to the conclusion that people need to meet us through our social media not just hear/read about what we do. It sure is an art in itself. So that is the challenge.... be the brand.

Lucas

On 1st of December, 11.09 Lucas was born. After a few weeks of pre-labour and a long and tiring birth he was born by ceaserian section. His parents were brave throughout the birth and their emotional journey was quite an introduction to motherhood. Susan said to me that she was giving me all the experience she could for my first official doula birth. She was right. 36 hours of labour that didn't progress, an epidural and a c-section.
Lucas was so worth it and we were all pleased to meet him. He weighed 4200g and had a beautiful head of hair. Welcome little guy!

Birth is not only about making babies but about making mothers; strong, competent and capable mothers who trust themselves and believe in their inner strength.

—Barbara Katz Rothman

On call

Told the boys tonight that I am on call for my first doula job and what that entails. Joel is going to practise waking with his own alarm so he doesn't have to rely on the Mum alarm to wake him. "Many births start in the night" I told him, "that means I won't be here when you wake up." First practise run.... we'll see how that goes in the morning.
All three of the boys are pretty self sufficient when it comes to getting themselves to school. Getting their own breakfast and making their sandwiches for lunch.
Rogier is in America right now and will be in Spain next week so it may mean that they will be on their own if the birth starts early. The expecting mum is hoping for as soon as possible, of course, and giving birth 6 days early runs in her family,
We'll see about that....I remember hoping the babies would come early and there was no such luck for me as I ended up carrying 41/42 weeks with all three pregnancies.
So, now I am officially "on call." This is exciting!!

Journeying together.

"You can't have a child without going on a journey, whatever that journey will be. A woman has to get to know her body, get to know her baby, start to understand her fears, and experience how her hormones change and how what she learns from the people she speaks with along the way affect her ideas about the birth. What she decides at week ten might be the opposite of what she's confident of at week thirty-five. This is a process that puts the woman at the center, and we go on the journey with her. But we don't lead. She does."

Jennifer Walker (Doula)

A servant attitude..and 2 doula days.

‎"A servant heart doesn't think less of himself, he thinks less about himself"

"Een dienend mens denkt niet minder over zichzelf, hij denkt minder aan zichzelf."

Doula means servant in Greek. The word servant often has a negative feel to it.... being a doula's is really serving and supporting the labouring woman.
I like the quote above as it paints a different and positive picture of a servant role. Having a servant heart is an attitude, is one who puts himself to one side for another and if its done out of a healthy self image does not do it because he thinks less of himself but for the good of the other.

-

This weekend we had two more days filled with learning about communication. Challenging in many ways as I am not the worlds best communicator but it was good to practice in a number of role play cases during which I found that I wasn't as bad as I thought.
We were challenged to look at how our judgments of people could stand in the way of our serving them as doulas.... for instance how do you deal with a woman that smokes and is unwilling to give it up during the pregnancy even though its damaging to her child? Some in the group were not willing to work with such a woman and others felt that was a step too far and wanted to support her regardless. I am very anti smoking but found that I did not have the heart to leave such a woman to her own devices, she still has to give birth and parent that child. Supporting her through the birth was more important to me than her giving up smoking.

I travel to and from the course with Farola, a gal from Rotterdam also on the course. I enjoy her company and the feeling of partnership that we are going to get this doula thing going in Rotterdam. Its also always great to de-brief the day together as we train home. Another two weeks til our next 2 day session. Can't come quick enough :-)

Passing the test

The midwifery test. After a week of waiting the grades were finally mailed. And I passed with a 6.... dutch friends will know that it is just enough to pass...for my American and English friends...its probably a C. It was lower than I had hoped but sufficient. I guess I am still the average student I always was at school!!! Funny really.

This does not mean I became a midwife in a month...but as a doula its important to know the essence of midwifery.

I love this older picture of a dutch midwife with her bike. I hope to do many local births and travel to them on my bike. My first scheduled birth is at the end of November and is close enough to bike to!!

Exam done and Ina May.

So the exam is behind us and ended up not being so difficult. We will hear the result later in the week. Afterward we all went out for a drink to celebrate and to relieve our pent up stress by chatting our thoughts away. It was fun to get to know some of the participants a little better. I look forward to more interaction during the rest of the course.

Quote of the day:
Ina May Gaskin "A women who is grateful is protected from fear"

On Saturday I went to an afternoon with Ina May Gaskin which was organized by a midwifery centre in Amsterdam. Ina May is a leading authority on midwifery in the US and is famous for her work on "the farm" a village that was started by a group of hippies in the 60's. She is also known and respected because her death rates and the need for interventions during birth are so low.
It was fascinating to hear a bit of the history of how midwifery was taken over and made totally non-existent (went underground) in the 70's and how white male obstetricians took over and hence birth was taken out of the home and the woman's domain into the hospital a man's domain.

She talks about the fact that we as humans think we know better than nature. Nature doesn't mess up, nature, and I would add God, made our bodies to give birth so amazingly. We have taken our 'superior' knowledge and thought that it was better than natures way.
She uses the animal kingdom as an example of how nature knows how to give birth. Animals often do it alone and know how to as they instinctively follow their bodies impulses. We prefer to watch the clock and monitor the centimeters instead of 'feel' our bodies. She talks about how we women have somehow become disconnected from our bodies, are ashamed of our bodies and are fearful of birth and therefore think we should somehow bypass our bodies in childbirth by medicating or operating. Thats definitly the case in the US and till now Holland has always had a philosophy of seeing pain as a positive thing in childbirth but is quickly following suit with epidurals becoming more and more popular.
I might add that she is not anti medicine, is just aware of how we have taken it to the extreme and in so doing by-passed nature's way and become out of touch with how it was intended to be.

There was so much more that was talked about but my mind is still whirring with all I heard.
I am slowly realizing that there is so much more to this birthing thing than I knew. Its fascinating, inspiring and challenging.