Welcome to My Blog!!

"So what do you do?" "I'm a Doula." "(pause) What's that?"

This is the usual response I get from people when I'm asked about my work. Every hundred or so people I get the "Oh really? That's great", and I nearly fall over in surprise that they know what it is!

Doula's are still a fairly new breed within Australia, and even newer in SA, so it's a bit of an uphill battle to educate people about who we are and what we do, particularly as the period of time that someone needs us is relatively short, but we're getting there.

I absolutely love my job. Supporting women and their husbands or partners during the most significant time of their lives is an incredible privilege, one I do not take lightly. I have toyed with the idea of midwifery, but for me, I am far more interested in supporting a woman to have the most magnificent birth experience she can have, than in worrying about the clinical side of things. I want to be there to support women and their families on an emotional, mental and spiritual level, to "hold the space", as I watch a woman transform into a mother. What can be more beautiful than that!

I hope you enjoy my blog. There will be plenty of joy, some helpful tips for those on the journey toward parenthood, and lots of things that inspire me as a woman, wife, mother, Doula and friend! Welcome!!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

The Shape of a Mother

I was doing some study for my Childbirth Education course, and came across this amazing site!(see links) Photo's and posts of real mothers and their real bodies, celebrating our similarities and diversity. Very few of us have a "perfect" body before birth, let along after, but yet we punish ourselves for being normal women with normal bodies, why is that? And who decided what was perfect anyway?

All of us are beautiful, a mothers body even more so in my opinion. We have carried, protected, birthed and nourished our babies with our bodies, that should be celebrated!! I remember looking in the bathroom mirror about 5 days after birthing my first baby, everything was so different! I prodded at my still very soft belly (cloud belly my husband called it - he thought it was great!) remembering the pre-baby bod and despairing of ever seeing it again, when I had an incredible revelation of just how incredible my body was. I had made a baby, birthed it and was feeding my precious baby with my very own body, I was Wonder Woman!! My stretch marks are my badge of honour, I am a Mum, and I am proud of myself!! I will never have the same body I did as a 22 year-old, but what I have now is better. I am strong, healthy and more confident than that 22 year-old. And if anyone doesn't like it I don't care - I make my own people now!!!

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