doulas

Speaking of labor and birth, when I was in massage school, one of the possible career paths I pondered was becoming a doula. If you don't know what that is (and even if you do!), a doula is a person a pregnant woman hires to support her, physically and emotionally, in preparing for birth and then during labor. (There are also postpartum doulas who help the new mom in the weeks after birth.) Not all doulas are massage therapists, but if *I* were hiring one, I personally would want the one who could give me prenatal massage and help my back pain during labor.

I would be so good at this. Think about it, those of you who know me and know what my energy is (when I'm not bitching about something on here). Am I not totally the kind of person you would want talking to you and touching you while you attempt to get an eight pound baby out your vagina?

But I really decided against this because of the big downside. You have to be on call 24/7 so that when one of your clients goes into labor, you are there. There's no going away for a weekend if you have a client anywhere near her due date. And if you don't have any clients near their due dates, where's your income coming from, huh? It'd be a fun and rewarding career path, I think, but that's a tough way to live. I dunno. Maybe ten years from now when I'm in another place in my life.

Of course, there's the other downside too. When I think about my (highly prejudicial, I'm sure) impression of the kind of woman who would hire a birth doula, I think of someone who's upper middle class and entitled, yet thinks of herself as somewhat crunchy and New Age. Probably lives in Cambridge, or possibly Marblehead. Maybe Newton. Drives her big ass SUV to Whole Foods to buy organic vegetables on her way to bikram yoga, talking on her cell phone all the way as she cuts people off. You know, not the kind of person I would actually like. So that's a stumbling block, too, haha.

You know what I'd like to do in the best of all possible worlds, like if I won the lottery or something? (Yes, I know, big talk about something that'll never happen.) I'd be a volunteer labor doula for poor young women whose babies' fathers may or may not be involved and who don't have much family support. In theory, that sounds very rewarding. In practice, I'd probably hate them all too.

Oh, just kidding. I think.

Maybe I wouldn't be so super awesome at this after all!

xoxo