doula

A few weeks ago, my mentor lost her mother-in-law. While she was out of town, I attended a birth in her place.

The lovely couple I had the privilege to serve were from another country. They spoke beautiful-lilting-better-grammar-than-I-do-in-my-mother-tongue, and lyrical sounding Spanish.

Calm and beautiful people who were “ready-to-have-this-baby”.

Early in the evening, one said to the other, “Don’t complain.”

Wait. What?

1) I didn’t hear any complaint.

2) The hearer didn’t get his/her back up in offense.

In that moment, I learned a lesson I didn’t think I’d forget, but before long, the other spouse said it to the one who’d said it the first time,

“Don’t complain.”

It had become profound to me. I didn’t recognize the complaint the second time either, but the partner did. At this point, though we’d known each other 2 or 3 hours, I knew I had learned a life lesson.

But it wasn’t until this week, that I put it all together.

At our post-partum visit, he said it to her again, quipping, “Don’t complain; don’t complain. {laughs} Be more like me.” It was light hearted humor and she received the message with grace.

I hadn’t heard a complaint this time either, but suddenly I realized…

She had on of the shortest delivery times of anyone I had ever seen. (I met her in the lobby at the hospital .7 mi. from my house at 7:00p.m. and was in my bed going to sleep before midnight).

She was happy with her spouse, her baby, her life.

She had prepared herself for birth with information, nutrition, exercise and emotional support of friends and family.

She is a person, described by my mentor,”who tries to be calm and surround herself with calmness”.

Don’t complain.

There is no chance I will ever forget.

Argh…Is That How You Spell It?

…Life has become…how shall I say? Hmm. Let’s let pain in the neck suffice for now.

First of all. Twitter. I get what is going on over there, but what is it really? And, oh, I don’t have the cellular phone for it. Anyway.

Second, How come I hear that the economy is bad and money is hard to come by. But when money is hard to come by for us, we get treated like we are up by the pool eating exotic fruit and having my nails done by someone else. Like we really have it, but we are just investing it in some other more entertaining endeavor. I think I need to contribute to the household income, but a doula job puts me out of commission for a couple of days afterward. I have tried reducing expenses, but I am alone in that.

And another thing. I already went through Middle School, and I don’t want to go back. I don’t think it’s a good idea for parents to get too involved in their kids everyday friendships. It’s just weird. But so help me God. I am sick to death of these kids my girls want to hang out with. They look like the “in crowd”. But for my life, I can’t communicate to my girls that these kids are not worth their time.

Fourth and by no means less important, I am a W*ight W*tchers lifetime member. I know how to track (hate it so much; I don’t eat so I won’t have to write it down). I know about emotional triggers and not setting myself up by having the wrong foods around the house. I AM HUNGRY ALL THE TIME. Like I have a tape worm.

Finally, maybe. It looks like their is some crazy stuff going on in the news today. But I don’t have time to sit down and find out what is going on. Is there any of this I need to know? Maybe if I had a better phone I could get on Twitter.