What I Wish I Could've Told Her

A year or so after becoming a doula I was struck by a brief scene that has stuck with me ever since. It's one of those moments where you wish you were bolder, or that circumstances had shifted to the extent you could be a different person to someone. If only I'd had childcare that day I could've... or maybe if I'd just stopped her right quick I could've... It's one of those moments. I leave it here in expiation to the should've-could've-would've realm of my heart that it may be appeased.

I was standing in line at the Department of Family and Children Services office holding my first born to check the status of my various public assistance cases (yes, I've been there), when a paramedics team and a dozen onlookers zoomed by behind a screaming teen on a gurney. Murmurs and questions echoed up and down the huge line: "What happened to her?", "Is she ok?", "Sounds like she's dying!" I was close to the front of the line, a position I'd invested half an hour's wait for, so I resisted the urge to join the growing crowd of onlookers in the young woman's wake.

Once I'd asked my questions, I flew through the front doors to see if the ambulance was still outside. The sound the she'd made was so raw, so utterly saturated in fear, I couldn't wave my concern. As I walked toward the ambulance, it's doors splayed open in an affront to the girl's privacy, I understood why the sounds she had made were so alarmingly familiar to me. The young woman was in labor. The young mom was curled around her enormous belly, teary eyed and voice hoarse as she called out at the rise of another strong contraction. I was frozen about 15 feet from the ambulance, holding my squirming baby and utterly conflicted. How could I help her?

What could I do to reduce her fear - which my training and experience told me would quickly reduce her pain?

I wanted to jump into the ambulance with her to hold her hand like a sister. I believe that without words, from eye contact alone I could share trust and calm. At that point in my doula journey, trust in birth oozed prom my pores.

I wanted to stand by the door and tell her between contractions to put her tongue behind her top front teeth to relax her jaw and watch the rest of her body follow.

Maybe I would quickly let her know that the lower her vocal register, the more her body would release and open. I could vocalize with her that deep resonant opened mouth hum that carried me so successfully through my own birth.

I wanted to touch her calf at least, suggesting she save her energy by letting her shoulders go between contractions... And to release the memory of the pain of the last before the next one came.

I would've even sang to her to distract her, maybe make her laugh.

But I didn't.

I let the paramedics close the door on the young mom with her eyes clenched shut and blood curdling shrieks still escaping her throat.

A wave of remorse washed over me as they drove away with her, likely toward a painful and repressive birth experience. When I think of her almost a decade later, I find myself still swimming in that same wave of guilt. A serene companion and detailed information of the efficiency of her birthing body well before labor is all she needed to have a beautiful experience.

Now, as an older doula intent on changing birth culture by any means necessary, it is very important to me that we as community reach out to young moms before they are in a position of fear and uncertainty about their birth. I certainly know enough now to fight doubt and follow that first impulse to find myself in the back of the ambulance with any mother in need.

Much Love Always!

Zuri Sabir CD-B/P

#Teenmothers #doula #ambulance #birtheducation #hospitalbirth #birthplan