Life On Call

One of the biggest adjustments to life as a Birth worker has been life on call. I feel like our family has finally settled into our groove of things but it has undeniably been an adjustment for our friends and extended family too. 

A little bit of what my life looks like as a birth worker over the last 6 months 

(I'm sure there will be more fun tales in the future)...

Getting your doula clothes gathered and laid out because it's beginning to storm (storms really do bring babies!)

Answering text messages and calls at all hours of the day and night.

Keeping a well stocked snack stash in your doula bag, and car, and purse because you've skipped a meal (or three) while with clients.

Driving around with your doula bag and on call bag of clothes every place you go, just in case!

Asking for the check and a box at dinner as you're placing your order, because you know the odds of making it through the meal aren't great.

Taking two cars to church, or to my Dad's or to the store because your client is "warming up". 

Having friends and your sister-in-love "on call" to host a birthday party because your client is past her "guess date". 

Going to so many births back to back that you remember what you did on Monday but now it's Friday and you're just not sure what happened to the rest of the week. Honestly you're impressed when you know the day of the week! 

Waking every 30 minutes for an entire night because you know your client is in labor and it's just a matter of time until you get the call to come.

Being half way home from the grocery store with 2 asleep kids and a trunk full of frozen food when you get called in. 

Perfecting sleeping sitting up and feeling re-energized and ready to concur the world after a quick trip to the bathroom and washing your face after 15 hours of giving every ounce of yourself. 

It's saying "I know" and "you can do it" when it is the absolute truth but doesn't help the exhausted laboring woman. 

There isn't a single thing about this job that is 9-5, unless you count trying to jam all the back office work into typical office hours while being the best work-at-home mom I can be. 

Being a birth worker is more than a job, it's a lifestyle. 

It is exhilarating, exhausting, beautiful, unpredictable, hard, and bittersweet.