Births and On Call Life

I had a client due in mid-March, who was planning to birth at the local Midwifery Center where I attended my first birth. I was excited at the idea of returning, but ahh life! I recently spent a day down in Colorado Springs, and I never even made it to my official on-call day! Mama and baby are well.

“Life doesn't discriminate Between the sinners and the saints It takes and it takes and it takes And we keep living anyway We rise and we fall and we break And we make our mistakes And if there's a reason I'm still alive When so many have died Then I'm willin' to wait for it..." 💙 Lin-Manuel Miranda . . I always get physically and emotionally exhausted after a birth, it doesn’t matter how long it is, and I’m always exhilarated too! It just takes a lot out of you to invest so wholeheartedly into somebody else. Yesterday, I attended my shortest birth to date in terms of number of hours that I was in attendance, it wasn’t physically demanding, it was a really wonderful experience all around for what it was, a very big departure for mom‘s birth plan. . . I talked before about how I’m trying to find balance between the two different sides of my career, and because of that I have a lot of back ups in place to try to cover any part of life that I might have to miss to attend a birth. Yesterday was the first time that I missed one particular aspect of my life, and when I went through my checklist I missed something. Normally it wouldn’t have mattered, it was a redundancy, but yesterday that redundancy was needed and I let somebody down. It left me feeling so torn, absolutely thrilled and exhilarated with the new baby that was brought into this world, and absolutely wrecked at who I had let down. I’m feeling a bit better today. I talked it out with Trav, I know I will make the apologies that are needed, and we will get past this. I’ve just never had quite this experience with so much personal disappointment wrapped up in something that is normally so positive. It was a learning experience for sure, and life moves on. #honest

A post shared by Meegs (@tattooedmeegs) on Mar 6, 2018 at 7:24am PST

I had been on call almost continuously (other then a few days at the beginning of March) since January, mostly as a backup doula for a fellow birth worker. For most of January and February I was backing up for two clients at a time, and at one point I was backing up for three! It was a new experience for me and a little nerve-racking!

Around the holidays it always feels like things slow down a little, and like normal routines get pushed aside. January felt like everything that had been postponed, got suddenly dropped back into the schedule! I did some subbing, went on call for this backup doula work, took tons of yoga, got on top of the continuing education credits I'll need for both yoga and doula re-certifications, had all the events I already wrote about, and took a few workshops. This was on top of normal work/life.

Somehow February shaped up to be just as busy! More on call, more workshops, more classes, more birthdays. It's a little crazy lately! The days feel full, but I can't complain. I adore attending births, and I love being a doula, but the sweet relief of not being on call anymore is amazingly blissful. It takes that "birth high" and multiples it!! I'm off from doula work for the rest of the month, all of April, then am backing up for a birth in May, before being off for the rest of the summer. I'm looking forward to enjoying some travels in my time off, and yes, the occasional drink with friends!

If life were all on-call, or all scheduled, it would definitely be easier. But each doula experience teaches me something new about what I need to do to make this balance work.