Austin was born Friday morning at 1:27am , he weighed 5 lbs 9 oz and 19.5 inches long. Mother and baby are doing good, well as far as I know :/ Let me explain ...
Thursday afternoon I decided that I was going to text my client Kim and see how she was doing, this was at around 2:30. She said that she was at the doctors office then and that she had been in a lot of pain and thought it was contractions. I still do not understand why she did not call me at this point to let me know, this was my first possible hint into what was going to happen. So she said that they had her hooked up to the monitors and it was not showing any contractions. She then stated that if contractions felt worse then that pain then she would not be needing me because she would be getting an epidural!! I just sunk down in disbelief. I had talked to her about this before and told her that even if she got an epidural I would still be there by her side to help her with any possible side effects, so for her to say that, stumped me. So I told her to not give up yet, because she was just sitting in a hospital bed at that point and not being able to move and help relieve any of the pain. I also stated to her again that if she did get an epidural that was fine and I would help her even in that time. I told her to give me a call later when she had a chance, I wanted to talk to her and see how everything was going and help her in any way I could. So that was that and I did not hear from her the rest of the night.
Friday morning I woke and still had not heard a thing. That afternoon, still nothing, she hadn't even called me back like I had asked. I started to really worry so I texted her to see if she had any news. Her text back was "yep, things got crazy last night and he was born at 1:27 this morning". My heart dropped, I was completely heartbroken! I had missed out on the one thing I had spent so much time and energy on the last month and was looking forward to SO SO much!! How could this have happened? Why didn't she call me? Did I do something wrong? Was she just using me for info and then was planning on doing it on her own all along? I was so very upset. I texted her back and asked why she did not call me. Her response was that things went so fast that she did not have TIME to call me!! She said that when she arrived she was already 3cm and they asked her to walk around for a little bit and when she came back she was 5cm and then the next time they checked her she was fully dilated. She never told me how long the labor actually was but I still do not understand how she did not have the time to call the person that had spent so much time with her in the last month. First off, she lives 20 minutes from the hospital so right there should have given her or her husband enough time to call. Secondly, her husband or a nurse even could have called me once she was there. I just felt so used at this point, and not to forget I was doing all of this for FREE.
Sorry for all the ranting, I just have had so many mixed emotions the last couple days about all of this and I am still trying to sort it all out. But I am trying to humble myself and not think that this was done to me intentionally, it is their baby and their birth so if they decided they did not want me there that was completely up to them and I understand. I just wish they had told me that they were going to try and do it on their own. I am ecstatic though that they are both healthy because honestly I was very worried about them and it was keeping me up at nights. Please just pray for me to come to peace with this and not hold a grudge or let it affect my future clients or my future doula career. I tend to quit things easily when I get hurt but I am not quiting this time and I will keep moving forward :)
