I love my doula

I've had a hard time dealing with the fact it's not entirely feasible for me to deliver under my ideal settings (a birthing center). And that's because I live in such a backwards area. The few AP people I have found around here agree that this area is extremely ignorant of the AP lifestyle. I actually was having a conversation with someone where I mentioned co-sleeping and actually had a mother of six look at me and say, "What's that?" Even those in LLL in this area are mainstream (especially by LLL standards).


Add that to the fact homebirths are illegal, midwives who will practice homebirths are few and far between (and all far from me), my choices are limited to getting a doctor locally who is as AP-friendly as possible or a midwife center that is 1hr 30min away. I am scared of having a hospital birth. It's not what I want. But the 1hr 30 min commute (and this is under the assumption there is no traffic whatsoever. In Pittsburgh. Bwahahaha) to the midwife center scares me as well.

My doula has been a great comfort with this. She's promised to be my advocate and support during labor (and enabling and encouraging Husband to stand up when he needs to) to give me the labor that is closest to my desired labor as is possible in a hospital setting. She's even willing to go to any prenatal visits if Husband can't attend due to work (which is very possible in the end when visits are weekly).

If I needed another reason to absolutely adore her, I found out this week she makes slings. As soon as I saw her with the one she was giving to a mother in our church, she said, "Don't worry, I'm already planning to make one for you."

I *heart* my doula