Rerun: What Do I Do Before Heading To A Birth?
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Transcript
Welcome back. This is another one of our rerun episodes that we're doing over the summer. If you are new here we are focusing on the most popular, most helpful, most listened to episodes over the summer.
My rhythm of life is that I try to take most of July and a little bit of August or some of August off and so this summer I'm doing that by doing some rerun episodes that have been popular throughout the 200 plus episodes that we have had on this show so far.
So today's is what do I do before heading into a birth. So this is talking about rituals that I do all the way from when I get called to when I arrive. Spoiler alert, one of my biggest recommendations is always use the bathroom before you join your client so you're not arriving and then immediately leaving again.
So stay tuned for the rest of the episode. If you are not already on our newsletter list please do join that list. That is where you hear about all of our upcoming classes and we have some awesome stuff brewing for the fall.
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We don't spam you with stuff. We send you good solid evidence -based information and help you honestly be a doula even easier. So stay tuned for the episode and I'll see you in the next one. Welcome to doula tips and tips.
This podcast is a place where we answer one question about doula work both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaylee Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born 12 nearly 13 years ago.
I am a birth and postpartum doula, childbirth educator, la leche league leader, and a doula coach. I love guiding and supporting doulas as they work out their doula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way.
Thank you for joining us on this journey. Today we're diving into the question what do you do to prepare yourself before you go to a birth. So this is I'm going to answer this from my perspective of course and to share with you kind of the process that I have gotten to in terms of preparation and how I sort of set myself up.
Knowing that there is no perfect way to do this because you know babies have their own timeline etc and don't always warn us when they're going to do things. So I want to start by just sharing a funny story with you.
So I had a client early on I think it was baby number five and she went into labor and my husband was out of town and so my husband was gone. I had a dear friend who was going to stay over because I was like there's a real high chance this client could go into labor and I need someone here with the kids if that happens and so thankfully I had that friend who could stay and she did in fact go into labor that night and so that friend was there until my husband came back the next day.
So that was amazing but she went into labor I want to say around like maybe 10 p .m something like that or maybe even earlier than that and I was so excited slash anxious slash like amped up with adrenaline that I could not nap and so I like could not sleep like I really couldn't sleep and I would try to sleep and then I would stop trying to sleep and my friend my dear friend Jordan she was just like chill the heck out man like she's like what is happening so I like made some cinnamon rolls like just stayed up all night waiting for her to need me and then she did need me I want to say I don't remember exactly how long it was I want to say it was around like 1 a .m or so that she needed me and so we all went to the hospital things seemed to be going relatively quickly but then like slowed down some and we had to do some baby positioning stuff and all these different layers and so I ended up being with them for like 16 hours.
But I hadn't really eaten before I went, and then I didn't really eat while I was there, which is a whole other episode of like, eat food while you're at a birth, please for the love of all good things.
But I had made these cinnamon rolls. My plan was I was going to eat a cinnamon roll on the way in, which is not a great sustaining sort of pre -birth meal. Um, and I had apparently put like, way too much baking powder in them, but I did not know that until I was like, in the lift, going to the hospital.
And then I'm like, oh, these are disgusting. So then I'm texting Jordan saying like, okay, don't feed those cinnamon rolls to the children because they're disgusting. I don't know what I did, but I put too much of something in them and they taste really bad.
And so I had like a banana, like that was my food that I had. And I was with them for 16 hours, so I was there for quite a while. By the time I was done, I was so hungry and so tired and was just like, I need a better system.
Like, this is not going to work like this. Right? So, um, one of the things over the years that I have really worked hard at is one, normalizing the fact that birth can take a while because early on it was really easy for me to be like, oh my gosh, someone's in labor.
I have to be ready to leave like any second. And that's actually fairly rare. Like it's pretty rare that someone will go into labor and then need you like instantly. Right? It's really typically like a number of hours later.
And that doesn't mean that it's not hard to gauge like how much of today should you reschedule and how ready do you need to be and all of that. I do usually do some preliminary kind of packing my things up and whatnot.
I always shower if I think someone is in labor or going to be in labor soon, like I do not ever go to bed thinking, oh, I need to shower in the morning. Absolutely not because I can't deal with that.
I'm not going to go to a birth stinky. Right. And so, um, I shower any night that I go to sleep thinking maybe someone's in labor or maybe someone's going to go into labor. Um, so some of those kind of logistical things that just make me feel better about being ready.
I do. But I have gotten the space to sort of give myself time to get myself ready to be the support that I need to be there. And that was really hard at first because at first I was like, I should just get to them as absolutely fast as I can.
And the reality is I have always set them up with the expectation that when they're ready for me, I am coming out of maybe sleeping or whatever and I'm going to need to get my self ready and then come to them.
And so I don't ever set the expectation that like you're 20 minutes from me and it's going to take me 20 minutes to get there from the time you call me. Right. Like obviously, excuse me, obviously if a birth is going like crazy fast, then I rush as fast as I can to get there clearly.
But in most cases, I'm not joining someone when like we think the baby is imminently coming. Right. It's like active labor like midway through, you know, so I'm joining and I'm joining fast. But also like if I need to brush my teeth or eat a meal or something like that, I'm going to do that.
Now I do have some fast ish things that I do. So one of the things I've started doing is having like the like egg bake kind of things in the freezer or having like a I really like breakfast food and I really like breakfast food before I go to a birth.
And it feels kind of like I just woke up really early and ate breakfast at 3am if that's the case. So I like to have some things where I can like make some toast and some egg bites or whatever and make some coffee or tea and fill up my water bottle and then maybe eat that in the car on the way there or whatever, you know.
One big thing that I know sounds so silly, maybe might sound so silly is that every time I get to a birthing location, I go to the bathroom like first thing when I get there because what I don't want to do is walk into my client's room and then need to go to the bathroom like 20 minutes later because usually I drink water or coffee or something on the way there.
and then be like, oh, I know I just got here, but I'm gonna need to just run to the bathroom, right? So if I'm going to a hospital, I literally check in with the front desk, go to the bathroom before I go to labor and delivery.
And then I go to labor and delivery, I check in there, and then I go to my client. If I'm at like a birth center, I go to the bathroom. I go to the bathroom first, unless a baby is coming so stinking fast that I know I have to just run to where they are, right?
That's a different scenario. But when I have the ability to do that, that is one time that I'm like, I'm gonna just stop quickly at the bathroom, it's gonna take me two minutes, right, at the most. And that's better than having to leave later on when you've only been there for a short time, at least in my mind.
And so that's some of what I do. So the other thing that I really make sure to do is have a few things ready for myself. So I have a watch that I wear that I make sure it's charged. I have a silicone wedding ring that I wear that I make sure I have handy.
I have headphones that I take, and I have supplements. And I'm on a couple of medications and supplements, and I'm actually gonna dive into that a little bit in another episode, but I have a pill organizer thing, which one dear friend says, well, her husband says, it means we're getting old that we have pill organizers, which might be true, but maybe not.
Also, I feel like 37 is not that old. But it's individual days. So there are these little cubes that are each day that go into the bigger organizer. So I can literally grab the Tuesday Cube and throw it in my birth bag and take it with me.
That helps tremendously because then I can take medication that I need, et cetera. I can just have it with me in my bag, and I don't have to have separate medication packed in my bag. I just grab whatever day it is, or it's about to be, or whatever, and have that in my bag ready to go.
So that's another thing I do for myself. I also make sure that I always have a full water bottle. So this is another thing I do before I join my client if I have not done it at home. I fill up my water bottle in labor and delivery.
Also, if I'm bringing food that's gonna go in the labor and delivery fridge or something like that, or the birth center fridge, I go and do all of that right when I get there. I walk in, I fill up my water bottle, I put my stuff in the fridge, I go to the bathroom if I haven't done that yet, and then I go to my client.
Because then I can stay with my client, which is my hope. They are probably not gonna notice that it took me three more minutes to get there, like one more contraction, but they will notice if I come and then I leave and then I come back, right?
And so it's so much better for me to just go, at least for me, in my mind, right? In how I process through things, I find it so much more comforting to know that I've already dealt with the logistical things that I needed to do before I joined them, and I can kind of be fully present with them, okay?
So that's kind of what my pre -birth routine looks like. I am gonna do the next episode on what I do when I leave a birth so that you have that information as well, because I have also gotten really specific and strategic about that.
And so I would love to hear from you if you already have a pre -birth routine, what kind of things you add in, that would be an awesome, we all have different processes, right? And so it's always a wealth of knowledge, I feel like, to gain each other's perspectives and ways that we process and help our bodies get ready for this work.
And so head on over to Instagram and comment on the post about this episode or send me a quick DM, and let me know what are some of the things you do that you have found really helpful for getting ready to attend a birth, okay?
I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Dula Tips and Tits podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at hiradula so we can celebrate alongside you.
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Rituals matter in this work. It matters for you to have some set ways to start and end your day with a client. It matters how you set yourself up for joining a client. This episode goes into what I do before heading to a birth to give you some ideas of what you may find helpful!
Quote from the show:
“So today's is what do I do before heading into a birth. So this is talking about rituals that I do all the way from when I get called to when I arrive. Spoiler alert, one of my biggest recommendations is always use the bathroom before you join your client so you're not arriving and then immediately leaving again.”
I mention the ability to book coaching calls with me. Those can be found below:
30 Minute Coaching:
https://calendly.com/harroddoula/doula-coaching-30-minutes?preview_source=et_card&month=2024-06
60 Minute Coaching:
https://calendly.com/harroddoula/doula-coaching-one-off?month=2024-06
CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or Instagram
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If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @harroddoula
Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class
Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
