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Here’s another excerpt from one of the homework assignment that I ask the students to complete. I reprint it here with the student’s permission. Excellent response!

“When I was pregnant with my daughter, I desperately wanted a doula (a person who provides non-medical care and continuous support and care) to support me in my pregnancy, labor, and delivery. I didn’t end up with a certified doula, but my dear photographer friend, who had already offered to document my labor and delivery, offered to split her time between photographing and being ‘that’ person for me in the delivery room, a doula of sorts alongside my husband.

“Much of that glorious day is a blur, but I remember one thing profoundly: when I was moaning ‘I can’t do this!’ in the throes of labor, she leaned in toward me, looked me in the eye and whispered knowingly, as only a woman who had been there before can, ‘You are doing it.’ That was all I needed to gain the confidence to finish what I had started and birth my baby. It is also the moment I often go back to when I think of the reason I decided to be a doula.”

Follow Rachel Leavitt:

Rachel has worked as a register nurse (BSN from University of Utah) since 2004 with a work history in Labor and Delivery, NICU and Postpartum Care. She is also the founder of New Beginnings Doula Training which she organized in 2011. When she's not busy being a mother and grandmother, she can be found reading research papers related to some aspect of childbirth.

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