One of the biggest steps we've taken during this pregnancy happened a few weeks ago: We officially interviewed and hired a doula! If you're like me, you very well may have no idea what that even means. For the majority of births in the United States, the only people involved in a birth are the delivering couple, the doctor, and a random cycle of nurses. The doctor is there to get the baby out, the nurses are there to make sure your progress is moving along at an expected rate, and everything else is pretty much in the hands of the expectant couple. A doula is a trained professional who is there to help out in a non-medical capacity to make sure the expectant mother is as comfortable as possible and to offer support in the process.

Oftentimes, this is the sort of role that the husband is expected to play. I'm absolutely 100% involved in this pregnancy, but the idea that I'm supposed to be the point person to make sure that January is prepared and comfortable during the actual pregnancy is extremely daunting to me. Knowing that we have some help from someone who has not only done this before, but makes her living helping women get through the birthing process makes me much more relaxed about the support role that I will play in this birth. Some specific things that a doula can do to make the process easier can range from simple things like massaging the woman during pregnancy all the way up to reminding her about her birth plan and helping to talk through the decision making process when a doctor suggests things that aren't a part of the original birth plan.

Our doula in particular is amazing. We've already had one appointment with her once since hiring her, during which she talked to us a bit about nutrition, how much of certain nutrients a pregnant woman should have each day, and which prenatal vitamins will be best for us.  Over the course of the next several months, leading up to the birth, we will meet with her three more times to talk about things like excersize, pain management during labor, breastfeeding, and preparing for the birth.

One thing that I'm particularly excited about with our doula is that she's also a labor coach (a.k.a. Monitrice) and is in training to be a midwife, so she's able to do a little more than most doulas. While they are there to help out, doulas generally aren't legally allowed to give any medical advice. As a monitrice, ours is able to take January's blood pressure, use a doppler to check the baby's heartrate, and check on January's dialation to see how far along she is in the labor process. What this means is that rather than packing up our bags at the first sign of labor, we should be equiped to allow January to go through a good bit of her labor here at home until she's absolutely ready to go to the hospital. That means less time in an unfamiliar environment and less pressure from the hospital staff to "hurry up" the process with drugs. If everything goes by the plan, we will only have to labor at the hospital itself for a few hours. And if things don't go according the plan, as they oftentimes don't, we'll have someone with us who has done this before and can give us some insight into our best options.

As a husband, the idea of the birth itself is really scary. Probably not as scary as it is to the woman who has to deliver, but still really scary. I'm really happy that we have someone that we can turn to with questions beforehand and look to for guidance of the day of the birth so that we can spend less time worrying about the process and more time enjoying our time leading up to meeting our daughter.