Lucy Symons

It transpires that Pregnancy and Birth Magazine has been sponsoring a “DOULA OF THE YEAR AWARD” and received around 100 letters from Mums nominating both birth and postnatal doulas.  After a lot of reading, discussing, reflecting and debating, they have made a shortlist, from which they will select three finalists. 

The winning Mum will win a holiday for 2 adults & up to 2 children in Malta. 

 and it turns out that I was on the short list...

I asked my clients who was responsible for this and received the following copy of her entry in to the competition and thought you might want to see what she said about her experience of having a birth doula:

"I would like to nominate the duo Lucy Symons who was by my side in Labour and her partner Maggie Vaughn who have changed my perception of pain and the World. These two wonderful ladies made the birth of our son extra special, less daunting and magical. I had originally wanted a Doula because I find visiting hospitals tricky because I had a spinal injury (fractured my neck in childhood) This has caused me great anxiety and triggered memories ..... so we met Lucy and Maggie and they were the perfect fit. 

Pre-Labour

Our Doulas supported both my partner and me through pregnancy and gave us top tips to remain calm, settle baby in my womb & for sciatic nerve pains towards the end of pregnancy. They reassured me at every stage and actually enabled me to enjoy pregnancy. My mum did not enjoy pregnancy yet our Doula's enabled me to not follow in these footsteps but to be positive, have baths, bond with baby via massage and relaxation. (this worked like a DREAM) 

I even had a car crash at 5 months in pregnancy - Oooops! Both Lucy and Maggie were there for us and again I focussed on being positive and praying how lucky we are to have such a resilient baby. Maggie visited promptly after this. 

Our 'Charlie's Angels' (Doulas) visited us on numerous occasions, providing books, DVDs and helped with ideas for the Birth Plan. They enabled me to be mentally prepared and were honest too and enabled me to manage pregnancy and the stress / pressures of work. (combining the two) 

Our Charlie's Angels were in contact with my boyfriend and supported him through the pregnancy too. 

Lucy and Maggie talked me through the stages of labour which initially shocked me. However, when I attended my ante-natal classes I was psychologically more prepared. 

Maggie and Lucy suggested ways to help us get baby in the correct position using gym ball, swimming etc. I felt I was being pro-active and in control of the pregnancy and doing my 100% best I could - thanks to our Charlie's Angels.

Labour 

My Contractions began.......Lucy protected me by not telling me that the maternity ward at our hospital may have to close as they were so busy & understaffed.  She did not tell me that if we turned up we would have to go home or to an alternative hospital. Had I known this information I would have gone into distress mode and started to hyperventilate. 

Our Charlie's Angel created distractions throughout labour, even washed my hair and consoled me.  She kept the family calm and requested they sleep, she timed my contractions for me and noted them. 

Lucy continuously rang the hospital back to try to get a room for me - thank the lord for our angel because we did eventually get a room and knew this on the car journey there (what a gem).

She helped me manage pain until I was 7cm dilated in my own home using water, massage and tens machine. UNBELIEVABLE - I could not have done this without Lucy. 

She supported my decisions 100% especially when I asked for an epidural.

When my baby was born I was in shock.  Lucy was able to cuddle him whilst I gained some awareness through all the medication/drugs

Post Natal 

I had no memory triggers from my childhood trauma when I got to the labour ward and even enjoyed my stay at the hospital. (thanks to our Doulas) 

We received an entertaining letter for our son outlining all the various conversations and stages of labour.

Aftercare

We received a meal & home made chocolate cake delivered to our home which was divine.  I received help with breastfeeding and general aftercare. Maggie advised me on what to eat and the natural approach to breastfeeding really worked better for us. 

Lucy explained all the details of labour afterwards. How the hospital was going to close and things she had protected me from hearing. My jaw was on the floor. I'm so glad she shielded me from this and for taking the time to explain what happened in labour in more detail. (Our baby had been in a tricky position, with both his hands on his head)

I could not have asked for more!!!!!!! Both Doulas who worked in partnership are already winners in my eyes and our family. They made labour a positive experience and they have a special place in our hearts."

What more could a doula ask for?  I Love my job.

I was at a birth recently where the baby was in a rotten position (it turned out he had both hands clasped under his chin, the little tinker) and so my lady couldn’t progress beyond the fabulous 7cm she had reached at home in the bath with my support. Inevitably syntometrin was required to help her along and so she had an epidural and the midwife started a drip.

What had been a perfectly natural, really lovely labour at home was suddenly transformed into a strange medical procedure in the hospital where we all waited for things to happen, feeling disconnected and slightly like observers rather than participants. My role as a doula was suddenly transformed into that of companion, her boyfriend was quietly sleeping in a corner and the midwife would come in, smile at us both and go straight to the monitor or the drip – no longer really paying attention to the person in labour.

Eventually my lovely lady managed to get to 10cm and started to push. She was instructed what to do because she had no natural urge to push. She did brilliantly and after a long hard second stage, her son was born. I remember quite clearly through a sleep deprived haze bursting into tears as he was born and her boyfriend doing the same as their son took his first breath. The midwife was efficiently kind and also obviously moved. But my lady lay on the bed watching us with what appeared to be detached confusion. My tears and those of her boyfriend seemed totally alien to her and even a little annoying. We passed her the baby but she didn’t seem to be terribly interested. She asked that I take him and so I took him for a little walk around the room as her boyfriend held her hand whilst she was being stitched. Finally, I brought him back to her side and she gestured for me to give him to her boyfriend. I left that birth wondering how she would manage.

A few days later I went to their home and met with them. We discussed the birth of their son at length and I was thrilled to see she had bonded brilliantly with her son as she breast fed him. I asked her about the moment he was born and she admitted (after a little nudging) that she had felt absolutely nothing, but was only aware of the brutality of the experience. My emotion and her boyfriend’s at the time was exactly the opposite of her feelings… she said she felt like she was observing everything and not experiencing it. I gently explained to her that oxytocin (the body’s natural expulsive hormone necessary for giving birth) is also known as the “love” hormone. She had received a synthetic form of that hormone in the drip which does everything that oxytocin does physiologically but none of the emotional things that you would expect. As a consequence, she was going through the motions of giving birth but had none of the natural endorphins nor did she experience the woosh of maternal love that she would have done had she been able to have a natural labour and birth. In breast feeding her son, she was producing the oxytocin that she had missed at birth and as such was rapidly falling in love with him.

Oxytocin plays such a vital part to bonding with your baby it is little wonder there has been a recent spate of men writing about how removed they felt from their children when they are first born. Several journalists have reported recently that they feel it is the unspoken taboo, fathers who don’t feel anything towards their newborn children. Of course (most) men learn how to love their children but sometimes it takes a little time. They don’t have that natural leg up that we women do. And nor do some women who have surgical or chemical births. It is something to consider if you feel that your birth experience was less magical than you were expecting. It is very helpful to know that with the absence of oxytocin, you can experience a more disconnected birth than if you have a totally natural experience. Don’t beat yourself up about it, but be aware that it is perfectly normal for it to take a few days of breast feeding for you to feel that deep connection with your baby, and for your partner to grow into loving his child.

It seems that more of us are being diagnosed with Post Natal Depression these days, which begs the question: does motherhood make women miserable or are we turning a normal, if difficult, psychological transition into an illness?

In working as a post natal doula, I am in women’s homes after they have had a baby and it is perfectly normal for me to see new mothers sad or miserable or even crying.  It turns out this is one of the questions in the Edinburgh Post Natal Depression Scale, a self reporting tool developed in 1987 to help identify women with post-natal depression; something your health visitor may have asked you to complete.  Another question is “have you felt scared or panicky for no good reason?” which equally most of the women I work with in the early days of motherhood (if they were honest) would say yes to.  

Motherhood can be very very hard to adjust to for most of us, and in the struggle to get a handle on it (and possibly to realize that you will never truly get a handle on it) it is only normal to expect to be teary or feel fear.  Immediately postpartum a new mother is probably physically exhausted, sleep deprived, hormonally frankly quite mad and deeply in love with a tiny new person they feel biologically programmed to protect and care for.  She may also find herself at home alone with her baby if her partner has to go back to work and her family is not near.

Couple this with the fact that motherhood is without a doubt the hardest-easiest job in the world and you may very well find a woman who weeps and feels scared.  Intellectually, we know that a baby’s needs are so simple: food, warmth and love.  And yet… and yet… it can seem like a relentless cycle of food, warmth and love and regardless of the food, warmth and love it also seems that they cry.  A lot.  And every cry goes through you in a way that you would never have believed before it happens to you, and every fibre of your body reacts to that cry.  Sometimes a baby’s cry is hunger, sometimes it is discomfort and sometimes it just is. 

I have a client who recently told me that the minute she realized that her son just needed to be held, she was a much better mother.  She had spent the first six weeks of his life feeding him and changing him and winding him and then believing that she should put him down, in a basket or a crib or in a bouncing chair and he would be satisfied.  He wasn’t and so he cried.  When she realized that by carrying him, he was happier, she was much better able to be a good enough mother.  But it took her six weeks to figure out what she imagined she would know instinctively.  The solution she found for her baby worked for her and for her son was not something she read in a book or someone else told her to do, or even something that will work for you (although it might be worth trying!) but eventually through trial and error, she came to the conclusion that her baby would only stop crying if she carried him with her.  Pregnant with her second child, she is now preparing for her next baby to be the same.  Perhaps he will be, or maybe she will have to do all that learning again with a different child, either way she understands the fundamentals of being a good enough mother.  You try your best to find the best solution to any given situation and forgive yourself if you don’t manage it quickly.  Every mother should march to the beat of the tiny drum her baby beats for her.

There are no simple answers to motherhood, it is not an exact science.  The best you can realistically hope is be a good enough mother.  To figure out what your baby needs and provide it as swiftly as possible and understand that sometimes babies just cry.  You may find that carrying them helps, or singing to them, or walking around the park in their pram, or sometimes it could be that nothing helps and your baby is just exercising his right to shout.  A lot.  A friend says her son frequently sounds like he is being attacked by cats.  A second time mother, she spent his first week rushing to save him from the imaginary marauding felines and then slowly realized that is just how he is.   It is normal for him to cry like that - it doesn’t mean anything is wrong particularly, it is just the way he is, different from his sister before him

It is also important to remember that babies are very receptive and so,  if you feel anxious or panicked or scared, they will pick up on that.  If in the face of motherhood you feel fear (and really, I don’t know anyone who is honest who can say it doesn’t ever fill her with some sort of fear) your baby will react in a way which may make you feel even more fear and so a vicious cycle begins.  I have a client at the moment who said to me “Why is my baby always so calm when you are here?” and it isn’t because I am a magic baby whisperer (more’s the pity), it is because my being in her home means she can focus only on her baby and not worry about the washing or the cooking or the ironing or the shopping or answering the door to the post man or cleaning out the fridge or putting the flowers in water or any of those other things that distract us from our babies and so SHE can make her baby more calm by being more calm herself. 

I am not sure that women are more inclined to post natal depression these days myself.  I do think the adjustment we make as we transition from individual to mother is a very difficult one, emotionally and physically, possibly harder to do when older but if that manifests itself in tears or random moments of panic, then we should embrace them and ask for help.  Being alone and sad and panicked is far more overwhelming than sharing it with someone who cares for you and so much the better if that person can normalize those feelings for you.  It is right you should feel sad sometimes as a mother and being responsible for a tiny new person is also pretty scary, but grab that fear with both hands harness it and be the best mother you can be.  It is also right that you should feel overwhelming joy and discover meaning in your life that you had no idea existed.  And enjoy being a mother. For most of us it’s the best job you will ever have.

There has been a lot in the press recently about children these days expecting to be happy at all times.  Parents, trying their best to do what is right, are challenging teachers in a way previously unknown when their little darling is “unhappy”. 

A maths teacher was quoted in The Observer last Sunday saying that he corrected a child’s homework, pointing out that a nought was in the wrong place.  The child watched as the teacher changed the answer (corrected the answer) and smiling, changed it back saying “Thank you, but I prefer it where it was.”  Mad mathematical renegade or spoilt brat?

As a parent we all want happy children… but ultimately what is really going to make your child experience long term happiness?  When do we need to step in and teach our children that they can’t always be right and that life isn’t always happy?  When do they learn that they don’t always get to be first, selected for the football team or the lead part in the class assembly?  It is a vital lesson without doubt, and one that needs to be assimilated before entry in to the Big Bad World where there isn’t always going to be a mummy to take the naughty person to task for not recognising (perhaps well hidden – or truly absent) genius.

I do understand that having a happy child is vital, but I wonder if ultimately little Johnny is going to thank you for this effort?  Research shows that children who are never corrected or thwarted actually have lower self esteem than their more robust challenged counterparts.  Life is as much about managing disappointment as learning to manage success.  Realistically, in a class of 30 children, your little darling is unlikely to come first and 29 times more likely to come second or lower.  And someone has to come last!  Surely childhood is where you learn that, safe in the knowledge that you have parents who love you no matter what and will comfort you and teach you that not being The Angel Gabriel in the Christmas production is actually not The End of The World.

If, as a mother, you beg the teacher to remark homework or add your child to the team roster or change the casting for the school nativity play making your child happy again, if only for a little bit, what lesson are you teaching your child?  Complain and you get what you want, perhaps. Is that true of life?  Perhaps a little bit, but generally speaking life is pretty much a meritocracy and if you aren’t best suited to the role, you won’t get it.  And how hollow a victory would you experience if you were in the starting line up of a big match only because your mummy made the coach put you in?  I cannot tell you how many painfully shy children I have watched squirming with embarrassment, unable to speak when called upon to do so, after their mother has negotiated them in to a role in the school play they aren’t happy with.  Surely that is a far worse fate for the child than being cast as part of a nice crowd scene where you can lurk at the back and don’t have to speak?

As a parent, you have to moderate your expectations to fit your child.  If you have a terribly uncoordinated chatter box who loves to show off… perhaps they would be selected for a part in the play but left off the netball squad.  Should you perhaps trust the teacher to make that decision for you, rather than barrel in and take them to task?  We had a situation at my children’s school recently where a mother insisted her daughter take part in the “gifted and talented programme” arguing that it would only be fair if everyone had a “go” at being Gifted and Talented.  This child was also told that she couldn’t take the exam for the grammar school (the 11+) because she was “out of catchment” although a patent lie.  The poor child repeated this to anyone who would listen and watched as people nodded their heads in pity more than agreement, understanding that an untruth had been told to her to save her feelings.  What does this teach her daughter?  Will she thank her mother when she is older? 

We surely should be thinking of our children’s happiness in a much broader sense rather than immediate disappointment and upset.  To teach a child to accept the rough with the smooth and understand their own limitations is vital.  “Life is short and  brutal and then you die” was my father’s response if I ever complained about any perceived injustice – perhaps rather old school, but I got the message.  We need to celebrate our children’s achievements and I fear that when they really do work hard and achieve, the subsequent joy may be diminished by the previous devaluation.  Encourage them by all means, but be realistic and understand that you may be (should be!) slightly biased when it comes to your own little darling.  That your adoring, uncritical, maternal view of your child may be best kept in the home, though.  You can be a one person cheering squad for your own children behind closed doors, but you also need to be able to be a shoulder for them to cry on when they are unhappy.  Without sickness we wouldn’t appreciate health and without sadness we wouldn’t appreciate joy.  Everything in moderation makes for a happier more confident child in the end, I think.

Pregnancy is a time in our lives when we are forced to face up to things.  Perhaps it is the first time in your life you have been larger than a size 10; when you are going to bed at 9pm because you are so dog tired you couldn’t possibly stay up another minute; a time in your life when the very thought of coffee is enough to make you projectile vomit.  There are things at work in a pregnancy that are so much larger than we are.  You are no longer in charge, but rather slightly subservient to a tiny tyrant kicking you from within that you haven’t even met yet.

I remember giving up smoking when pregnant with my first daughter – not out of some smug desire to be a good mother – but because I could no longer inhale the smoke without hurling.  What a shock to have my behaviour dictated by something I had created deliberately.  

I meet women every day who are in a state of shock that they are no longer in charge.  Not drinking; not smoking; not staying up late; parading about in trackie bottoms or maternity jeans; suffering from a cold and unable to take anything strong and go to bed; not dying their hair; taking vitamins; avoiding the fridge because of that terrible smell…  I wonder how many of these women realise what a great preparation this is for what lies ahead?

Becoming and being pregnant is just the start.  Once you have managed to survive your nine months (40 weeks – which is actually closer to ten months, surely?) you are only just beginning to learn about being patient and selfless.  Your baby will come when they are ready – not when you are ready… and although there is a huge psychological element to that moment when you go into labour, it is your baby that starts the whole process off, not you.  You are just hanging about, like the Worlds largest departure lounge just waiting for an arrival.  And babies can be late.  Very very late.  They don’t care when the maternity nurse is contracted to start, or when your mother is coming to stay or your husband’s parents can get down to visit.  You have to follow their lead – and get used to it!  It starts now and goes on for the next – oh, I don’t know, twenty years or so.

So waiting for labour to start is a good place to learn some patience.  Don’t be tempted by the hospitals administrative desire to get you delivered “in time”.  Unless there is a grave health issue, your baby is much better off if they are born when they are ready – not when you or an overstretched maternity unit want them to put in an appearance.  Dates are illusive things and although you may have been given a specific due date – knowing when a baby is due is based on a guesstimate and not an exact science.  Your menstrual periods sometimes have a bearing on this – if you have a long menstrual period (29-31 days) you are much more likely to gestate for longer.  Likewise if you have a shorter period, you are likely to have a shorter gestation.  But there are no rules!  Most first babies are born on average 8 days later than their due date and that statistic includes the induced ones who may have stayed put for much longer if they had been left.

Once your baby is here, most mothers choose to be led by them.  If you decide to demand feed, you can expect to be feeding about 12 times a day.  Or more.  Again there is no exact science here and you will find that you will pick up cues to follow from your baby very quickly.  I have to say most of the women I work with who are happiest are the ones who can totally surrender to being a new mother.  Who forget all about themselves and are quite happy to just gaze lovingly at their baby for hours at a time, who learn to trust their own instincts and observe their baby and their new role as mother with a sense of wonderment.  Some mothers don’t need to forge a routine or wrestle any semblance of control over their new charge.  They can enjoy just being - with their new baby; in their new role; enjoying their new family.  There is nothing more important for you to do at this moment and if you can let everything else fade away for a few weeks then please do.  Let go and relish this new phase in your life when you learn to be totally selfless, enjoying that amazing love you feel for your new baby. It is a lesson for life – as most truly happy mothers I meet put their families first.  Nothing else is ever as important as this.  Until you do it all again…