The Doula Workshop has come and gone

At this time last week, I was eagerly anticipating the Doula workshop. I was also silently anxious about having to be out of the house for so many hours over the span of a few days. The plan was 5-9pm on Friday, 8 am-8pm on Saturday and then Sunday 9-5. That's a lot of hours and I've never left hubby to tend to both kids for that long. Friday night was a great start to the weekend! We enjoyed Dinner (a wonderful salad, baked ziti and cookies!), introduced ourselves to each other, got acquainted with why it's useful to have a doula, there was a special guest speaker about Placenta Encapsulation (Don't know what that is? Don't worry, I will inform you later) and also learned just how important birth is. Afterall, it's not everyday that a woman gets to experience this miracle! It was a lot of great information, and we were so captivated, that the night didn't end until an hour after we were supposed to.

Saturday came. We were informed if we would like to have breakfast at the workshop, to come a half hour early. I got up and got myself ready, grabbed my $1 cup of coffee from McD's and headed to the workshop for day 2! I enjoyed oatmeal and a clementine. Day two was full of information! Pregnancy and birth 101, Prenatal contacts, First stage of labor, advanced comfort measures, which was presented to us by a chiropractor/acupuncturist/acupressurist. She showed us some acupressure points and we enjoyed trying them out on ourselves. We took a lunch break which was delivered from a local deli. I had an egg salad sandwich on wheat bread, it was tasty !! We jumped right back in with learning about the second stage of labor, putting it all to work (which means we were up and moving trying out the comfort measures we had learned on one another!) we had a special guest speaker come to talk about c-sections and VBAC deliveries,  we then took some time to "draw" an image of our "ideal birth" we took a dinner break (Chinese food!) and then regrouped to share our "ideal birth" pictures. We finished up the day with "Difficult Labors". This was when a special guest speaker came in to share her story of having a stillbirth.
Day 2 was long, physically exhausting and wonderful all the same!

Day 3 was nice to get started a little later at 9 am. It was much needed. We started with a 3 hour breastfeeding course by the fabulous Carol Chamblin. I learned so much just from that few hours of intent listening!
We moved in to a lunch break (sandwiches from Jimmy John's), then came back to Postpartum support, DONA ethics and certification, the "other" stuff which included yet another awesome speaker, a "new" doula, she's attended about 12 births, so she filled us in a little bit about what it's like to attend those first births. We then enjoyed a symbolic closing activity. The closing activity was sweet, on Saturday, the "long day" we spent some time making birth necklaces. The one I made had beautiful glass beads that were serene colors. I added a brushed silver bird charm because it seemed to signify "peace" and "calm" and that's what I would like to bring to the table as a doula. The closing activity was a little surprising, we were to turn to the person that was to our right and say something encouraging to them. That part was easy! What I found a little difficult, was giving away the necklace I made. I made it with intentions of wearing it to births. I was a little bit attached to it, to be perfectly honest!

We were each given a certificate and a group photo was taken!

I'm in the black and white sweater

Then we were sent on our way to start this journey we call "Being a Doula!"

I am so thrilled to have had the opportunity to study birth from the angle of a doula and I really really really look forward to putting my new skills to practice!!

P.S. Before I forget, What is Placenta Encapsulation? I had a hard time finding a website that I liked to explain the process, but I did find this blog post to be quite personable and informative :) Placenta Encapsulation