On Being a Maiden Through the Eyes of a Doula

Caught Between the Heart and the Mind.

I’m at the age where my seventy five year old mentor, whom I love dearly, repeatedly asks me when will I have a baby. For over 30 years Julie has taught childbirth education and has supported thousands of families. I find myself following in her footsteps. She stayed home with her babies, watched them explore and grow, all the while tending to her garden full of fruit trees and chickens. I daydream about desiring these things for my family, too.

I love my job. Being able to help clients feel calm, confident and resourced through their pregnancy and birth experience is a deep honor. To be a witness and to help usher new life into the world is nothing short of a miracle. But I worry I am missing my window of opportunity to have children of my own. Because, as Julie reminds me, I’m getting older and fertility starts to rapidly decline in your mid thirties. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. She isn’t lying. I know this to be true (most of the time, but not ALL of the time).

I always told myself I will not become one of those women who is desperate to have children. If it’s not in the cards for me, I’ll just wash my hands of it and move on. Like I am able to flip off this primal switch that says I no longer am interested in having children.

But something in my body longs for a child.

Part of my ambivalence to having my own children is due to the fact that I feel like I am a healthy thirty something year old woman who wants financial stability before I voluntarily bring life into the world.

But I have no idea what my egg quality is like or what my AMH levels are and in order for me to find out these things to determine how much time I may have before my fertility starts to drop, I have to pay out of pocket. I can’t help but feel like our medical system gatekeeps essential knowledge from women.

I had a virtual consult with an OBGYN recently who told me that my insurance does not cover any infertility treatments. “How do you know I am infertile?” I ask. “I  just want to have the information about my body to decide when I should begin the process of family planning”

 “These tests fall under infertility treatments which your insurance does not cover. I can’t help you. I’m sorry, I don’t make up the rules” he said.

I was furious by his snarky, cold response.

I often teach clients how to build a safety net of support in those early days and months after the baby is born. But our country has zero national paid leave. A country that essentially says: sink or swim but there is no life vest available to you unless you pay for it. And if you can’t pay for it, you are shit out of luck.

Then I hear Julie in the back of my mind (and so many other voices in my life) saying “But Keely! There’s no right time to have a baby. You just have to do it!” And a big part of me is like hell yeah, let me jump right in, the waters fine. I see parenthood beautifully modeled by my clients every day.

I also know that becoming a parent does not always happen when you feel financially or emotionally ready. Some of the most incredible mothers I have had the pleasure of supporting did not feel ready to become mothers. But they rose to the occasion and have beautiful, tiny humans that love them beyond measure.

It is possible I am inadvertently conflating financial security with an easier time in early motherhood. This is not true as I have seen firsthand my most affluent clients wrestle with the same issues in postpartum as my clients that are financially less off.

But then a thought hits me: how tragic would it be to have a baby, become completely enamoured by this new person only to be forced back to work immediately because that is the only way my family can financially stay afloat? The irony of being a birth doula... shackled to her work, unable to have a child without putting her own child immediately in daycare (that she cannot afford) is not lost on me.

There is a (sad but true) joke that a midwife’s own children become orphans. Someone else has to step in and care for her children so that she can go to work. Something about this makes my heart sink. A ball starts to form in the back of my throat. I could cry.

So here we are, my current conundrum is to wait a few years and gamble with infertility which will ultimately make the choice for me (the cost of IVF y’all, we simply can’t do it) OR have a child despite the political and financial adversity that is waiting for me.

My knee jerk response is that I don’t want something or someone to make that choice for me. But is it really up to me? What an illusion of control. “Just have the baby and I’ll help you raise it!” Julie says. I know she would drop everything to help me.

I am also mildly embarrassed to admit the amount of time I have spent online sleuthing the Subreddit “Fencesitters” where thousands of people like me try to decide should I or should I not have a baby. People make these elaborate lists of pros and cons, factoring in their income, what help they can recruit from family and friends, how much time off they can get from work, etc. I read through the posts hoping to find clarity but these lists make me feel even more anxious about what I might need in order to feel secure as a new parent.

Then I remember that the decision to have children is not purely logical. Our culture places so much emphasis on logic when parenthood is an emotional, physical and spiritual initiation.

“Have you ever traveled to a third world country? So many families happily exist with very little resources” A friend said to me once. Her words resurface in my mind every now and again.

So the question becomes how do I not let fear be in the driver’s seat? More specifically, the fear (panic) of running out of time. If life itself has proven anything to me it is that we are not guaranteed to be here for any fixed amount of time. But how do I make a decision from a place of inner knowing, calm and confidence? Is some fear healthy or warranted in a country that seems increasingly hostile towards women, mothers and families?

I have not found answers yet despite my many hours of research. Nor has the answer come to me in my meditation practice. Perhaps the answer will appear as I continue acknowledging my own dissonance. Perhaps the answer never reveals itself. Or maybe it simply illustrates that there are multiple truths going on here - that there is no singular right answer.

I cannot help but notice the parallel between my fertility debacle and the work that I do as a birth doula. What an opportunity to practice moving through the complexity, the nuance, the grey, the in between... And to support my own nervous system as I make important decisions.

Despite my own doubts, I believe it is a miracle to be alive. It is a miracle to birth new life. And it is a miracle to age.

Having a child is so much bigger than me. It is a decision that affects other people beyond my full comprehension. I wish I could taste blissful ignorance but my palate is accustomed to the bitter sweetness that life inevitably serves us. I hope I might be lucky enough to experience motherhood someday. But I do not want to live with an unwavering expectation that it *must* happen in order for me to encounter happiness.

I just don’t want to cling too hard to an idea of how my life is supposed to be.

I do not need to wait for the initiation of motherhood in order to practice the tender art of mothering.

So here’s to releasing my grip, even just a little bit, to give way to miracles beyond my self-consciousness.

Photograph by Matt Bockal

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