My Birth Trauma Helped Me to Become a Doula

After so many sessions I was doing good.

I thought, I am over all this birth stuff NOW!

Then I experienced birth trauma as a doula

The birth was mostly good for the mom.  But there was a part that was really hard for ME.  Mom was fine about it, but I was NOT.  I was very agitated about it the 2 weeks before I could see Pam.

I did all I could think of releasing my tension about it.  I talked to a fellow doula about it.  I wrote out the experience.  I prayed.  I did the Emotion Code.  But I just couldn’t let it all go.

So when I talked about it with Pam and she asks, “Can you think of an experience in your life that was similar to this?”

This mom had a vaginal birth, so I never connected it to T1’s birth.  But after sitting there for a minute or so, it clicked.  T1’s birth was similar to this moment in this moms birth.  Again, this mom was fine with what happened.  But it was SO hard for me.

I realized that my emotions were all stemming from what I had felt as an observer, which was connected very strongly emotionally into my experience 14 years before.

I had moved down to take some pictures for her and a situation occurred where, to me, she looked helpless and abandoned.  I put down the camera and moved back to her and talked her through it and kept her centered (which is probably why she didn’t feel traumatized by it.)

Pam pointed out that my “career” as a birth worker means I may experience birth trauma.

Birth is a pattern for me and sometimes trauma will be triggering.  I said, “Does this mean I shouldn’t do it???”  But she reassured me that many time the patterns we run, actually become our gifts.  I was able to help this mom feel connected and she wasn’t abandoned.  That it is now my GIFT!

I thought that was amazing and beautiful.  I know a lot of moms who experience Birth Trauma go into birth professions.  I don’t know if we all know why, but it was eye opening to see it!

Are you a birth worker?  Did you have a birth trauma that inspired you to work in this field?