Ah, the heady days of early parenthood, when you're
just getting to know your newborn for the first time ever (despite
having been kicked by that person for months) in a sleep-deprived daze,
a topsy-turvy melange of emotions ranging from bliss to Full Freak-Out
Mode. Turns out a postpartum doula can make all that much easier. And I totally wish I had known about this.
Sure,
many people are aware of labor doulas, nice women who hold your hand
while you moan and groan through labor, but a postpartum doula? Who the
hell needs that?
You do. I did. We all do. New daddies can only
do so much, you know? Basically, a doula does whatever your mom would
do if she was there, the whole "raised by a village" concept. A little
laundry, a little cleaning, a little cooking, breastfeeding advice, or
simply some handholding and listening sympathetically for the 17th time
to all the gritty details of your birth story, all these go a long way
in comforting the new mom. Not to mention baby-related details like
about bathing and dressing that fragile squirming bundle, or just being
an extra pair of hands so you can go pee without fear that your baby
will vaporize if you're not there every second. Or identifying all
those terrifying weird little baby-sounds they make: it would have been
helpful for me to know, for instance, that newborns sound like cats and
that this is normal.
If you can swing the expense, even for
just a few days (usually not covered by insurance, natch), I highly
recommend it. If hell froze over and I was going to have another baby I
definitely would do so.
