⚘ How Organizing Prepared Me for Birthwork
For many years now, I have been organizing for political and social change, particularly in the area of healthcare justice. All of the work of campaigns, doorknocking, lobbying, and rallies has led me to birthwork. While that might seem odd to some, I believe organizing makes me a better birthworker.
Organizing is about identifying, nurturing & amplifying the power of ordinary people to solve the problems we face. That work has been a kind of homecoming for me, a return to my roots in communities of poor folks. Organizing also offers unexpected opportunities for personal healing. When working alongside others to change policies, systems and institutions that have harmed me and my neighbors, I also tend to the hurt parts of myself that experienced personal trauma, diminished opportunity and violence from those same systems. The healing is a collective endeavor, too, whereas trauma can cause us to feel so isolated and alone.
Birthwork, for me, is also about being part of a team--admittedly, often a smaller one!--that is working to achieve a goal of facilitating a birth experience on my client’s terms. I do a lot of listening about their hopes and fears and questions, and then together we strategize to formulate a birth plan. The birth plan is a roadmap, but it is always subject to change from shifting circumstances--this is true for political organizing as well. So we stay flexible, but always rooted in the values, needs and desires that the client has identified as most crucial to them. One of the biggest similarities between organizing and birthwork is advocacy!
There is an ongoing and tedious debate in the world of birthwork about whether or not doulas should advocate for their clients. I shake my head when I see fellow birthworkers diminishing our own power to disrupt harmful systems. Advocacy is the entire reason I became a doula in the first place! Birth is a time when someone is both at their most powerful--literally bringing a new human earthside--and also their most vulnerable, because the birthing person places trust in the people around them as they labor. Birth is a place where so much potential joy and power converges with so much potential for harm from providers and systems. It is at this intersection where I have the opportunity to amplify the wants and needs of the person who has chosen me as their companion and witness. I do not speak for them, but I will advocate for everything we discussed during our prenatal visits and phone calls, and from conversations in the labor room. It is a sacred duty that I take very seriously. I believe birthwork is about tapping into the innate power and intuition of birthing people, about shifting power on micro and macro levels, one birth at a time. I believe when we advocate for birthing people, we put a dent in harmful systems and change narratives about what is possible. As your doula, I’m in your corner, no matter what comes your way.
