What do pizza and motorcycles have in common? A doula
Most doula websites seem to be ultra-fem; soft images, pretty colors, gendered language, and hetero couples. That’s fine, there’s no shade on those type of sites. It seems like they all follow an invisible pull to arrange their sites in all the same way. There’s always a big picture in the header, often with a pregnant person, or their own face. Also why is there so much pink? Now I’m not anti-pink, because a color has no inherent meaning, meaning is dictated by society. But it’s curious that all the doula sites look the same. I’m not sure if it’s the case of the blind leading the blind or there’s some reason behind it all.
No matter, here in my blog you will not get that vibe. I am into motorcycles and pizza (obvs!). Also, good food, mostly made by me. This will include pics of my grill which does include meat. So, if you are squeamish about that, this is not the place for you. I let you know up front so you can prevent yourself from seeing images of food that you would rather not. This blog will be a place where I can finally be myself, a person who struggles with feeling like they don’t fit in.
That’s the story of my life really, I’ve never felt like I’ve fit in anywhere. However, for my training I did find an awesome doula training agency, BADT. They are a black-owned, queer-run doula training organization. They’re f*cking awesome, I did feel like I fit in with their training courses. Because while this blog may come off as with a slightly more conservative feel (motorcycles!) I am in no way conservative whatsoever. And this informs my doula work, becasue we’re often thought to be advocates. And I would totally agree with that. We advocate for the pregnant person; we advocate for those recently postpartum. We advocate for a change in reproductive health care in whatever country that we’re in, making us in my opinion quite liberal and left-y.
So, if the initial vibe made you uncomfortable, sorry. I hope you stick around for some motorcycle and pizza talk. There will probably be doula-talk along the way. I’ve met some pretty rad people, people I would have never met except if I was in this line of work. Doulas are f*cking rad, they are some of the most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. They’re also pretty hardcore. They help babies exit other’s bodies. I won’t get into it here, but that’s nuts. Anyways, thanks for being here I hope you stick around.
Pizza and parenting
Parenting is the hardest thing I’ve done, but at least I can still cook
My trusty grill
- She may not be much to look at, but she’s reliable and I love her.
Check out this smoke line
- Fruit-tree wood
- Charcoal
- 12 hours+
It seems so banal to say that I’m a parent. I’m a parent, yeah great. So many other people are parents, what’s the big deal. That’s what I used to think. “Good for you, you successfully recreated fulfilling our evolutionary desire to keep our species alive”. “What’s the big deal?’. I think this lackadaisical opinion may have been based on my relationship with my parents.
It was not a great relationship. Now, after having my son I no longer talk to my mother. Which is sad, but her behavior was unacceptable. I don’t want to get into it, so I wont. It’s my blog and I’ll do what I want!
Parenting has unexpectedly altered my life. In so many ways my life is different. My brain is different. My body is different. My relationship with my partner is different. I don’t even feel like the same me that existed for 37 years prior to becoming pregnant. Who was that person? How did she even go about her life without having her kiddo on the back of her mind. How in the world was she so carefree? How did she just go about her life, caring for herself and not be all consumed with anyone else?
I bet a lot has to do with sleep. I used to sleep really well. But I have not slept well in two and a half years. If you are not a parent, you’ll probably read that last sentence and think, “oh maybe she had to get up early with her kid, that’s not too bad”. Or “maybe she had to feed her kid overnight a couple of times”, again not a big deal. Let me tell you dear reader that getting three consecutive hours without waking up is the bare minimum nowadays. Five hours?? Damn I feel like a women! Overnight?? Don’t even talk to me about it. if your kiddo sleeps, we can’t be friends. /s
When my son doesn’t sleep, that means he’s up every one and half hours or MORE frequently. From months nine to twelve, I was woken up every one and half hours. For three months. We stopped most of the overnight feedings at this time because I was so touched out, I couldn’t even handle him on my boob. My darling little baby. I wanted to throw him into the wall. I did not. But we did stop most overnight feedings.
By eighteen months he was regularly getting five straight hours in the night. FIVE. It was a glorious miracle. It also did not last. Now my lo is two and half years old and I don’t even know where the last year has gone. Or what type of sleep I got. But I know that it was bad, and I turned to chocolate to console me for two and half years of not sleeping (Twix for life!). Unsurprising to anyone I put on five kilos and now am heavier than I was immediately postpartum. Life is fun, isn’t it?
I never went the sleep consulting route. It always seemed so foreign to me, to separate my little one away from me overnight. And so many sleep consultants are all preaching Ferber. Now ferber is controversial so I won’t get into it here, but suffice to say I refused to have anything to do with it. What I did find is a doula in Ontario that promotes an attachment style sleep consulting. I even went so far as to have a meeting with her, Marcia really were lovely. And I was surprise to find that they were equally aghast with Ferber. She happily work with co-sleeping families like ours and do not tell you to quite nursing to sleep either. Her consult felt like a breath of fresh air. But in the end I did not book with her, mainly because I am stubborn. But I would recommend her to others.
Anyway, back to parenting. It has totally blown up my life. My mental health. My relationships. My sleep. Welcome to my blog. I’m glad you’re here.
And the Final Result
- Sourdough crust
- Fresh Mozzarella + San Marzano tomatoes
- Smoked Brisket
Human milk and human effort
Do you know how metal it is to feed your own baby via your body? “Yeah, yeah, yeah, humans have been doing it forever”, I can hear the boomers say. And that someone how lessens the fact that a human body, our glorious meat-filled suits that have turned sentient can 1) make another person and 2) then transform from creating that person to producing liquid through our body that is perfectly fits the needs of our own neonates. It’s f*cking wild. Moreover, this change happens approximately 30-40 hours after your give birth.
I’ve done some extra lactation training, and the composition of breast milk is wild. Did you know that the composition of human milk changes as the neonate grows? The first ‘milk’ colostrum is super important. It is high in immunoglobulins, particularly IgA. IgA is a prebiotic that promotes the colonization of lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium in the baby’s gut. It’s also very high in vitamin A which helps to maintain mucous membranes and promote healthy vision.
Did you also know that the birth parent’s diet can have an effect on the micronutrients in human milk? One of those things is DHA, it’s levels in human milk are dependant on maternal intake. You can raise or lower your DHA levels either directly or indirectly with supplementation. Also impacted are fat soluble vitamins: A, D,E, & K. Water soluble vitamins B& C. I had no idea.
Sorry to take you on a human milk detour. But before doing it myself and then learning more about it I had no idea how cool this evolutionary process was. Like I’ve said before we nursed for 16 months. Now, looking back I can’t believe how successful we were at nursing due to the difficulty we had at the beginning. In those first three weeks of his life, I even had to reach out to a lactation counsellor. For those first three weeks my son wouldn’t latch, and I couldn’t figure it out. I am so grateful I met with Suyin. She gave me the confidence, taught me new positions, and baby and I figured it out! We did so well that we could transition off formula by eight weeks, and he was exclusively chest fed till he started solids.
I would have loved to go for longer, really, I would. But my body shut that door convincingly. From nine months on, I had a really strong nursing aversion. By that time, we were doing the side-laying position, a cozy position where I lay down on my side and curl baby up close to me. But every time I did, every time their little body would touch mine, I would go crazy. Still to this day my little one likes to shove a hand underneath my body while he’s falling asleep, or simply for comfort. He especially likes to shove his hand under my boobs.
It is so precious that he loves to be close when falling asleep. If I were to witness this, I think I would literally faint from the preciousness. How lovely is it to provide for your child in such a way that they love and trust you completely. That your body is their comfort. It’s something that I feel this deep yearning to provide, but in my experience? The experience where I’m so exhausted, so touched out that any tiny soft contact on my body from their hands feels like a painful electric shock to my system. I hate being touched in soft, gentle, and caressing touches. Hate it. My body cannot stand it.
Even to this day, we still co-sleep because he doesn’t sleep very well. Now that he’s old enough I am able to have a pillow in between us because my body is still so sensitive to light touches. I’ve seen online that other birth parents are touched out like I am. But sometimes it makes me sad that I don’t love the little kiddo cuddles, but that’s for another post at another time.
Two wheels are better than four
Now I’m not sure what the general consensus is between motorcycle riders and cyclists. Do we dislike each other? Are we indifferent to each other? I don’t know. But I don’t really care, I’ve had my lovely road bike far longer than my Goldwing and I love her. I bought her used nearly thirteen years ago and I refuse to part with her. She’s been with me through so much, ad is always reliable giving me so much joy as I ride. There’s very little in my life that is as consistent as my Schwinn Passage, well maybe my kitty. But she’s lasted longer than my car and my motorcycle, I will probably keep her till the end.
There was on instance of someone poo pooing her, a drunk neighbor that said, “it’s not a real bike unless you buy it from a bike store”. A real piece of work that man is. Let’s set aside the privilege in the statement, but who says that to anyone? Like, come on. Lame. I think it shows his own insecurity. I mean why else would someone judge someone else unless they had some particular feelings that they were trying to cover up or felt ashamed about. Whatever. I still see this neighbor from time to time, but I’ve definitely put some distance between him and myself after that encounter. To his defence, he did apologize afterward. Clarifying that he was a little tipsy but you know what they say, “in vino veritas’.
On to more pleasant things… I’ve had the pleasure of meeting more really rad doulas in my travels. Doulas On Bikes are a sister group of doulas who offer birth and postpartum doula services in Toronto. They recently had their ten-year anniversary and I popped in. It’s really incredible the type of people who feel led to this work. Vera has so many stories, it can make your skin crawl from all the horror stories from hospital births. Mira is a joy to be around, a blunt but caring person who is a tremendous resource for postpartum people. You could ask her anything about newborn behavior, lactation, or postpartum healing and she would give you without hesitation any help/advice you would ever need.
And true to their branding, they all use bikes to get around town. How rad is that? They even used bikes to set up for their party. It’s incredible. I don’t think I’ve seen motorcyclists truck around party supplies on the back of their bikes. Or maybe I just don’t get out enough. Anyways, it you’re ever in the west end of Toronto and know someone who needs a doula, I can’t recommend Doulas on Bikes enough. Honestly, I wish I would have had them for my birth. But you live and learn.
Love is Love
You know another thing that has always bothered me about most doula’s websites and the industry in general? How hetero-normative it all seems. In addition to soft colors and happy families sprawled across the screen they are almost always straight couples. Now sometimes agencies will put up a POC or a POC family up as tribute to diversity, but if you poke around their site, you can always tell when they are doing to for diversity points only. It’s frustrating and doesn’t feel too good as someone who identifies more on the gender non-binary than the fem side of things.
I can remember, when I first started off as a doula looking into who my competition is and really being overwhelmed at the large amount of ultra-fem sites. Like, I had to step away from the screen because all I saw was fawning pregnant cis-gendered women lightly caressing their pregnant belly with the biggest smile on their face. Now anyone who has been pregnant knows that this is just a marketing ploy. Some people get lucky with pregnancy, but some others do not. And pregnancy is not like to calm serene pictures that you find. It can be uncomfortable, painful even. Some suffer so much with nausea. Nausea so bad that it never ceases but continues well past the first trimester.
My body literally felt icky looking at all the cis-gendered happy people on the doula websites. This is not to knock these people, but to show that not everyone is the same. Not everyone wants or even embodies the ‘normal’ pregnancy experience. That’s why I’ve made it an effort to find queer birth doulas, to follow them and to befriend them. Because it feels better to be with people who you fit in with. It feels better to be with people who don’t use unnecessary gendered language. Who have a shared experience with maybe not fitting in. Who are more sensitive to others or who are a bit more radical in their political and social leanings. These types of people are my favourite.
Sadly, I haven’t met a whole lot a queer or non-binary doulas in real life. Most are in IG or some other social media, but I really wish I could have more in-person experiences with people like me. Also I really hope that pregnant people realize that there are support options out there for them. Support that looks like them, has the same values as them. This is so important for minority groups and it feels so empowering when you do not have to explain yourself, you can just be.
It’s been hard for me to just ‘be’ in my life. Maybe that’s why I felt the pull into non-traditional birthwork. The thought of me going into an office… no. Just no. It can be hard to choose a profession that seems to fall just outside the standard path most people take, but I am so glad I did.
Doula friends and foes
In my last post I mentioned that I met the Doulas on Bikes ladies, they are some of the OG’s in Toronto, having been working as doulas for the past ten years. It’s rare to meet people in this line of work who have had the ability to stick it out for ten years or more. Honestly, most people I’ve met are short-term birthworkers. Most people seem to dop out at the three-year mark. And there’s probably a lot of reasons why that is, doula work is hard. It’s just not about going into someone’s homes and holding their babies. You need to manage your own well being while being a career caregiver. In my experience this takes dedicated time and consideration. It’s also hard! I can’t tell you the number of times where I spend all day working with a client, taking care of them, their baby, cooking for them and cleaning up just to go home and realize that I need to do it all again. It can be emotionally draining to care for someone else full time without adequate support for yourself.
You also need to be business savvy; this takes a certain amount of audacity something which I’ve struggled with for a long time. Maybe it’s a women thing, that it’s hard to self-promote. Maybe it’s how we all have been conditioned, to serve others. That we are only valuable while we offer support to others, but to promote oneself as a woman or a fem-oriented person is really looked down in society. There are so many gender-specific words that denigrate women for doing exactly the same thing as men. It’s bull shit.
So that came off a little harsh, sorry. I just have heard so many stories of doulas leaving the industry I get a little mad about it. We do such important work and I feel so strongly that every pregnant person has the option of a doula if they want. I’ve also heard so many stories where the doula was not helpful at all. Now I don’t want to judge, but these stories really make me upset. I was recently speaking with a friend of mine, Marj (who works primarily doing prenatal yoga) had a client who was very hesitant on working with a doula for her second. She had a doula for her first, a lovely little girl who was born via c-section due to a medical risk. This parent, I’ll call her Kessa recounted a story to Marj where as her doula did nothing for her. She would sit on her couch, hold her baby all the while Kessa’s is making a cup of coffee for her.
I was furious. That type of behaviour is antithetical to doula care. I don’t know how some people think that this is okay. Kessa was really hesitant to hire someone else because she wanted to be the one to hold her baby. Rightly so in my opinion. Thankfully Marj is a lovely person who would never put herself first in someone else’s postpartum space. She ended up working for Kessa and her family for quite a while, she was able to see Kessa’s baby from birth to about five months. Marj is also another one of the OG doulas that I know. She has been in this business almost 10 years, which is just incredible.
Watch, Read, Listen
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