My postpartum stories - or why I want to be an Ayurvedic Postpartum Doula.

I experienced first hand the lack of formalized postpartum healthcare that exists for most women who live in the US with the birth of each of my three babies. I can attest to feeling lost, frustrated, numbed, exhausted and alone during the very fragile, tender, confusing yet vitally important weeks after the birth of all three of my children.

I gave birth to three thankfully healthy children, and together with my husband James, we worked hard (laughed harder) and, through thick and thin, raised these beautiful souls to adulthood.
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(And hopefully someday they will also welcome their own babies into this world! In the meantime, I hope to support other new mothers!

Within less than an hour after the birth of my first child, my daughter Kiki, I was given 5 minutes of confusing instructions on breastfeeding, by a harried RN who snapped at me when I held my breast incorrectly and gave up, exasperated by my confusion. When I got home a day later, sore and traumatized by the entire birthing process, I had no idea that my daughter wasn't getting enough breastmilk, as my colostrum hadn't come in yet. She became dehydrated after a day or so, and jaundiced, and she was returned to the NICU to replenish her fluids and recover from the jaundice. If someone had been there who understood lactation, and how the baby needed supplemental fluids, I do believe the stress of returning to the hospital would not have occurred. 

My second daughter, Brigid, was born via a C-Section. This is major abdominal surgery, and while a standard phenomenon here, still has a wide variety of risk factors postpartum.  Within a few days of returning home,  I developed a high fever and chills. Not knowing what was causing it, I drove myself and my infant daughter to my GP, and, standing in front of the receptionist's desk asking for an emergency appointment, shaking and feeling ready to pass out, was told I needed to go to my OB/Gyn, who was fortunately able to see me that afternoon. They soon determined it was mastitis, due to a blocked milk duct, put me on an antibiotic, and sent me home to recover. 

My third child, my son Sean, was born less than two years after Brigid, in the Fall of 1997. His was an unusual birth, called a VBAC: vaginal birth after C-Section, which is nowadays often discouraged as too dangerous. But, I felt like an old hand at giving birth, and indeed, Sean's was my most easeful L&D. No drugs, only about an hour or so of actual hard labor and pushing, before he came into the world. Still, again, I was sent home with little to no support: at this stage, with three children, my husband was working a stressful and demanding job at the time, and was our sole breadwinner, too. Besides a weekly visit from my Mother or MIL, and the occassional friend or relative who came by to coo over the new baby, I was at home, essentially on my own, with an infant, a toddler, and a six year old to care for. Initially, too, I was breastfeeding both Sean and Brigid, until I weaned her a month or so later!

Needless to say, I was exhausted! I remember feeling as if my body was being whittled away, that my conception of myself was disintegrating. Fortunately, something wise inside recalled the grounded, peaceful feelings I'd had after taking yoga classes when Kiki was a baby. I looked up "Yoga" in the Yellow Pages (there was no internet back then!) and I miraculously found a yoga studio only five minutes from my house - Heartsong Yoga. I went to a Kripalu style class that evening, taught by my first real yoga teacher, Sheila Magelhaes. The blissful experience of being filled up and replenished by that class set me on a completely different course in life - one that ultimately brought me more deeply into yoga, which lead eventually to Ayurveda, and to becoming an Ayurvedic Postpartum Doula.

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