optimisticI have another tentative meeting for next Saturday, although I need to call and confirm. That mama isn't due until late September, but she's getting an early start. She already knows she doesn't *quite* feel comfortable with the idea of birthing at our local hospital. She has midwives and wants an non-interventive birth, but these midwives work through the hospital. She's actually looking into switching to the midwives I had with Eden & Ivy. Unfortunately, these midwives try to discourage mamas from using doulas, because they feel they offer the same support by staying with the mama the whole time. (*cough - BS*) :( I let the mama know that ahead of time, but I'm hoping she'll go ahead and hire me anyway - especially since I know all of them and also had a waterbirth, which she's kind of hoping for.
So in preparation for my meeting today, I did a quick looksie over my client handouts. For all you doulas out there, I have an 'About Me' sheet that I give to my clients. As I've mentioned to a couple of you on your journals and in
doulas, I feel that this really helps me, given that I haven't attended that many births. I've had several clients, but due to several not calling me (volunteer births - another reason why I don't do 'free' births anymore), I've only actually been at two births. So my About Me sheet just tells a bit about me and my journey into motherhood and doulahood.I realized last night that I hadn't revised it since having Ivy, so I spent some time cleaning that up and getting it up-to-date. My good friend
evilrbtmonkey then offered to be my Beta-Reader and go over it for me. She's an editor, and she gave some very good suggestions for more powerful wording. I owe her many, many thanks! She also noticed my blog addy in my email signature and got to checking out LJ and decided to join up last night, so please make her feel welcome. :DI also realized that my About Me sheet had a bit of an over-abundance of Reiki information. It's a hard line to walk, because many people know literally nothing about Reiki. But a couple months ago, I did a presentation on Reiki & Childbirth for my local doula organization, DAMA (Doula Association of the Mountain Area). Now that I have a Reiki & Childbirth handout to add to my folder, I cleaned up that part of my About Me, as well.
I believe that at least one of my wonderful readers is also both a doula and Reiki practitioner. If you're interested in using this sheet, please email me and I'll be happy to share it. I have no problems sharing as long as you leave my info, which credits me. I don't know how to make it a pdf for sharing online, but if anyone would be willing to help me out with that, I would be very grateful.
I haven't had a doula client since Ivy was born. Last night, I was slightly disappointed that all of my 'nice' clothes were stained with spit-up or no longer fit me. Since I recently learned that my weight loss grand-total has reached 41 pounds (!), I decided to bust out a bag of pre-preggers clothes and see if I could find anything that would now fit. I DID! Not only did I find a pretty sweater to wear, but my favorite pair of khaki pants fits me again! And I wasn't even able to fit back into those after having Eden, but I saved them because they're my favorite.
- Not only do they fit again, they're slightly baggy in the butt. Yay for me! -
With a day starting out this great, it can only get better. :)
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* Bad LJ! 'Doula', 'Reiki', & 'blog' (?) are not recognized by spell check.
