My husband and I met in high school. We started dating when I was 15 (which, oddly enough, is the age our eldest daughter just turned) and we got married when I was 20. Having dated for a while, we also felt ready to start a family fairly soon after we graduated college. At 22 we got pregnant with our first child.
At 22, and a fairly new Alabama transplant, I didn’t have a lot of friends period. I certainly didn’t have a lot of friends having babies. Everything I heard about pregnancy and labor and delivery was from the generation before me, or even a generation before that. While I loved and appreciated the advice and stories, most never really resonated with me at the time because of what I felt was a generational disconnect.
None of our local friends were starting a family, so I went to the only “real adult” I knew for advice, my boss. I asked her which OBGYN she went to, and then scheduled an appointment.
When I say I didn’t know what questions to ask is an understatement. I didn’t know I even had questions. (Which, I did. I just didn’t know I did.) I signed up for a childbirth class, but only because my dental hygenist told me she was signing up for them and she was also pregnant with her first baby. I was so overwhelmed with the information and the decisions that I, still again, couldn’t verbalize the questions I had. My OBGYN would come into my room during a check-up, measure my fundal height, and ask “any questions?” and I’d answer “nope.”
I had a rocky pregnancy, riddled with ER visits, kidney stones, preterm labor, and an irritable uterus that contracted for weeks and weeks. Yet, somehow, it wasn’t until labor itself that I started to be able to dig deep enough, past my excitement/anxiety/fears to put a voice to my real questions. Except, by that point, there wasn’t really anyone to ask or to answer my questions. My husband knew less than I did (about this subject, at least. He’s a brilliant engineer.) the nurses were super busy, and the physician was rarely in the room (and it wasn’t until later that I realized this is how it works. I had a different expectation of that reality and it led to disappointment on my end.)
That birth was 15 years ago that we celebrated this past Sunday, our daughter’s birthday. But, I still remember the desire to have someone there that I could reach out to for information and support. I would have LOVED to have a doula, even if I didn’t know what a doula was or what a doula did.
It’s ok and normal to not know what questions you have. You may not even know you have questions right now. You may never have questions, and that is fine, too. Here at RCD, we can help with both scenarios! We can help you find the answers you need to questions you have ANY time during pregnancy, labor, and delivery!
