Hard Things....Trigger warning..Pregnancy loss, maternal mortality, trauma

Many years ago, when I first became a doula, I naively mentioned to a few L&D nurses what a rewarding job they had. I couldn’t think of a better job than watching birth every day. Imagine my confusion when a few nurses replied less enthusiastically and mentioned it’s not always easy.

A few days ago I looked at a nurse and said, “You guys see hard things.” Standing there in a room, we were watching heartbreak unfold for a couple knowing there was nothing left to do medically. All efforts had failed. It was inevitable. A perfectly formed 20 week and 5 day old baby would enter the world, and because of its gestational age, it would not survive.

There was too much familiarity surrounding this event. Several years prior I was standing with the same couple in a different hospital room watching in dismay as a similar event unfolded. It was my first time to witness the hard things.

As I stood helpless, watching the tragedy happen yet again for this couple, I was constantly aware that less than a year ago, I had stood in the same hospital (we were currently in), but in the room adjacent to this one and had watched an uncomplicated birth, the baby born whole and healthy. Fifteen minutes later, everything changed. I stood by the husband not knowing what to do or say. His wife was unresponsive. It wasn’t looking good.

She didn’t survive.
I didn’t know if I could ever walk into a birth again.
A few days after, a sweet OB reached out to me letting me know she was there if I needed to talk or process. I asked her how does anyone return to work or to a birth after witnessing a tragedy. She replied that you just do. You go back in and what’s familiar will come back. You just go back in. I had a moment a few days ago where the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should be done. Stop attending births. As if my attendance changes anything else but my own comfort.

No, I won’t stop. That’s not what we as birth workers do, or as parents, or friends, or spouses, or partners, or humans. We continue showing up in good times and bad, to support, laugh, cry, or whatever response the situation warrants. We will be there to bear witness to the miracles and to the heartbreak, and we will stand there hoping our meager efforts offer some kind of peace or comfort during the moment, all the while knowing our pain is miniscule compared to the anguish of those we support. We just go back in... and sometimes there will be hard things.