Inside the Birth Doula Career: A Labor of Love

They have to walk away from this birth looking at each other and hopefully say, look at what we did, and I feel powerful.
Hi, I'm Ravo Zeri and welcome to How Much Can I Make.
I am a curious journalist, fascinated by what people do for a living, what their jobs are really like, and how much they can earn.
Join me as we dive into stories behind careers, uncovering insights and details, which I hope you'll find as intriguing as I do.
So let's get started.
In this segment, we will learn about a profession that is rewarding and unique.
Being a doula.
If you're looking for a fulfilling and impactful career, consider this one.
Today we are with my friend Mary Riley, who has been a doula for many years.
She told me some amazing stories about being a doula.
So let's dive right in.
And let's first uh first of all, Mary, thank you for doing it.
Thank you for having me.
Let's dive right in and find out how did you become a doula to begin with?
I ended up at seven friends' births in one summer.
They kept asking me to go to births and one after another, and one day I just thought, hmm, I wonder if you can do this for a living.
So I investigated, and this was 39 years ago.
So I investigated and found out that it's a possibility and went and found a place to get certified and then just began my practice from there.
Okay, I want to ask you about all of that.
But before I get into that, tell us what does a doula do?
Many things.
It's a combination of physical and emotional support, helping people advocate for themselves within hospital situations or home births.
Whatever is needed, basically.
And it's really hard to know.
People ask me all the time, like, what are you gonna do at my birth?
I'm like, I don't know, what are you gonna do?
And then you just hone your skills around that.
I read there is a doula for death, doula for birth, doula.
Which one are you?
Mostly births, although I spent many years doing death, but it was before it was even known as a death doula.
It was just something that I did.
Just giving support to whoever uh what do you prefer, birth or death?
Hmm.
That's a tough one.
They're both very different and very similar, but I do right now love birth.
How are they similar?
There's moments in both where it's there's no place to go but right there.
Okay.
And you can't you don't want to think far ahead, you don't want to think back, you just have to really be in the moment.
And that experience is so profound to be with other people in these life-changing events and with their families.
Amazing.
So, okay, you mentioned before you got you went and got your certificate.
What kind of certificate do you get to be a doula?
Do you have to go to school?
Do you have how does it work?
It's usually more like a weekend workshop, and then you might do one or two of those, and then you have some book learning and then some tests that you take and practice.
Nowadays it's probably a little bit more involved, and sometimes I hear that insurance companies are starting to cover doulas, which never happened.
Really?
Mm-hmm.
So that's really exciting.
Do you know which insurance companies?
No, not yet.
Okay.
Not yet.
But um it's very exciting.
They're also bringing doulas into hospitals and training them to be within hospital situations and offering that as a service to some people.
So it's really kind of exciting.
When I started, there was nothing in this area, in this Hudson Valley area.
And that was like 20-some years ago?
39.
Oh, sorry.
39 years ago.
Oh my god.
How many m kids do you help deliver so far?
I think it's over 2,500 at this point, but I've stopped counting.
But you actually don't do anything with a baby, right?
You just serve to support the moms.
I also did midwife assisting at a freestanding birth center in Athens years ago, and I have done that at births with home birth midwives.
You can get certified for that also.
So I do sometimes handle the babies as well as the moms.
And do you have to renew the certification every year?
Yeah, you're supposed to renew it, yeah.
You're supposed to renew it.
So give me an example.
You kept you said that you give emotional support to the parent or the parents to be.
Give me an example.
What does it mean you give an emotional support?
And at what time, what stage of the process do you get involved with a c with a couple?
We usually have a meeting together, uh, myself, the mother, and partner or family, whoever's gonna be with them.
And once we're on board with each other, then it begins.
And we start advocating sometimes right from there.
Like if they go to appointments and they have questions about it or they read things they don't understand, then they can call me anytime.
And if I feel like it's something medical that they should be checking in with their midwife or doctor about, then I would steer them in that direction.
But there's a lot of advocating that you do well before the birth.
So I spend a lot of time.
Like quote, give me an example.
Sometimes people will say, uh, oh, I just heard this, that you can't do this, you can't do this at the birth, you can do this, you know, and I'm like, okay, so let's go over that.
And yes, you can do that here.
This is how you approach, this is how you ask the questions within the practice.
Because I don't I don't want to set it up for people going into hospitals.
Sometimes there's this situation of like, we're gonna go in and we're gonna fight, and like I'm like, that's not really the way to go into a birth.
So let's advocate ahead of time to try and get what you want and learn how to speak the language and never say, like, can I have this or can I do that?
I'm like, never ask that.
Just say this is what I would like.
How can you help me make it happen?
Right.
And put it on them.
So you work with many different hospitals and birth centers.
You have to know the rules for each one?
Yeah, a lot of them you learn as when you go in.
It's like, what is the rule today?
It changes all the time.
And especially in this day and age with companies owning the hospitals now.
And so every day you go in and I'm like, okay, so what's the rule about the tub today?
Can people go in if they're on pitocin?
Can they not go in if they're on pitocin?
Can they do this?
Can they do that?
So every time you walk in to any hospital, the first thing I try to do is kind of ask the nurses, like, let me hear what's going on now, so I can advocate for my client.
What is the tub?
You mentioned a tub.
Uh you can do tubburs at a lot of the hospitals now, which yeah, which is great.
We do tubburs a lot at home.
Baby born into water?
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
Yeah.
Doesn't that scare you that the baby will drown or something?
No, I mean you can see films of people having babies in water and the babies like swimming around when they come out.
I haven't done that with any of the midwives and stuff I work with.
I feel like I might have a little heart attack on that one, but maybe, you know, I'm sure it's fine.
But we usually bring the babies right up as soon as they come out.
Or or the mothers catch them and bring them up to themselves.
Wow.
Yeah.
So you usually the partners is there along the way with you.
Mm-hmm.
I'd look at my job as to advocate for them and to help them work together in the way that they want to work.
And I'm not there to like take over the partner's role or be this one person.
I'm there to help them stay connected.
And especially in hospital situations, where uh the dad or the partner can start to feel like I'm gonna go over here and kind of sit in the corner because there's all these people around or and doing things and I'm like, no, no, no, come on over here.
There's a space for you, always.
And to just try to keep them connected because they have to walk away from this birth, looking at each other and hopefully say, look at what we did together.
Right.
Because we have to parent and raise this child for the rest of our life.
For the rest of your life.
And so I want you to walk away, hopefully feeling, and it may not always be the exact birth that you envisioned, because things can change and shift all the time, but hopefully feeling like that, like look at what we did.
And I feel powerful.
I was able to make choices, I understood what was going on, I felt supported and cared for.
So you mentioned before that some insurance companies started to pay for it.
It's a new thing, obviously.
But when they don't pay for it, and we'll get into the money very soon, it's a luxury service, right?
I guess it's a luxury service, but uh it's very needed in this day and age, you know, especially Why?
Well, if you go into hospital situations and you know, you have nurses and you have the midwives and the doctors.
I am a big fan of midwifery care.
So I love working with a lot of the midwifery practices.
There's a lot of pretty good doctors also in this area who work with midwives and back midwives up and actually like that.
To walk into a hospital as a patient anywhere these days, and it has been for quite a few years.
The nurses also have other patients.
They have to do all this charting.
Now there's computers in the room, they have to be on the computers charting and all of that.
And there are some really, really great nurses out there, but it's a lot for them to also stay with a client for 20 hours.
They're not going to do that.
They go off shift, the changes.
You stay with them for 20 hours?
20 hours, 10 hours, 50 hours.
Wow.
Yeah, it depends on the birth.
But I'm usually the person that stays with them.
So it's nice to be able to say, I don't know about, you know, yesterday at this time it was not looking like this because I've been with them.
And so you're that steady person, and it can actually help with the nurses and the midwives.
And so you work together as a team.
At what month of the pregnancy do you start getting involved usually?
I have people right now, this is January, I have people into July.
Wow.
And they already booked you.
And I have people, if I have a space, which I'm doing less at this point in my life, I'm trying to do a little less, that may call me and say, Do you have an opening in you know April?
And I'm like, mm-hmm, and I may or may not be able to fit them in.
But I also have people who call me who aren't even pregnant yet.
Wow.
Say, Oh, I I want to get pregnant, will you be my doula?
I'm like, get pregnant, and then call me.
And which is sweet, which is really sweet.
So, okay, this woman is due in July, and today is January, so that means she's on the third month.
How many times will you see her between now and the birth?
I will probably see her two or three more times and talk to her.
Every time she goes for an appointment, she calls me and checks in with me or texts.
Um every time she has a if she goes for an ultrasound, um, she calls me, checks in, and lets me know what's going on.
And then again, if she has any questions or concerns about anything, then they just get in touch with me.
So you need to have a lot of medical information, right?
Mm-hmm.
And you have it.
I do, but I'm not their medical person.
Again, if there's, you know, minor questions and things like, oh, I felt this little thing, I'm like, oh, that's fine.
But if I have someone calls me and I feel like, you know, you really should go check this out.
I send them in.
I tell them to, you know, call in and go see your practitioner.
Sometimes if it sounds a little more serious, um, I will go and meet them there and help, you know, just be with them.
Do you love this job?
I do.
And I'm very lucky because I work with people, a lot, a lot of people that I really, really like.
That's true.
And you end up like kind of falling in love forever.
So when I go into town, I get a lot of hugs and it feels sweet.
Yeah, I will attest to that.
It's impossible to go with you anywhere in any state in New England without you running into people that you help deliver.
It's crazy.
I'm lucky.
Yeah, well, doing it for 39 years, now you're gonna do the grandchildren, right?
Yeah, and I've been doing my kids uh who are my twins just turned 45 and then my other one's 42, and um their friends.
I've been doing the birth of their friends that used to be at my kitchen table, and we'd sit around talking about like drug sex and rock and roll and laughing, ha ha ha, yeah, I'll be there when you have babies.
And then yeah, it's happening.
Like oh my god.
And a couple of my babies, I've just been with them for their babies, and it's really amazing.
It's just amazing.
Right.
Now, you make it sound easy, it's not.
First of all, I know that you're on call a lot.
How do you deal with it?
How do you navigate it?
I think it's a lifestyle.
You know, when people call me and they want to be, I I want to be a doula, I'm like, great, you know, great, you know, go get certified, and if I can get you some births, we'll do that.
And and then I hear, well, but I don't want to be on call that weekend, or I don't want to be called here.
And I'm like, you know, call time is a huge part of this.
So it's a lifestyle.
It's not like I'm gonna pick and choose all the time.
But somehow it's worked for me.
And all those years.
All those years.
And I plan like, you know, next year for a vacation for a week.
But now that I'm getting a little older myself and doing a little less births, there's been a few times where I've been off call for a week or two here or there, and I'm going, Well, this is kind of fun.
Like I feel like I've earned it.
But what happens if uh you're on vacation, you took the week off, and you have a birth due in two, three months, but meanwhile the woman runs into problems and she calls you while you're on vacation, there's uh some major problem.
What do you do?
I have backup always on.
Usually there's someone else.
Other duelists?
Yeah.
Okay.
I usually have someone else on that they can call.
If it's an emergency situation, I'll take the call and and at least try from there on the phone to help.
What would you say is the biggest challenge of the job?
I think being on call is is is the hardest as far as like I said, if you want to plan something.
I mean, you're one of my friends and you know.
Yeah, let's go to the movies.
Maybe.
Yeah.
But it's always a little maybe with me, and I I appreciate my friends and my family sticking by me through that.
Right.
Because I'm always a maybe.
Yeah.
So you work closely with doctor, nurses, and midwives, correct?
Do you run into any kind of attitude from the nurses and the doctors because they don't recognize doula as a medical thing?
I think years ago I definitely did.
I mean, I was thrown out thrown out of a couple hospitals and things like that for just kind of speaking up.
Speaking up on behalf of your clients?
Yeah.
Yeah, on behalf of the clients or having teaching them how to speak up.
And nobody knew what a doula was, and it was very threatening, I think, for a long time.
And I also am very, very lucky because I worked with some midwives and doctors way at the beginning who really supported me and really helped me a lot.
And I could call them anytime with questions and concerns.
And at this point, I feel like I can call.
There's a lot of midwives and stuff that I work with too, and I can call them.
I'm like, I have this going on out here, I need to bring her in.
And, you know, even though it seems like it's really early labor, and they always back me up.
It's taken a lot of work and trust to build over the years, and also to acknowledge that we all have jobs, and they're all important jobs.
And like I said before, and like not going into the hospital and want to battle with the hospital.
You know, we have to choose a hospital birth for some reason, some people for its financial, some people because they feel safer there.
But to go in and say, don't do this to me and don't do that, and don't do that, I'm like, let's learn how to play the game a little.
You know, you might have to do a little monitoring at first, and then there's a way to get around that later, as long as everything's going okay.
And that you'll be checking out with your midwife or doctor.
I want to get into some of the amazing stories you told me that happened to you, but before, let's talk about the money.
Because the show is called How Much Can I Make?
So, how much can a beginning Dula make and how much can you make as you gain more experience and more referrals?
I think it depends on the area that you work in too.
I also don't go the highest financial route.
Um because I like to work with people who are just not like you said before, this is kind of an elite thing and it's not.
So for many years I did like trades for like, you know, chickens and eggs and all kinds of things, and you know, little money here, a little of this, a little of that.
When I started, I did I don't know how many births for free because I felt like I was getting a free education.
And I felt like that's really important.
And I feel like doulas today that are getting certified should think about coming out and doing maybe a half a dozen or so births just for like maybe the money that covers childcare or their gas or things like that.
But it is a free education to go in and learn with these parents that you're helping.
I think anywhere from like a few hundred at the beginning to I think like in the city, they could be four thousand or something by now.
I think three, four thousand dollars, yeah, here in New York, which I've been asked to go to New York, but I'm like, yeah, you know me.
Uh you'll never get me in New York.
I love New York City, but I'm not driving to New York City to do births.
So a few hundreds to follow up for months with them?
Um a few hundred if you're like a brand new person coming out.
Like I said, cover your costs of things and maybe a couple hundred extra, but I I don't believe in coming out and just starting to charge a thousand or two thousand dollars when you have done one or two births.
And it's good to get experience if you can do home birth and if you can do hospital birth, because some people say I just want to do home birth, and that's great.
But if your client transfers to a hospital, it's nice to feel comfortable as a doula going in to a hospital.
So I think both experiences are really important.
So what would you say is the going rate uh for like country, not not in the city, outside the city?
What do you think?
Like I think people are getting anywhere from 1,500 to a couple thousand.
Nice.
Yeah.
That's very maybe a little more.
Yeah.
Okay, so n I know birth is a highly stressful situation.
Matter of life and death, death sometimes, right?
When you in a home birth, do by the way, do you ever touch the baby?
Do you ever help actually getting the baby out?
Well, if there's no midwife there, yeah.
Yep.
I mean, if you can't be in this business this long and not catch a baby or two or three or four.
Yeah.
What's the feeling like catching a baby?
It's fantastic.
It's a little nerve-wracking for me because I'm usually there by myself without like equipment or something.
A baby's coming out in a car or I mean, you know, you can't these babies will not go with our plan.
And if we say, Oh yeah, you just you're fine, and then all of a sudden the mom's like, the baby's coming out, which happens.
Tell me, like happened in a car.
Yeah, I just had one a little while back in the car.
Um, was it last year?
But anyway, two on the bridge, the Rhincliffe Bridge near here.
Yeah.
And it was back-to-back traffic.
There was nowhere to go on that bridge.
Both lanes, and you can't stop.
And I was about five or six cars behind these people.
And uh she called and said From the car.
And I knew that we were booking, we were trying to get to the birth center.
Right.
And she said, Oh my god, my water just broke.
And I was like, Oh, she goes, What do I do?
I'm like, Well, you're probably gonna have the baby in the car.
She goes, What do you mean I'm having the baby in the car?
And the dad was hysterical because he just went, Oh my god, oh my god, what do I do?
And I'm like, Okay, start singing, sing to the baby, and keep driving.
Do not stop, because we're going like 15 miles an hour, maybe.
And there was nowhere to go.
And singing to the baby?
Yeah, because to calm him down, and he was adorable.
He started singing in the car while he's driving.
His mom, his mom is like, like this, and he's like singing away.
And I'm like, this is a riot.
So, and I couldn't get out of my car.
I had a vision of me like, you know, running atop the cars, you know, like in a movie to get to them.
But that wasn't gonna happen.
So the baby, uh, the baby comes out, and I had I said, get on your hands and knees and catch your baby.
So she catches the baby, and then the baby didn't make a mom the mom caught the baby?
Yeah, sure.
And women will not not catch their babies if they're by themselves.
Okay.
If a woman is out in the woods and no one is there, and this baby's coming, she will know what to do.
Wow.
And that's where intuitively, because there's nowhere to look but to herself.
And so when we help women, we want to remember that, that we're we're trying to help bring that out in them.
You know, not look outside so much for what you need.
It's from in then.
So you said the baby didn't make a sound.
What happened?
So then they said, the baby's not making a sound.
And I said to the dad, keep singing, and I told just put the baby over on her belly and pat her back a little and get some stuff out of her lungs.
And the baby started screaming right away anyway.
But yeah, so And the father is singing all along.
Dad's singing.
Mm-hmm.
It was great.
I said, All right, just turn around, sit in that mess, put the baby skin to skin on you.
And she just, and they just they went to the birth center.
But I had also gotten off the phone with them and said, I'm gonna just I'm gonna get off for like a few seconds, I'm gonna call ahead to the birth center, tell them you're coming in and be ready for you.
So I did that, and they were great.
They were like, We got you.
I'm like, great.
So then I called the people back, talking them in, and I found out later that this car had pulled up to the birth center, and they thought it was them, my people, and they go running out and open the door, these nurses, and they had everything ready and they're ready to go, and they jump in this car and it's not them.
And so this lady was screaming in the car.
The nurses were hysterically funny.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
It's always fun out there.
Do you see the parents after the birth?
Oh, yeah, I do.
Everybody does it differently.
They have their own practice, and that's what I tell new doolas is that, you know, this is how I do it, but you're gonna find your own ways, and you know, again, get a trust.
That and just play with things, and you'll you'll get your own cycle down patterns down of what you want to do.
So I always meet with them.
I have my phone calls and more meetings, and then the birth itself, no matter what it is, I usually stay for two to three hours after whether it's a home birth or hospital birth.
Make sure everybody's settled down, the baby's been breastfeeding if we're gonna do that.
Mom and dad are fed, or mom and partner, or mom and wife, whoever it is, everybody's fed and hungered down.
And then um when they go home, I usually come and do one or two visits when they're at home, help with breastfeeding, make sure everything's going okay.
If it's a home birth, then I'll work with the home birth midwives and come in between when they do their home visits.
Do you teach them how to breastfeed?
Yeah, help with that.
Absolutely.
Do people hire you only for first baby?
No, I've done second, third babies, fourth babies of people.
Why?
What do they tell you?
Why do they want your services?
They've been through that.
You they know what to do.
Because we're all like connected and tight and it just feels good.
And you can help.
You can really help with.
I mean, you know, women having second and third babies, we tend to think like, ah, they've done it before, you know, they'll be fine.
Right.
And they will be.
But why shouldn't they have the same support that they had with the first one?
And what support do you give the dads?
Usually I hear they could be freaking out and Yeah, the dads are, yeah, I mean, some do, not that many.
Um, I've only lost a couple, you know, the fainting and things like that over the years.
But but you know, the the dads are, you know, you take these these people, the partners and the dads, and you're like, okay, you're gonna go in there for the first time, or maybe the second time, but and you've never done this before, you've never been around it before.
Here, go to this class and learn how to do all of this, and then just say the right things, do the right things, touch her the right way, be able to advocate for her, losing sleep, feeling like like you're just trying to do the best you can, feeling stressed sometimes.
It's it's a big role, and we don't give enough credit to the partners for trying to do all that.
So I'm there to help them also.
And sometimes I'm rubbing the dad's shoulders.
Wow.
And sometimes I'm just making sure often I like to look at him and her, say, what's going on here is okay.
Okay, come right around here, hold her hand, keep them connected, which would keeps everybody calmer.
Okay.
I had one dad once say to me, he was, he said, Mary, I feel like I'm with the exorcist.
And I just lost it.
I'm like, honey, honey, she's okay.
I think that your head might be spinning right now, but everything's okay.
Because his wife was making some really great wild sounds, and he just had never seen her like that before.
So it's fun.
So you have to relax them.
Yeah.
Years ago you told me a story that never left my mind.
And I please ask you to tell us the story again about the chocolate.
Okay.
It was a tough one years and years ago.
Yeah.
One of my moms had um was having a really hard time in labor.
Just a really hard time, and we're trying to figure out how to get her through it and what to do.
And we finally put her in the tub.
This is at the hospital situation, and she was in the tub and still kind of having a rough time for a while.
So I suggested maybe why don't we get out of the tub for a couple minutes and just sit on the toilet and we'll go back in.
So she's like, okay, so we got out, and in talking to her, she just just lost, lost it.
First, I had sent the dad over to um the terrapin.
Can I say that?
Is that advertising?
No, you can say the terrapin restaurant.
Yeah, the terrapin restaurant in Rheinbach to get some chocolate cake.
Why?
Because I don't know why.
That's why I don't know why.
I just thought maybe we should have some chocolate cake.
I sometimes these little thoughts come to you when you're out there working like this, and I don't question them.
I'm just like, okay, so maybe she should get chocolate cake.
So he goes, he gets the chocolate cake, brings it back.
We're feeding it to her.
We're also eating it with her, by the way.
So the three of us are eating.
This is before COVID, off the same spoon.
And then she kind of burst into tears.
And it turns out that her mother, who had been killed in front of her when she's a child, always made her chocolate cake and ice cream for her birthday.
Wow.
So I don't question where that came from.
Was that her mom showing up at her birth?
Who knows?
And she went on and had her baby.
So right after she ate the chocolate.
Well, it was a few hours later, but she had her baby.
But she settled down.
But it wasn't the cake, it was the having to process that emotional part of her light, which was huge.
And you think about things like your mom or your family and different people being there with you.
And so if you've had loss or you've had problems with family and things like that, or it's it surfaces.
Sexual abuse surfaces.
Wow things like that in births.
Like what?
If somebody had been sexually abused as a child, especially a woman in sexual abuse and trying to have a baby, that sometimes that surfaces, like how are they gonna be able to let that baby out?
And so we talk about that kind of stuff well before the birth.
Those are things I talk to people about, as well as like midwives and stuff in offices, we'll talk to women about that kind of stuff, and then we work together to help her if she needs it.
Wow.
Yeah.
So you get messages from out of outer space.
You don't know from where?
Pretty much outer space, yeah.
And you just follow up on it.
There was also one more story I want you to tell us.
Remember the story about the guy in the hospital, the father that saw an old woman?
Oh, yeah.
Tell me that story.
He would like to tell you that story.
Oh, I loved them, yeah.
Um yeah, we had we were doing this birth.
Um, it was a long birth, and we had to go for a cesarean section.
You usually recommend to them not to go for cesarean, right?
Well, I don't recommend just doing a cesarean section because you want to just have a baby by cesarean section if there's no medical reason.
But we do live in a place where women get to make choices for themselves, and it's not my business.
Okay.
What they do.
Okay.
But if but generally I work with people who are not planning cesarean sections.
Okay.
Unless there's a medical reason or something like that.
Then of course I'd go in with them.
So this particular couple, we we went into where the C-section area was, and the dad and I were waiting outside while they were she was getting a spinal.
So we were just standing just outside the OR.
And he told me after the birth.
We we went in, we did the cesarine section, uh, let's talk back at the room.
And he came up to me in the hallway and he said, you know, there was this old woman who came and put her hands around me, her arms around me, and told me that everything would be alright.
And I felt like everything would be alright.
And I looked at him and I said, Sweetie, I'm not gonna say his name.
I'm like, that was me.
And he said, he said, No, no, no, you're not an old woman.
I said, but it was me.
And to this day, you will never convince him otherwise.
And he was raised, I think it was he he was raised by his grandmother, who was long past.
And at the same time that the c-section was going on in the hospital, there was an old, old woman apparently that had died in the hospital that I found out later because I went to the head nurse and said to her, like, is there any way that there was any old woman in the OR with us?
And she said, There's no way.
I'm like, I just need you to tell that to this dad.
But he he didn't believe it.
So I just said, Fine, she was there.
Oh wow.
But it was me.
I know for a fact it was me, but not in his eyes, which I thought was amazingly wonderful for him.
He got just what he needed in that moment in a way that nobody could ever explain.
Wow.
So what are those things?
Amazing.
Now, I know that you had birth over the years when the baby died.
Mm-hmm.
How do you deal with this emotional toll?
The first time that it happened for me as a doula, I remember I I came home and um it was I didn't know what to do.
I mean, I ended up at a birth that I was not their doula.
I was their childbirth educator and ran into the dad in the hospital after I had just finished a birth, and he told me that the baby had died and hadn't been delivered yet.
And I said, If you want, I will come in and say hello or help in any way.
And I'd I hadn't done this yet.
And they asked me to come in, and so I was there for the delivery of their little guy, and I mean it was pretty amazing.
I mean it it it is amazing, and I bow down to women who do that and bring their little children into this world.
Right.
And then I went home and I have a friend who was a a poet.
I don't write poems, it's not my thing.
But I went to her and I said, I don't know what to do.
I feel like there's a poem, and I don't know where to go with it and how to do that.
And she handed me a a pad of paper and a pen and sent me out to her garden and she said, Go write a poem.
And I and I did.
I have it to this day.
And it was about it was for Ryan, and I wrote this poem, and it helped me.
Wow.
So again, you just follow life, then just open yourself up to it, and it brings you in these directions.
And then from there, you know, the the sum that I've had of they're very special to me always.
Yeah.
Right.
Those little babies.
And once you had uh to deliver a baby on in in your bedroom, actually, right?
Uh-huh.
How did that happen?
We went into the um it was a second time baby.
I'd been with them before.
They uh the little their little one was with grandma somewhere, and they were having like these contractions.
Mom was off and on for like two, three weeks.
I'm I'm going, I'm not going, I'm going, I'm not going.
I'm like, okay.
So then one day we went in, I went and met him at the practice, and and she was checked, and she's the midwife said, Ah, you're probably not gonna have the baby, you know, yet.
Babe their kid was with grandma.
I said, Well, why don't you guys like, you know, you don't want to go far.
They lived very far from the hospital.
I said, Well get you a little hotel room and have some dinner and have a date, and we'll see what happens.
And then the hotel was like ridiculously expensive.
These were like farmers from up north, and I'm like, nah.
I said, come on, come back to my house.
So I made them dinner, and we all, you know, hung out, and she was having a couple little things here and there, nothing much.
So I hunkered them down in my futon in the other room, and um, I don't know, what did she say?
Oh, my back hurts, my back hurts.
I said, All right.
So I went in with some lotion and I said, Why don't you just turn on your hands and knees and I'll rub your bag and before you go to sleep, and all hell broke loose.
So I was like, I was like, oh my god, her water broke.
I'm like, oh geez.
So I said to the dad, get it, get everything in the car right now.
And um, she's she's like, oh, you know, I'm like, ah, so finally I called an ambulance because she just wouldn't, she wouldn't leave.
She just wouldn't leave.
She got on the toilet to pee.
She said, I'm not getting off.
I said, get her on that bed right now.
And he he pretty much dragged her through over on the bed.
It was so funny.
The father.
And the entire ambulance crew of Woodstock was in my small apartment when I turned around.
I was like, Oh my god, look at all you people.
And uh, this was a mom who wanted absolute privacy.
Oh my god.
She's definitely gonna have an epidermil in this this birth.
And it was it was great.
And the baby just came out, no epidermal in that.
Yeah, the baby was coming out, and I said to the the dad looked at me and said, Well, what are we gonna do?
I said, Honey, we're having the baby right here, right now.
And um, he said, Here, here, now?
And I said, Yeah, get it together, get it together.
So And we had the baby, and it was fun.
I caught that little guy and I remember passing by your house and the fire department was there too.
Yep, everybody, ever the entire town of Woodstock was there.
People, neighbors were there, people brought me wine and champagne, left it at the door later, saying, Congratulations.
I'm like, this is amazing.
The community is amazing.
Yeah.
There wasn't anything.
Yeah.
Okay, one last question I'd like to know.
What is the biggest reward of your job?
I think running into families, you know, years later.
I mean, sometimes I recognize people, sometimes I don't, but it's been, you know, 39 years, and then people will come up to me and say, tell me where their kid is, you know, and what they're doing, what they're in college or they're living in New York and doing this and that and and getting hugs.
Nice.
Yeah.
So like I said, it's something that stays with you forever.
Right.
So it's really I feel very, very um supported by this community, and which means a huge, you know, I I cover a wide area.
Right.
And I have been supported by this community for so long.
And I haven't ever, as you know, had a website or advertised.
It's all word of mouth.
Yeah.
And that's that's real community living, and I'm again very grateful for that.
Then one dad coming up to me, he said, Oh, Mary, I you remember you were at my kid's birth, and I'm like, hmm.
I said, now how old?
How old is she or he?
And she said, he said, um, 30.
I was like, oh, and I haven't seen you for 30 years.
Okay.
So I don't feel too bad, but but then I start to have you know, you start to start remembering little things about this particular birth.
That's really fun.
Yeah.
Mary, thank you.
That is a job with a lot of uh rewards actually.
Yeah.
Every time you have a baby, it's a miracle coming out to this world.
It is, it is.
And sometimes you come home and you're s you're just dead tired and you just like fall into bed and just live that birth through your dreams, like for you know, until you settle down after that one.
But it's worth it.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
I'm sure a lot of people don't know or have never been in a berth.
But your stories over the years really fill me up with amazing stories.
Thanks for it.
It's a great, it's a great job.
It is a great job.
It's a great job.
And excited, people say it's such a hard job, and it's such this, and it's the hours, and I'm like, I don't feel it.
It's I don't feel it a lot.
I feel happy doing it.
Fantastic.
So it's good.
You can't ask for more, really.
We can't.
Yeah.
All right.
Maybe a little more time off now.
But other than that, it's good.
Thank you.
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