March 22nd-28th is World Doula Week. As part of the celebration, I'm featuring a doula attended birth story each day. This is Jenn's story and it's one of my favorites!

Jenn and I have been friends for years. I found out that I was pregnant just a few weeks after she did, and we were excited to share the experience together! When she asked me to be her doula, I was happy to get to share in that experience too, but I had no clue just how shared our experience would be. Jenn, as is typical for her, went over her due date to almost 42 weeks. I, as is typical for me, went into labor at 37 weeks, with a several day long prodromal labor. While supporting Jenn at her birth, my contractions began. I left her birth and went home to labor through the weekend. Our daughters were born 4 days apart, despite being due six weeks apart. They will both be three this June!

Here is Jenn's story:

Magdalene Clare was born successfully via 2nd all natural VBAC on June 5th. I was 41 weeks 5 days. I didn't even realize I was in "real" labor, compared to my last all natural labor (5 hours of VERY intense labor but a million times easier than my 36 hour c-section induced, two epis labor). The night of the fourth I was up all night with manageable contractions that I couldn't sleep through. I had texted my doula, Nichole and she joined me around 1am. She and I chatted between contractions and she suggested a few positions that made me feel ready to push the baby out practically. But contractions weren't anything close to as intense as my previous labor, so we didn't go in to the hospital. As the sun rose, my contractions backed off so my doula went home to hopefully rest, which I was to do also. After going to the chiropractor, I went in to an appointment around 5 pm and was already 7-8cm. Being Grp B +, my new doctor strongly suggested just heading over to L&D to get my antibiotic dose to allow for 4 hours between dose and birth, as there is no statistical reduction in risk of infection prior to 4 hours elapsing after antibiotic administration. I called my two sweet doulas to join me and headed over. My Dr called ahead and informed them that she had done the cervical exam so that they wouldn't give me another one. I had regular but manageable contractions for the next four hours. I spent a lot of that time in the shower and dancing with my hubby, but joking in-between them with the doulas. My doulas kept me happy, fanned me when I was hot, gave me a compresses for my face and held the shower wand on my belly. I requested to try a sterile water block out of curiosity, to let others know about them (they definitely sting a lot, like bee stings, but do help quite a bit with pain, even though I wasn't in much pain COMPARABLY). As four hours approached, the Dr showed back up and asked me if I wanted to have the baby in the shower... I didn't know she "allowed" that option as I had just had met her that very same week). She mentioned a point from my birth plan (she definitely read it) about how I wanted skin to skin, so I thought about how exhausted I would be after pushing her out and decided the bed probably would be better than 5+ people in a cramped hard shower stall. I headed to the toilet, pushed to break my water and then had her within 15 minutes. Nichole managed to get a few pictures with my camera for me, while Katie held my hand during pushes. Magdalene was 7# 13oz.