Oh, Baby!. Judy Baer

gestured at me to sit down and mouthed, “I’ll be off in a minute.”

      I see more and more women already in the hospital tying up loose ends so they can have a baby without worrying their cell phones might ring during delivery. Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but it is getting ridiculous. More than once in my acquaintance with Brenda, I’ve feared she’d bring a briefcase to the delivery. Then I glanced around the room and spotted a suspicious looking attaché case in the corner. Oh, my.

      “There you are, Molly Cassidy.” She greeted me as if I were the one who’d been on the phone. “I don’t want to do this without you, you know.”

      The room was sunny and welcoming. The necessary medical equipment for a healthy birth was still stashed away behind closed doors. The room looked more like a comfortable efficiency apartment than the delivery room it would become. Bradshaw is known for its upscale amenities. I vaguely wished my own house looked this good.

      “No need to worry about that.” I plumped the pillows behind her back and handed her fresh ice chips. I felt honored to be trusted by a woman who, in her ordinary, everyday life is a highly capable trial attorney. “I’m stuck to you like glue unless you tell me otherwise.”

      She smiled beatifically at me and leaned back against the pillows. That lasted for only a moment before she began chuffing and huffing like the Little Engine That Could.

      “Another contraction?” I moved closer to put a comforting hand on her arm. “Focus, just focus.”

      She glared at the gigantic orange lollipop I’d taped to the wall on the other side of the room, concentrating so deeply on the brightly colored sucker that nothing else mattered but her breath and the baby preparing to be born.

      I love my job. Being a professional labor assistant is the greatest occupation in the world. Better even than my former occupation as a preschool teacher, which was a pretty exciting and entertaining job. Talk about never knowing what will happen next! I always kept a change of clothes in my car while I was teaching because I never knew when I was going to be splatter painted, thrown up on or hugged repeatedly by little ones with sticky hands.

      As a doula I provide emotional support, loving touch and comfort to a woman in childbirth. It is the best of both worlds. Not only do I get to soothe and cheer for the mom, I am present for the miracle of birth. I’m useful, too. Having a doula present at birth tends to result in shorter labors, fewer complications and less requests by the mother for pain medications.

      That’s why it puzzles me that Dr. Reynolds is rumored to be so against doulas and barely tolerates medical midwives. Gossip has it that he came to this post saying he wanted as few people as possible involved with his patients’ births and has so far discouraged clients from hiring the likes of me. Most doctors don’t pay much attention to who is there to support the mothers as long as they aren’t causing trouble. Reynolds, however, appears ready to campaign actively against my profession.

      It’s no wonder I’m nervous. In such a state, Lissy’s warning did not help one bit.

      He can’t do much about it if a mother requests a doula in her birth plan, but he certainly doesn’t encourage anyone to do so. A birth plan is devised by a mom and her husband to let their preferences for their labor and delivery be known in order to make it the experience they want. It’s not guaranteed to work out exactly as planned—babies choose to come when and where they want and come in very small and very large sizes, both of which may change the birth plan in a heartbeat. Still, it allows the people supporting the parents to know their ideal and to strive for it.

      It also makes the new parents feel heard. I insist on having scrambled eggs when I eat breakfast in a café, not over easy, not poached. If I’m that careful to express my needs about something as simple as eggs, surely I should get some input on one of the most momentous days of my life.

      My own grandmother thinks it’s ridiculous, but she’s of the “just wake me up when it’s over” school. To each her own.

      His “bite is worse than his bark.” That doesn’t bode well for me or my dream of introducing an actual doula-and-parent-education program into Bradshaw General. Obviously his bark is plenty nasty unless one is under four years old. Then he’s putty in your hands.

      “Is Dr. Reynolds here?” Brenda wondered impatiently. “I thought he would have been in to check on me by now.” Ever the professional, she had no doubt worked out a schedule of her own. I just hope she hasn’t made any appointments for tomorrow.

      “He’s in the building.”

      “Don’t you just love him?” she asked as another contraction subsided. “He is so adorable.”

      “Adorable?” I’d never heard him described like that. Abhor-able, maybe, or just plain horrible. Never adorable.

      “Actually, I’ve never worked with him before. Bradshaw General hasn’t seen as many doulas as some of the other hospitals.” Although Bradshaw is one of the smaller private hospitals in the city, it is also one of the best. “Usually Dr. Reynolds doesn’t recommend doulas to his patients.”

      Brenda waved a dismissive hand. “That’s only because he’s so protective of us. He says he doesn’t want anyone around who might disrupt the labor and delivery. My friend Sheila had a baby here last month, and she couldn’t say enough good things about him. He’s a bit of a fanatic about it, but I told him that there’d be no labor and delivery at this hospital for me if I couldn’t have you, so he gave in.”

      So that’s how I’d gotten here. It wouldn’t make me any more welcome in Dr. Reynolds’s eyes, I’m afraid. I might as well add to my business card

      Molly Cassidy, Certified Doula,

      Nuisance, Troublemaker and

      Unwelcome Guest.

      Oh, well, women have crossed picket lines, gone to the North Pole in dogsleds, climbed Mount Everest and flown into outer space. I can certainly attempt to convince Dr. Reynolds that he is mistaken not to welcome doulas. Of course, heroic things always come at a cost.

      Feeling very much like Amelia Earhart leading the way for other women and well aware I might crash and burn for the sake of those who followed, I offered Brenda a massage and hoped this baby would be born so smoothly and quickly that Dr. Reynolds didn’t have time to notice me.

      That was, of course, not to be.

      At 2:00 p.m. Brenda’s husband, Grant, arrived from the airport. He’d taken the first plane he could catch from Madrid where he’d been shepherding a group of students from a local Spanish immersion school. He came in looking tired but excited.

      “Did I make it?”

      His wife gave him a don’t-you-ever-speak-to-me-again look and started her choo-choo-train imitation again.

      “Just in time. Her contractions are coming close together.”

      He flopped onto the chair. “We were scheduled to leave Madrid tomorrow but I was lucky to catch an early plane back.”

      His wife was mumbling under her breath. I didn’t tell him that she was muttering things like “should have stayed in Spain” and “you’ll never touch me again.” That’s another wonderful thing about childbirth. It’s energetic, strenuous, exhausting, painful—and completely forgettable once you have a baby in your arms. He would be back in her good graces again when they heard that first beautiful cry.

      Within moments of Brenda’s husband’s appearance and her wishing a plague upon his head—which many women seem to do in the last stages of birth—Dr. Reynolds arrived.

      He entered so regally and with so much confidence that I almost stood up and saluted.

      I’ve always thought a doctor in a tie and lab coat is attractive, and Dr. Reynolds is no exception. In fact, he may be the standard to which other docs should aspire. His tailored trousers were navy, his shirt white, crisply