That's it - I'm hooked!!

[SwampCat, BSN]

Ever since my son was born I started to think I wanted to do something with L&D or postpartum. I started my pre-pre-req's for nursing school, thinking I have to start somewhere and maybe I'd find something other than L&D that'd catch me, but today solidified my original thoughts. I attended my friend's homebirth. And I wouldnt even call us close friends. I have only known her for a few months, and we met by her posting an ad on craigslist looking for a part time sitter. We got to know eachother a bit and found we have a lot in common. Her midwives are an hour away from our town and her husband's work is an hour in the other direction and her family is an hour in another direction, so she told me she would call me if she went into labor because she didnt want to be alone. She called at 11:45 this morning saying she was in labor. My response was, "Get out! Are you serious?!" I grabbed my son and flew over there and hung with her while she labored. Her daughter and my son played and I'd run back and forth between checking on the kids and checking on her and getting her warm blankets or cool compresses or starting a bath or getting toast. I absolutely LOVED it!! I was in my glory! The midwives showed up and then shortly thereafter so did her husband and her aunt (who was originally suppose to take care of her daughter while she birthed). I still took care of the crock pot of warm compresses and the dryer full of warming blankets but I was no longer by her side and that disappointed me. I loved being there, in her face, telling her she's doing awesome, rubbing her back, refreshing water, etc. Then for a while she tried to nap so I took the kids upstairs to play. A while later I came down and heard that tell-tale moan-grunt of baby descending and I watched her birth her beautiful baby girl into her own arms as the midwives and daddy watched. It was the most amazingly beautiful, perfect thing I have ever seen in my life. It totally beat out watching births on youtube. I stood in the background and watched it all, feeling completely honored and humbled to be able to be part of such a special moment in this family's life. After the placenta delivered I went up into the bedroom and fixed up the bed so it would be all nice and cozy for mom and family to snuggle into later. I went back downstairs to say goodbye and held the little angel and had tears of absolute joy/astonishment. I told them to call me if they needed anything taken care of (groceries, bringing their daughter to preschool, etc) and drove home totally elated. I want this to be my career. I want it so bad, it's almost unbearable to think I'm still a few yrs from even entering nursing school. I'm thinking I'll have to do the doula route first. I need to do this again!

[SmilingBluEyes]

Sounds like you are stoked. I witnessed my first birth when I took a friend who was in labor to the hospital and I was only 18. She had no support person and the hospital nurses gave me permission to stay (this was not really common at that time; it was quite a while ago in a military hospital). Anyhow I was just as jazzed as you sound and just thrilled with the whole privelege of being witness to this miracle of birth. I knew I wanted to do this again one day. But it was several years before I had my own babies and later still before I really actually got the chance to go to school and become a nurse and do just that (take care of laboring families).

Anyhow, nursing or doula training, there are a couple routes you can go. I would agree with obtaining doula certification and seeing how you like that first. You could obtain nursing education and/or midwifery education and certification later, if desired.

I wish you the best of luck.

If you need help finding an educational route or have specific questions let us know. Congratulations to the new family. Wonderful to witness birth of new parents and baby.