Brought to you by Amy I. Catania
Doula, Birthing From Within® Mentor and Anti-Violence Advocate
Learn more about Amy.
Rachel Dolan Wickersham CD(DONA), LCCE
Doula,
Midwife in Training and Doula Trainer
Learn more about Rachel Subscribe to ChicagoDoula via email
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Post by Amy Catania on December 2nd, 2010 This is Amy, writing on Rachel’s behalf. This morning, after I returned from a long birth, she and I had our first chance to speak in person since a fire destroyed her family’s home and killed a family cat. Her family and other pets escaped safely. She has begun plucking small salvageable items from the ruins and slowly working on the enormous task of putting things back together again. Helping her through all of this has been a community of amazing folks in Chicago and far beyond – both online and in person.
Rachel wants everyone to know how extremely grateful she is for the outpouring of support she and her family have received from loved ones and strangers alike. She said:
“Please just let everyone know I am just so grateful, so overwhelmed by all of the love and support we’ve received. My family and I feel like, for people who have had their house burn down, we are some of the luckiest people ever.”
She says she is still in survival mode, but already realizing how thinking like a doula and midwife student helped get her through. And when she is able, she knows she will have some stories to tell! In the meantime, she appreciates you holding her and her family in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.
Post by Rachel Dolan Wickersham on September 30th, 2010 Illinois midwifery and home birth have gotten a lot of national attention lately. In late August, there was a Time Magazine article on the controversies surrounding home birth in the U.S.A. In the opening paragraph, there was a description of an Illinois home birth mama who eventually jumped the border to have her baby in Missouri because the home birth situation in Illinois was so full of angst.
Late last week, the New York Times published an entire article about Illinois home birth. The title was (to us activists) exciting and provocative – “Use of Midwives Rises, Challenging the State to Respond”. This article features an Illinois student midwife who crossed the border, moving to Wisconsin to complete her education and work legally. Also in the same article, is an Illinois mama who moved to Wisconsin to follow her midwife.
Is there a pattern here?? Yes – moms and midwives crossing the border into friendlier states. It’s as if there are signs at the border pointing AWAY from our state → This Way To A Better Birth.
This is only half the story, however. The Coalition for Illinois Midwifery is also aware of women bringing midwives IN to Illinois. Although not clearly stated in the NYT article, some of the mamas interviewed actually imported their home birth midwives from other states. And they’re not the only ones. Over the past several years Illinois home birth mothers have brought midwives in from Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Oregon, Montana, California, and probably quite a few more.
Bringing a midwife in or taking a jaunt across the border are both viable options for women, but are they really the best options?
Comfort is an issue. Anyone who remembers the last few weeks of their pregnancy knows the last thing they want to do is take a long drive anywhere, much less in labor.
Safety is an issue. Should a woman need a higher level of care, her imported midwife is unlikely to be familiar with the local options. And for mamas who have traveled, ending up in a strange hospital, miles from their supportive network of friends and family, can negatively impact their well-being.
Pride is an issue. Can we not serve our own?
With national attention finally on the subject, we can hope that our state legislature will find it in their hearts to make sure that women who choose home birth in Illinois, have enough providers willing to serve them. Given that we have at least 30 years of evidence that nurse-midwives and physicians cannot and will not meet that demand, it is time to recognize those who will and assure that they have met national certification standards. Licensure of certified professional midwives (CPMs) is the only way.
Otherwise we’d better start building those border signs.
Post by Amy Catania on September 8th, 2010 Here’s a little love for all my fellow doulas. We know that every mama has a perfect doula match out there somewhere, but not every doula will fit the bill. So it is okay and expected that every potential client interview or phone call won’t result in a match.
Even still, it would be nice if they did, no? So when an expectant mama in her third trimester said this to me a couple of days ago it gave me a good belly laugh and is still making me smile: “I’ve never met a doula who was like, a bitch.”
Post by Rachel Dolan Wickersham on June 4th, 2010 So Amy is trying to get me to blog. I have to say, I have never considered this and am not so sure how good I’ll be at this. I’m only here because she has the smarts and the drive to get us both here. Maybe I can start by giving you the back story. For the past 15 years, I’ve practiced as a childbirth educator, doula, doula trainer and occasional midwife’s assistant. I’ve used the web since the beginning and have always used the screen name identity “ChicagoDoula.” But as the web developed, I remained a very basic user – email, the occasional instant message, web-browsing.
I always thought I should make more of it. I even took a website design class. I created a draft version of a very pretty website. And it sat there on my computer for years. I had no idea how to get it published. Two years ago I finally figured out that I needed to purchase a domain name. So I did. But that sat there too. When Facebook came along, I figured it out to some degree, though I only have personal pages – no business page.
Then along came Amy, a new doula on the block, with some really neat ideas. She hoped to develop a website and call it ChicagoDoula.net. I agreed to this because after all, though I’d been using the name for years, I did not yet have a website and thought I would never get around to it. Amy began building the site and after a time we realized it was something we could work on together. We began to think of ChicagoDoula as a concept rather than a specific person and several months later, here we are.
Who is ChicagoDoula? She is a little bit of everything, just like the city she serves. She is an activist, a doula, a mother, a midwife (of babies or ideas or communities), a mentor and a student. She is experienced and wise, yet she is fresh and enthusiastic and full of new ideas. She is knowledgeable about a variety of childbirth preparation techniques and is comfortable working with them. She believes that life is precious and she also believes in a woman’s right to make a full range of decisions about her reproductive health care – whether that means choosing to terminate a pregnancy, choosing an epidural for labor, or choosing a homebirth with an underground midwife. She strives to help women understand the full implications of their choices and help them find their innate power, so their choices are not driven by fear. She understands that there is no single right answer for any given situation. She is willing to support women in whatever choice is right for them.
ChicagoDoula loves her city and the people in it. She joyfully serves families from all walks of life. She is ever-hopeful with a strong vein of cynical, anti-racist, queer-friendly, working on recognizing her privileges as well as her own internalized oppression, challenging others and herself to see and understand things differently. When faced with obstacles, she looks for creative solutions rather than struggling to achieve particular outcomes.
She envisions a world where all women get the support they need across the spectrum of pregnancy, labor, birth and parenting – a world where every woman in every community has access to the information and support she wants and needs so that she can be affirmed in her choices.
She envisions a world where women are respected, safe, honored and empowered.
In short, ChicagoDoula is many things. We invite you to get to know her, us, as we continue posting here and continue building our websites.
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