Jamil -the partner’s perspective

Being the man, you might think you have it easy; especially compared to the one actually giving birth.  This was our first child, and I can tell you from experience, as the man, and the father, it was truly the most difficult experience.  Hiring a doula was the best thing I did, and not probably, but for sure.  Without a doula I would have been completely lost, especially this being our first.  (Beth came in early in the morning, just a little bit before my wife went through contractions, and had a fresh cup of coffee for me, and from that point, she told me to leave and do what I needed to do; eat, smoke, or whatever I wanted to do.  I ran outside, had a quick smoke, and came back to my wife.  Beth was there sitting by my wife the whole time, until she started contractions.  Beth was there the whole time coaching my wife, and massaging my wife the whole time, as I was walking around frantically not knowing what to do, but she was there and made sure my wife and I were ok.  At one point, she told me to go have lunch, it was around noon or so, and I told her that I didn’t have an appetite, and I just stayed.  I felt really bad after an hour of her telling me to go have lunch realizing that she hadn’t had a lunch yet, so I told her to go and eat something, and she didn’t, she stayed with us the whole time, giving my wife points on how to make the contractions go easier.  During the actual birthing process, I thought I lost both my wife and son, not knowing what to do, but Beth was calm and made me calm down too, and said that everything is fine and normal, a few minutes later I heard my son crying- my wife went through a pretty hard labor and was a little out of the norm.  After the birth, Beth stayed for another hour to make sure all our questions were answered and that we were all comfortable, and after that she left so we could be with our baby.  2 weeks after that, Beth came to our apartment to check up on us, coached my wife some more on being a new mom, and just really helped us and made us comfortable.  Words cannot describe how helpful Beth was to us, and for as much as she charged us, she was definitely worth 3 times more than that, and my wife and I both decided that we were going to hire Beth for our second child.  Whoever decides to have their first child, or more, you should definitely hire a doula, and I recommend Beth from personal experience.