“Vaginal examinations done by many different people.” A woman said this about her birth experience, and that will forever be etched in my memory. What is a vaginal examination? The vaginal examination is often done routinely on women, in the context of pregnancy and childbirth care. The health professional inserts two fingers into the woman’s […]

When for example, we are invited to a dinner party at someone else´s house, consciously or unconsciously, we expect to hear from the host on where we are to sit, if we need to bring anything, if we can help in any way, etc. There are many invisibly established social codes about how a host […]

I barely even know you but I love you so much already. I went online to see what you might look like right about now. You look like a fish to me. My little, littlest fish baby. The first trimester. You swim inside of me, tiny and already so present. What a special time this […]

Someone gave my youngest son one of those individual banana cases, in bright yellow plastic. My immediate thought was “it sure is going to be hard to find bananas that will fit perfectly inside this thing”. The banana in question would have to be the exact length, width, have the exact curvature as the little […]

So the “magical” date has passed. It´s come and gone and it seems nothing´s happening. And the next days have turned into another week and still nothing seems to be happening. You´re starting to wonder. Your doctor has mentioned the “I” word, the one you did not want to hear. And gracefully but surely, you […]

She´s crying. Lately she’s been crying a lot. But why? 38 weeks pregnant, for the second time, of a healthy baby, everything going well. She cries because she has no “signs.” Signs of labour. There is nothing to indicate that things are about to begin – nothing visible, palpable, reportable anyway. The ghost of her […]

On a regular day, after leaving my youngest at school, I came upon a magazine cover. A TV personality holds her new born baby, and states she is eager to return to the gym in a few days’ time. According to the magazine, she has an enviable figure. And perhaps because I am surrounded by […]

One of the first things I realized when I became a Doula was that DOULAS ARE NOT ALWAYS WELCOME. It´s worth repeating: Doulas are not always welcome. This came as a surprise and a bit of a shock. Doulas are associated with gentle birth and with guarding a woman´s space as she births. Surely that […]