01/10/2024
🇺🇸 After years and years of serving families as a doula, today marks the end of an era. Doula Flavia, with a heart full of gratitude now steps aside to give way exclusively to Midwife Flavia. This cycle comes to an end today, after accompanying my last client. It was a long labor, living up to its name — “labor” indeed. Yes, it’s hard work.
I have no idea how many families I’ve served, how many babies I’ve seen born — I even had the chance to catch a baby recently (a little baby in a hurry who didn’t want to wait until getting in the hospital) — but I know I was blessed and touched by each one of them. With every family, I learned, I grew as a person, I laughed and cried with them.
Many families still keep in touch with me. Many have become friends. Some I never saw again. But all of them hold a place in my heart.
I’ve seen and lived through so much over these years. After all, it’s not only the good stories that fill a chapter of life. I’ve embraced women after pregnancy losses, cried with some in difficult situations, witnessed babies being resuscitated, and saw mothers in delicate conditions (to be clear: both in vaginal and cesarean births). Some families were abusive to me (yes, who hasn’t gone through that?), but I can say that for every difficult situation, there were many incredible ones, which made the hard times just learning experiences.
I also saw plan A turn into plan B, C, or D. And there we were, all together, making each experience unique and often healing. Vaginal birth, natural birth, cesarean, water birth, in the shower, in the elevator, by the roadside, at home, in a birth center, in the hospital. Births! Lives shouting to be lived!
I’ve supported people I knew, people I didn’t know, online, over the phone. I supported for love.
From now on, Doula Flavia will remain in my heart, still present in the birth stories of many families around the world.
Doula Flavia thanks each one of you who trusted my work and allowed me to witness life happening.
Doula Flavia bids farewell, waving to the arrival of Midwife Flavia.