Your Ignorance is not an excuse.

Doula's are typically hired by their clients to help them understand birth, advocate for their preferences, and be a knowledgeable sounding board throughout labour.

Doula's are often the ones that stand between the hospital system intervening and a wanted physiological birth (like a women’s body is meant to do). I get that some healthcare workers can see Doulas as an enemy when we remind clients of what their preferences are and encourage them to ask questions rather than blindly following the hospital recommendation of "get an epidural, because we don't know for sure what is happening, so this is our best course of action".

Lack of knowledge is not an excuse for pushing an epidural that wasn’t medically necessary onto someone that has clearly stated in their birth plan that they do NOT want it mentioned unless completely medically necessary.

Lack of knowledge is not an excuse for shooting a look at the Doula when they suggest "ok but what if we try (insert different labour position here) to give baby an opportunity to move into the right position, before we visit an epidural. “

Your previous experience with a Doula that you feel did not effectively act in the best interest of their client, does not excuse you for calling me out in front of my client (your patient) accusing me of making management decisions for my client, when you walked into the room 5 minutes ago playing the dead baby card & presenting totally opposite information than what the nurse did 2 minutes ago, because you didn't read the birth plan, let alone the patient’s chart. Then getting even more pissed off at me when my client calls you out in return, defending her decision to have a doula there that she trusts to talk things out with.

Your stubbornness is not an excuse for staying in the room when both myself and my client have asked for space and time to process and understand the options being presented.

Your insecurities are not an excuse for telling a client "you know we're not your enemy right?" when the client questions your knowledge on one of the BASIC premises of how birth works (natural oxytocin production & inturruption).

Your lack of knowledge is not an excuse for "correcting" my client when she calls Pitocin by it's real name, telling her "that is an outdated term, there's not a difference between the natural oxytocin is produced in your body, and the synthetic horomone" that you want to pump into HER body.

Your lack of knowledge of how the body and oxytocin works when the client asks to try a natural way of producing oxytocin, is not an excuse for saying to her "but what if that makes your uterus tired and stressed out before we try the ‘oxytocin medication’ and then we'll definitely end up in the OR". Fear mongering much?

Your TOTAL disregard and unwillingness to read a birth plan, is not an excuse to just go ahead and turn up the oxytocin without explaining what you are doing to the client.

Your TOTAL disregard and unwillingness to read a birth plan, and your dislike for me, is not an excuse to go ahead and clamp the cord to have it cut in the midst of the craziness 2 minutes after a baby is born for dad to cut, even though I said "the client wants to wait longer until the cord is white and no longer pulsing", while also forcing the blood back down to the placenta. Of course I'm not going to yell at you to follow that request while the client is enjoying the most amazing moment of her life holding her newborn after the biggest fight of her life.

Just because you've been delivering babies since the stone age doesn't give you the excuse to hijack someone's once in a life time experience to do what you have always done because that's how you've always done it.

Don't get me wrong, yes there were big pivots to the birth plan because this labour didn't go as expected, and a couple things happened that are VERY uncommon, however, they were variations of normal and mom and baby were perfectly healthy and safe. That being said, those were the MOTHER's decision to make. NOT YOURS.

You may not be the enemy, but when all of these things happen, how can we not help but look at you that way?