- I wanted to get a doula because I felt disenfranchised
as a person of color.
- Navigating the hospital as a black woman, it feels like
they’re expecting us to be trouble.
- It’s very easy for black women’s pain to be dismissed.
But the blessing is that Efe was there.
- I’m there to empower her.
- We can’t have both our backs hurting.
- Hold me baby, just hold me.
- [Laughing]
- We are Kevin and Khadija, we live in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
- And I’m 38 weeks pregnant.
- He’s hungry.
- And this is our second child.
- We’ve been together for, six years. Yes.
- Six years. Yeah.
- I wasn’t expecting to give him any time of day.
- She was playing hard to get, but she was so easy to be
around. I was just in love with her eyes when I first saw her
and I’m like ‘whoa, I can actually see a future here. She
made me challenge myself and who I am.
- You’re adorable.
- I love you.
- I love you, too.
- Olivia, please don’t cross your eyes.
- Olivia is a bundle of energy.
- Very, very intelligent.
- So smart.
- She’s got like, logic for days.
- Very expressive. She knows how to express herself. I love her
to pieces.
- [singing]
- When I had Olivia, I was not prepared for that at all, the
doctors weren’t explaining anything to me, they were just
going with the flow and then just, like, ‘okay do this, do
that.' We’re going to tell you that you have to get induced.
We’re going to tell you that you have to have an epidural, we’re
going to tell you that you have to do the C-section.
- Yeah.
- And you have no choice or say in the matter. They didn’t give
us enough information, so we couldn’t even make an informed
decision, I can imagine if I had a doula, then a doula would be
able to tell me, like, ‘okay, you have rights and your rights
are this, that, and the third.”
- Hey.
- I really wanted to get a doula this time around because I knew
that I need a little bit more coaching.
- Yeah. Hi, hi.
- My name is Efe Osaren and I’m a birth doula.
Khadija was assigned to me from the doula collective that I
work for in New York City that serves low income clients.
- When I met Khadija, I thought she was a character. She’s very
funny. She’s very joyous. She has a lot of energy and her
daughter is like, the exact same.
- We’re days away, I hear we’re one centimeter.
- Yes.
- We're already dilating.
- Yes, the cramps are killing me.
- So when I’m working with moms who had a traumatic past birth,
I'm working on not to re-trigger them and not to bring up
memories of that trauma.
- Here you go.
- [exhaling]
- When I explained how I felt disenfranchised as a person of
color, in terms of in the medical field, she was like ‘I
get it, it’s very easy for black women’s pain to be dismissed.’
- That’s good. And that feels good?
- Yes.
- Navigating the hospital as a black women it feels like
they’re expecting us to be trouble.
- To me, I think that’s the reason why the struggle with our
first child was that vast because we didn’t see anyone of
color there.
- I’m going to be help there to support you and advocate for
you.
- Now I feel more prepared, I feel more relaxed.
And I feel more confident.
- Olivia are you ready? To be a big sister.
- The next morning, at 7 a.m., I got a text message from
her saying that she was, she thought that she was in
active labor. And so I just texted her throughout the day.
- You ready?
Are you?
- I wanted to try and lay down and get some rest and Efe was
like ‘it’s probably the best thing that you can do is just
try and relax, and that your body can run the course that it
needs to without you being super stressed.’
- Oh it started?
- Yeah it started. It started. I did, I did.
- After a couple of hours we contacted Efe and you know,
she was like, ‘alright, let’s get this ball rolling you
know cause it seems like things are getting pretty serious.’
- I hadn’t gotten any sleep. I hadn’t been able to eat, and I
was just uncomfortable. And I was like, after being
uncomfortable for this long, I should be somewhere.
- Don’t hold it in.
- But Efe is amazing.
- You feel like you have to tense up, just moan it out.
- Okay.
- She keeps me in the right mindset to be prepared for
anything. If you have somebody who is reassuring you then you
feel prepared for whatever comes across.
- So, we’re at the hospital, Khadija’s contractions are about
2-3 minutes apart, but they’re not lasting like a minute long.
She’s in triage with Kevin, her fiance, to see how much longer
we have left.
- I was only 2 centimeters apart, which is like, nothing.
I was heartbroken.
- It felt like forever, it felt like I was just in pain for the
longest, which probably isn’t the truth.
- Efe says it was for an hour, but it felt like 24 to me.
Probably because the night before was also pretty intense.
- My role is to make sure that I am protecting her. And it is
also to make sure that I am helping their family. And to
assist. So whatever she’s wanting me to do, whatever her
birth plan says. Whatever she needs me to help advocate for
herself. I’m there to empower her.
- Allow me to move around and get comfortable and try
different things, and she was super calm and patient.
- After she labored at home for a few hours, later that evening
we went back to the hospital, I’m in the back seat with
Khadija.
- My biggest fear was they were going to tell me like, ‘oh, we
need to do a C-section.’ Because of just, how bad it was, before.
- This time, I felt like it was a completely different
situation.
- The blessing was that Efe was there, and she was able to
give me the knowledge that I needed even before giving birth.
- As a black doula, helping black women, I feel like, okay,
we’re going to go in this hospital, we’re going to do this
work and we’re going to come out with a baby, and we’re going to
be healthy and we going to be happy — we are not going to have
the experience that you would have had had I not been here to
help you.
- [laughter] He does look like you. But don’t worry, when he
gets older he’s going to look like me.
- How did you feel about the labor part?
- I didn’t realize how soon I was going to be ready to push.
- I feel like you were the best on all fours.
- Yeah.
- Cause you knew how to like, pull back, and knew where to put the-
- To put the pressure.
- This feels good! I’m accomplished, I did it. I’m a
success. I feel like a mom now. Not that Olivia didn’t give me
that same joy, it’s just that I felt robbed of that.
- You were awesome, you were real awesome.
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- You came in the clutch.
I was like ‘oh, thank God she’s here’.
I don’t have to think about these things alone, I don’t have
to doubt myself anymore or doubt what I’m going through or doubt
the validity of my concerns.
I can do this, I’m a mommy and I’ve got a beautiful
daughter and I’ve got this beautiful son and he’s got all
this hair, and I’m breastfeeding and I thought it was impossible,
I didn’t think that I was capable of doing any of it.
- Thank you so much.
- You’re welcome.
- Bye Efe.