Judy Baer - Oh, Baby!

“I was just doing my job. Apparently the woman had been very difficult prior to hiring me, that’s all.”

“You do much more than that,” Lissy said. “I’ve had patients tell me that if they could have one person with them through labor and delivery, they’d pick their doula over their spouses, even over the doctor.”

She eyed me thoughtfully. “So that buzz about the hospital getting some sort of gift was because of you. Impressive.”

“It’s not that big a deal.” There’s been more than one time in my life—and less stressful ones than giving birth—that I would have liked someone to watch over me, give me ice chips, rub my back and turn up the aromatherapy. “A doctor I met at another hospital while his own wife was giving birth encouraged me to pursue it. Dr. Chase Andrews seemed to think it would work.”

“Then why don’t you go to his hospital and ask if you can coordinate Doula Central there?”

“Bradshaw is the hospital that received the money. I’d like to see it here. It’s a five-minute drive from my house. I help Tony with classes here at Bradshaw and—” I hung my head, ashamed to admit I’d been snooping in the nooks and crannies of the hospital “—they have a couple of unused rooms right now. It would be easy to have something up and running there in no time.”

“Bradshaw is a pretty staid private hospital,” Lissy pointed out. “But it seems that agreeing to spend money already specified for a doula program wouldn’t be that difficult. What is standing in your way now?”

“The new wrinkle is Dr. Clay Reynolds. Everyone defers to him, and I know he’s opposed. He steamrolled right over me and my client. His form of medicine is ‘my way or the highway.’ There’s no way he’ll encourage this.”

“Just the kind of guy that bothers you most.” Lissy looked concerned. “Don’t stir up any trouble, Molly. People love you and you have a great reputation, but if Bradshaw has to choose between you and their new golden-boy doctor, you know they won’t choose you.”

I know that all too well. It’s just that I care so much about seeing this happen and I believe so completely in what doulas do. We make a difference.

“I’ve already spent way too much time trying to figure out what Clay Reynolds’s problem is. It’s getting boring.”

“Yeah. What’s not to like about birthing coaches? You’d think he’d like the idea of having someone in the room calming nervous mothers before they give birth. You’ll just have to prove to him how indispensable you are.”

“I’m as ‘indispensable’ as tissue paper as far as Reynolds is concerned. It’s written all over his face.”

“His very handsome face,” Lissy corrected.

“When he looks at me it’s as if he smells bad cheese or sour milk.”

“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating just a little?”

I thought about my encounter with Dr. Reynolds on my way out of the hospital after Brenda’s delivery. I was carrying my inflated exercise ball and CD player, equipment I use for my clients during labor. If I’d had a dirty pitchfork over my shoulder and the fragrance of eau de cow barn as my perfume, he wouldn’t have looked any more distressed to see me. Surely my Birkenstocks hadn’t been what pushed him over the edge.

“Don’t worry. He’ll loosen up.”

“I’m not so sure. He’s a throwback to the 1950s, as far as I’m concerned.”

“What a shame. He’s probably one of the best-looking men I’ve ever met.” Then Lissy shrugged her shoulders and held out her hands, palms up. “But pretty is as pretty does, and this whole thing doesn’t look all that attractive.”

My cell phone rang and Lissy groaned. “Don’t tell me our shopping trip is over.”

I flipped open the phone. “Hello….”

“Hey, beautiful. Did you forget our date?”

“Tony? What are you talking about…?” I glanced at my wristwatch. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I’ll hold the fort, but they will be wanting you.”

I closed my phone. “Sorry, Lissy, I have to go. Tony’s waiting for me at the free clinic. We volunteered to do a class for expectant moms today. I can’t believe I forgot.”

“It was that dumb skirt you bought,” I heard Lissy mumble behind me. “All those colors made you go insane.”

The free clinic is not much to look at but it serves the purpose. Built in the seventies, the rooms are small and sterile-looking with ugly tan-and-brown tile and white cinderblock walls. Still, it’s clean, and the volunteers have hung brightly colored pictures on all the walls. In the pediatric area, there are bright, childlike drawings everywhere. The room in which Tony and I do our Lamaze classes has posters of babies in utero, showing the amazing growth from a few cells to a fully formed infant.

Tony had already set up the room for class and was standing, legs spread, knees locked and arms crossed over his chest, with his back to the room, staring out the window onto the street. He dipped his head in recognition as I moved to stand beside him but he didn’t turn to look at me.

“You believe in God, right, Molly?”

“Of course. So do you.”

Tony is from a large, boisterous family with a strong background of faith. That is one of the things that I enjoy most about him, his openness to conversation about faith. “Why would you ask?”

“Do you doubt Him sometimes?”

I took a sip from the cup of muddy coffee I’d poured upon entering. “I’m human, if that’s what you mean. Sure I doubt…and question…and wonder…but I always come to the same conclusion.”

“And that is?”

“That He’s up there and I’m down here and He knows best.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think, too, but…”

“Did something happen to put you in this mood?”

“My older sister called this morning. She and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for nearly five years and they’ve finally decided to pursue adoption.” His gaze locked on a boarded-up store-front across the street. “Why do some families get to experience a pregnancy and bring home a baby and others don’t?”

“You know the scientific answers better than I do.”

He looked at me despairingly.

“‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy,’” I murmured. “Proverbs 13:12.”

“My sister and her husband are heartsick right now, that’s for sure.”

It’s easy to move from optimistic and expectant to despondent and give up hope when we don’t get what we want. I have traveled that path plenty and I’ve only figured out one solution.

“I like to remind myself that hope is deferred. It’s delayed, not canceled or destroyed.”

“So you think that just because you don’t get something right away, that doesn’t mean you will never get it?”

“I may not get it in the form I expected, but I have to trust I’ll get something better.”

“When does ‘life and joy’ come, then?”

“The Old Testament saints waited a long time for Christ to come. That’s what that verse talks about.”

“My sister hasn’t got that long.”

“Sometimes God gives us something even better than what we think we want.”

Tony looked irritated. “What’s better than a baby?”

“You’ve got me there.” I put my hand on his arm. “I don’t know the answers, Tony. I doubt I even know the questions. Sometimes I just have to trust that things will work out. That’s what God asks of us, after all.”

I recalled a verse from Luke that I’d learned in Sunday School. “‘Don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom.’”