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  • Gyms and hopes

    Gyms and hopes

    Black is the colour of my soul. Not in a sick kinda way, but in a metalhead kinda way. I’ve wrote before about how I don’t always fit in, especially with other doula websites. But for always and forever I’ve felt uncomfortable with strongly expressed femininity. I guess that’s why this vibe fits me so well. Give me motorcycles, give me manual labour, give me metalheads… those are my people.

    So do you know where else I sometimes have trouble fitting in? Gyms. And I don’t want to sound like a hater, that girl boss babes or the baddies I inherently don’t like. Bu maybe it’s a self-confidence thing? Maybe I can remember my high school’s bully too vividly. Or maybe I can remember the unique pain of not ‘fitting’ in with all the girlie-girls. But some gyms I do not fit in at all. But I have found two. One is Fortis Fitness is Toronto, the other is Beyond Fitness, a gym in Victoria BC. These two were my absolute favourite experiences I’ve had recently.

    Embrace the pain!

    So I’ve always been athletic and before I got pregnant I was running, biking, and doing yoga. I was fit, happy, and healthy. But once I conceived it all stopped. I remember trying to go for a jog but I had a funny feeling in my lower abdomen and it did not feel good at all bouncy around. I was able to bike for a long time and I think my previous condition really helped in healing from birth. But I’ve had some strong feelings afterward which has led me to try to get as strong as possible.

    I don’t like really talking about it, but I had an urgent C-section and the following recovery just really sucked. I can remember having the hardest time trying to sit up in bed. I simply could not. Mind you, nine months prior I was doing inversions for fun and now in order to get up I had to so this weird sort of roll thing to get up from sleeping. It sucked.

    So at about nine months postpartum I decided I wanted to get as strong as possible. Never again would I struggle to get out of bed. Never again would I need my body to do a thing, and then it fails. So I called Sarah-Jane at Beyond Fitness when I was out in Victoria visiting a friend and she mentioned that Fortis Fitness was a good place back in Toronto. But also she was so kind to help alleviate my fears that I was only going to be a weakling for the rest of my days. Apparently having a baby is hard on a body and the cultural narrative about ‘bouncing’ back is a false one.

    So, maybe I’ll be a baddie after all. Or maybe I’ll go for a muscle mommy who knows…

  • Love is Love

    You know another thing that has always bothered me about most doula’s websites and the industry in general? How hetero-normative it all seems. In addition to soft colors and happy families sprawled across the screen they are almost always straight couples. Now sometimes agencies will put up a POC or a POC family up as tribute to diversity, but if you poke around their site, you can always tell when they are doing to for diversity points only. It’s frustrating and doesn’t feel too good as someone who identifies more on the gender non-binary than the fem side of things.

    I can remember, when I first started off as a doula looking into who my competition is and really being overwhelmed at the large amount of ultra-fem sites. Like, I had to step away from the screen because all I saw was fawning pregnant cis-gendered women lightly caressing their pregnant belly with the biggest smile on their face. Now anyone who has been pregnant knows that this is just a marketing ploy. Some people get lucky with pregnancy, but some others do not. And pregnancy is not like to calm serene pictures that you find. It can be uncomfortable, painful even. Some suffer so much with nausea. Nausea so bad that it never ceases but continues well past the first trimester.

    My body literally felt icky looking at all the cis-gendered happy people on the doula websites. This is not to knock these people, but to show that not everyone is the same. Not everyone wants or even embodies the ‘normal’ pregnancy experience. That’s why I’ve made it an effort to find queer birth doulas, to follow them and to befriend them. Because it feels better to be with people who you fit in with. It feels better to be with people who don’t use unnecessary gendered language. Who have a shared experience with maybe not fitting in. Who are more sensitive to others or who are a bit more radical in their political and social leanings. These types of people are my favourite.

    Sadly, I haven’t met a whole lot a queer or non-binary doulas in real life. Most are in IG or some other social media, but I really wish I could have more in-person experiences with people like me. Also I really hope that pregnant people realize that there are support options out there for them. Support that looks like them, has the same values as them. This is so important for minority groups and it feels so empowering when you do not have to explain yourself, you can just be.

    It’s been hard for me to just ‘be’ in my life. Maybe that’s why I felt the pull into non-traditional birthwork. The thought of me going into an office… no. Just no. It can be hard to choose a profession that seems to fall just outside the standard path most people take, but I am so glad I did.

  • Pizza and Parenting

    Pizza and Parenting

    Parenting is the hardest thing I’ve done, but at least I can still cook

    I’ve had her for over a decade, I think I originally got her from Home Depot? Nothing fancy but gets the job done. I love smoking a brisket when I have the time.
    Check out this smoke line: Fruit-tree wood on charcoal for more than 12 hours.

  • What do pizza and motorcycles have in common? A doula

    What do pizza and motorcycles have in common? A doula

    My 79′ Goldwing with some of its friends

    Most doula websites seem to be ultra-fem; soft images, pretty colors, gendered language, and hetero couples. That’s fine, there’s no shade on those type of sites. It seems like they all follow an invisible pull to arrange their sites in all the same way. There’s always a big picture in the header, often with a pregnant person, or their own face. Also why is there so much pink? Now I’m not anti-pink, because a color has no inherent meaning, meaning is dictated by society. But it’s curious that all the doula sites look the same. I’m not sure if it’s the case of the blind leading the blind or there’s some reason behind it all.

    No matter, here in my blog you will not get that vibe. I am into motorcycles and pizza (obvs!). Also, good food, mostly made by me. This will include pics of my grill which does include meat. So, if you are squeamish about that, this is not the place for you. I let you know up front so you can prevent yourself from seeing images of food that you would rather not. This blog will be a place where I can finally be myself, a person who struggles with feeling like they don’t fit in.  

    That’s the story of my life really, I’ve never felt like I’ve fit in anywhere. However, for my training I did find an awesome doula training agency, BADT. They are a black-owned, queer-run doula training organization. They’re f*cking awesome, I did feel like I fit in with their training courses. Because while this blog may come off as with a slightly more conservative feel (motorcycles!) I am in no way conservative whatsoever. And this informs my doula work, becasue we’re often thought to be advocates. And I would totally agree with that. We advocate for the pregnant person; we advocate for those recently postpartum. We advocate for a change in reproductive health care in whatever country that we’re in, making us in my opinion quite liberal and left-y.

    So, if the initial vibe made you uncomfortable, sorry. I hope you stick around for some motorcycle and pizza talk. There will probably be doula-talk along the way. I’ve met some pretty rad people, people I would have never met except if I was in this line of work. Doulas are f*cking rad, they are some of the most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. They’re also pretty hardcore. They help babies exit other’s bodies. I won’t get into it here, but that’s nuts. Anyways, thanks for being here I hope you stick around.