Ma Doula

by Stephanie Sorensen

  ~Common Knowledge Trust

  Chapter 28: A Different Dad . . . and Forgiveness

  I kept bumping into dear Suzanne in the Somali neighborhood where I often work. She had a little store on one of the side streets. A forty-something quintissentially Irish woman with flaming red hair, she was raising two boys and a daughter within a very unhappy marriage.

  We got along as if we had been kindred spirits in a past life. We were both very moved by the recent influx of African refugees to Minneapolis, both of us finding little ways to make them feel welcomed and helping to make their move halfway around the world a little easier. Suzanne was able to employ some of the teenagers in her store and begged donations of warm coats to give out during their first winter in America. For most, it was their first experience of snow.

  We soon realized we could do twice as much if the two of us teamed up, so we did. With her car and my referrals for expectant moms in the nearby neighborhoods, we started doing what we could, finding church and Salvation Army food pantries to help families; we even found shelters for homeless moms. We took one mom on a shopping spree when it looked like she would burst her non-maternity clothes.

  I figured the bad-marriage stuff was none of my business but when she and I became such close friends, she decided to tell me her story. I listened. She had been praying for her husband for most of their nineteen years together. Many years earlier a priest had counseled that if she fasted and prayed enough, she could fix their marriage and somehow “cure” her husband’s alcoholism. Year after year of abuse continued and the advice she got was to pray harder. At one point she did pray harder: that she would die and the whole nightmare would be over. She fantasized about a car accident that would be swift and virtually painless. She fasted until she became anorexic.

  Her father had also been abusive, so when she married and things began to go downhill she figured it was just the “new normal.” She blamed herself and her lack of faith. Maybe if she was able to become “good enough” he wouldn’t treat her so badly or drink so much. She went to church, sometimes daily. They drifted into two molds: one good, attempting to be a martyr perhaps; the other, an unrepentant sinner.

  I couldn’t believe that in this day and age people would put up with so much hurt for so very long. I told Suzanne that I only wanted to support her and be a friend, but that I could not have withstood what she had endured for so long. I told her I would kick him out and only then pray for him. I did not believe any God or higher power would demand this suffering of her. There was no way that that was right. End of sermon.

  So she did. She kicked him out. It was liberating. Freeing. But it was hard raising teenagers alone and trying to work and keep the business afloat. The business did go under, but at that point it was the least of her worries.

  Over soup in my apartment one day she told me she was three months pregnant. She was convinced her kids would hate her, her church would judge her, and her family would be furious with her. She admitted that she had thought about an abortion for a fleeting moment, but that was all. She could not do it.

  I told her that I still loved her and would do anything at all to help her in the coming months and that this baby must have a very special task here on earth. And of course I would be her doula.

  Over the next weeks we continued to talk about how this baby must have a very special mission here on earth, though we could not imagine what that might be. We would find out soon enough.

  I had not pried into the circumstances of this baby’s appearance but one day Suzanne offered to tell me about it. While she was working in the neighborhood she had met someone tall, dark, and handsome. He was Irish and nice, the nicest man she had ever met. He knew how to treat a woman. It was totally new to Suzanne. No one had ever not hurt her. She fell in love.

  Eventually she did tell her kids. The older ones were shocked and one stopped talking to her. The youngest was still confused by the separation, and now was trying to deal with another shock. She assured them all that they would make it, that things would get better and that she was excited there would be a baby in the house. They were still a family and they still had the house and each other. It would be okay.

  Then the tall, handsome love of her life vanished as if into thin air, simply disappeared. No one has heard from him since.

  Suzanne and I continued to do what we could at the women’s shelters and in the refugee community. Before we knew it, her midwife was talking about induction and a C-section for a whole host of reasons, though her age was not one of them. Her care was transferred to the clinic’s obstetrician. Suzanne was ready to be un-pregnant by this time. Pregnancy in one’s forties is not fun. The date was set and we tried to get psyched up. It wasn’t what we had hoped for this birth, but it was okay.

  The week before B-Day, who should appear but Suzanne’s ex-husband, asking if they could go for a walk and talk. They met and walked every night that week. He had started therapy to address his issues—the drinking, the abuse, all of it. He also wanted her to know he had started going to church. He didn’t want to lose his family or her. He asked her forgiveness and said he would agree to counseling or anything else she wanted. He knew she had no reason to take him back.

  He also pointed out that the baby she was carrying would need a daddy to bring her up. Suzanne was floored, to say the least. She couldn’t imagine why he would want her back, especially with a baby that was not his. At this point they both realized neither was a lost soul nor a saint. She asked his forgiveness. They were both on the same bench for the very first time in their nineteen-year relationship. They both felt somehow unworthy and needing forgiveness. He wanted to step up and be there for her, be a better dad to his kids, and stop throwing everything dear to him out the window.

  I continued to be wary of his sincerity but Suzanne agreed to take him back on a trial basis, with absolute agreement on his part to her list of requirements.

  Then he told her he wanted to be at the delivery to support her. He had been there for the last three and didn’t see that this one was any different. I doubted this guy was for real. I had turned into a skeptic, but she was determined to give him yet another chance.

  And he was there. He asked to hold the baby as soon as she was born and proudly danced around the operating room with her. One of the nurses commented, “Oh, look! She has your eyes!” to him, at which Suzanne and I rolled ours at each other.

  As this is being written, he has turned out to be for real. It hasn’t always been easy, but when Suzanne told me one day that she found it sad that her baby would never know her real dad, I told her in no uncertain terms that her husband was her baby’s real daddy, that the Creator had brought the perfect daddy for her back and she should never again doubt that. This baby does have a mission: she is a real peacemaker, as much as Gandhi or Mother Teresa. I had never seen anything like it before.

  “Ask me for strength and I will lend not only my hand, but also my heart.”

  ~Anonymous

  Chapter 29: Waiting for Radiya

  It was a Thursday night. My bag was packed and sitting by our front door. Two whole outfits were clean and hanging in the closet. The sticky note was still on the door by the lock so I couldn’t miss it, reminding me to bring my phone, phone cord, keys, snacks, etc.

  Radiya was due yesterday. She worked nights at the St. Paul-Minneapolis Airport assembling the little meals offered for sale on airplanes. She stood at an assembly line with hundreds of other immigrant men and women from 3:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. every morning, as her swollen ankles told me.

  We had met the previous week at the clinic where I could avail myself of the Amharic translator. Many of the 70,000 African immigrants live in ethnic clusters throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul. A large group of Ethiopians in Radiya’s neighborhood have their own clinic with culture-specific assets: women translators, women nurses, and women midwives only, si
nce few Muslim women would be allowed—or even wish—to see a male practitioner.

  After Radiya’s appointment she was given a portable crib, still new in its box, and another box with baby clothes, diapers, and blankets. I knew she shouldn’t lift the crib box and would be taking a taxi home after her appointment. I had taken a bus to the clinic so I offered to go home with her in the taxi and do the lifting.

  When we got there the taxi driver unloaded the boxes from the trunk onto the sidewalk and drove off, so I wrestled with the boxes while Radiya held open the doors to her building. I unpacked the crib and found the assembly instructions. They were not as simple as I had hoped. While I worked on it in the living room she fixed us lunch. I finally got the crib together and standing, but when we each took an end and tried to walk it into the bedroom, we couldn’t get it through the doorway. I tipped it up on a side and then on its end and it still wouldn’t fit. I didn’t know that doulas need a certificate in carpentry. So we took it back out to the living room and disassembled it. We carried all the pieces into the bedroom and set it up once again, from scratch, and faster that time.

  It barely fit between the wall and the bed but we got it in the room. The bed took up more than three quarters of the tiny bedroom. I suggested she leave the crib in the living room so she had a place for the baby while she cooked and just keep her baby in bed with her during the night. She had been well drilled at the clinic about the dangers of sleeping with her baby and seemed shocked that I would even suggest it. I asked if they had cribs back in Ethiopia and she laughed and said, “Of course not!” So I asked her what she thought her baby would prefer, being with her where he could nurse and see and smell his mama or off alone in a crib? I went over the basics of safe co-sleeping and told her how we had done it with our five children, even with our twins, reminding her that all pillows and blankets should be clear of the baby and he could have his own small blanket or go to bed in a warm bunting or suit.

  When all the plastic wrap and boxes were cleaned up she invited me to the table to have lunch with her. She made her own bread, a round white loaf fragrant with spices and black pepper. A mug of hot, sweet, milky cardamom tea added to the warmth of the apartment.

  Radya’s husband was still in Ethiopia. She explained that when she becomes a citizen she could sponsor him, though she might have to wait up to five years for the whole process. As a U.S. resident with a green card, she could go back to visit him and still return to the U.S. So she came to Minnesota to work and to make her little apartment a home for when they can be together again.

  The following evening my husband and I drove to the same housing project for a postpartum follow-up visit with another Ethiopian family. We were surprised when we got there to see Radiya in Belem’s kitchen. We learned they were best friends and Radiya cooked for her friend every day since she got home from the hospital with her new baby. I had called ahead and explained to the new daddy that we wouldn’t stay long, but that I wanted to drop off some baby clothes and have them fill out the survey for the doula program that I was required to turn in, but I knew when we got there that there was no way we were going to be leaving within the next hour.

  It was an interesting visit. I looked at the baby in his crib and asked when he had last nursed. He was tiny at birth, just five pounds. She said it had been at least three hours, maybe more. I asked how long he had been sleeping during the night and they both agreed it was four hours or more. It was sweltering in the apartment, though it was winter, so I suggested they unwrap him a bit. As they did so I realized he had on two blankets, a fuzzy sleeper, a little dress under that, and a onesie under that. And socks.

  When he stretched and yawned I noticed his mouth and lips were quite dry, but there was no evidence of jaundice. I switched gears and we talked about breastfeeding him more often and I laid out some ideas for that. His mom changed his diaper while we were talking and I was very surprised to see that he had not been circumcised. I looked at his dad and he explained that the insurance company just cut off (pun not intended) all non-emergency services and they couldn’t have it done in the hospital because of that. They had shopped around and the going price at all of the clinics that performed circumcisions charged a flat $600.

  I explained that circumcision is no longer deemed a necessary medical procedure by all of the American doctors’ and pediatricians’ organizations. I also explained that numerous studies had shown that not having it done does not increase the child’s chances of getting infections, HIV, or AIDS later in life. I explained that all little boys need to be taught correct washing and that it is even considered by many today as genital mutilation and an offense against boys who have no say in what is happening to them.

  Half of the people at the apartment were Muslim and the other half Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, all educated, some with graduate degrees. None of the people present that night felt that circumcision was part of some rite of initiation. None subscribed to the idea that it was exclusively cultural, either. For both the Christians and Muslims, it was ordained by their religions. The Ethiopian Orthodox Christians cited the Old Testament injunction and the Muslims the Quran.

  I told them that my own sons, Abraham and Isaac, were not circumcised and when they grew up both had said that they were glad it had not been done to them as babies. One of the women said that beyond the religious reasons, women prefer men who have been circumcised. I asked why.

  I couldn’t believe we were having such a frank discussion in mixed company. This was a first for me. Either we visited as women only and talked about labor and birth, or I visit a couple and the conversation usually stays on a somewhat formal level.

  She explained that it is just nicer, cleaner, not as ugly, and she could not imagine sex with a man who had not had it done. I laughed and discreetly pointed to my husband who was still enjoying his ingera and dahl and didn’t see my message at all. They got quite a laugh out of that!

  I understood what the symbol represents for them within both religions and I realized that I had just wandered into quite a minefield. One of the dads even suggested that they could take their sons back to Ethiopia when they were five. They could be circumcised and see the relatives at the same time. The two mothers present protested, saying that it would hurt so much more when their precious little sons were older.

  My fear was that an immigrant in Minnesota who had seen it done back in the old country would start doing it himself, “underground,” so to speak.

  Over the next several days, I called a few clinics and found out that very few insurance companies were still covering the cost of circumcisions. The lowest fee I could find was $377, which would still be quite a lot for an immigrant family. Then I found out that one hospital had their residents do them for free for patients who gave birth to their babies there. Next I called the hospital that most of the Ethiopians used and asked if they knew that the other hospital was offering circumcisions free and that they were at risk of losing an entire customer base because they were not. They knew it was an issue but did not know the full extent of the problem.

  Then I called a reformed, or liberal, Jewish synagogue. I knew they had what are called mohels or non-medical people who perform the religious or ritual circumcisions in temples and in homes. The rabbi agreed to email me a list of mohels in the Twin Cities. She could not tell me if they would be willing to do it for non-Jews, or if their rabbis would allow it.

  I called one other name on the list who turned out to be an elderly, retired Orthodox Jewish rabbi who was also trained as a mohel. When he started talking he sounded just like my own zaide (grandfather), who had died at ninety in 1981, and I melted. He suggested that I learn how to do it. He suggested I should find a nice (Jewish) doctor who would let me watch him a dozen times or more and then certify me. Yikes! That wasn’t where I wanted to go. I would be excommunicated from the birth community.

  I found one mohel who was both a physic
ian and Jewish. She was very intrigued with the idea of performing circumcisions for the African communities here. She was employed by one of the big health networks and explained that she would have to look into the legal issues that might prevent her doing it outside of her own hospital. In the meantime, I was getting calls daily asking if I had found anyone to help them.

  The following Monday the phone rang at 3:00 a.m. Radiya thought her water had broken and she was having a few random rushes about fifteen minutes apart. I suggested she call the midwife at the hospital and let me know what she said. This was a first baby. I knew we could easily be looking at a twenty-four-hour labor. I went back to bed until the phone rang at 4:00 a.m. It was a nurse at the hospital asking if I was on my way. The contractions were now four minutes apart. They had told Radiya to get to the hospital right away, so she had called 911. She and a girlfriend, who also didn’t drive, were already at the hospital.

  By 5:00 a.m. she was three centimeters dilated and seenty-five percent effaced. Radiya was asking for meds. I suggested that she get out of bed. Once up, Radiya said she felt so much better to be up rather than lying down with monitors strapped on. We walked the halls and tried the rocking chair in the room. I insisted that she drink a whole cup of juice and visit the bathroom, both once an hour. The midwife came in and offered some options for meds, which Radiya agreed to, so she was brought back to bed and an IV was started. She asked if it would help her labor. I pointed out that she would be more relaxed, which might help her dilate, or she could become sleepy and slow it down. I knew just being back in bed would slow things down.

  Once she was on the IV the nurse asked her to switch to juices only, no food, and explained that they would need to do continuous electronic monitoring of the baby to be sure he didn’t react to the drugs, which is exactly what happened in the next few minutes. His heart rate dropped with each contraction. The nurses and the midwife watched the numbers for a while and considered their next options.