Seamusfest '07 MVPs, Part 2: Bonu the SuperDoula

Bonu was our instructor at RealBirth. She told the class that she was a doula, and that she also had had her son at home. Greta and I were in the market for a doula, so we snapped her up immediately.

There's something about Bonu that calms people down -- narcotic pheromones, perhaps. She was great with Greta during Greta's labor. And then, a couple of days ago, she came by to see how we were doing. She asked to hold Seamus, and proceeded to rock, pat, and jiggle him into a blissful stupor. It was fascinating to watch -- he was like a dog getting its belly rubbed. When she finally put him down, he slept, log-like, for twice as long as he usually does.

Embarrassingly, we had been so focused on feeding him and trying to manage our sleep periods that we completely neglected to try out the one thing that everyone knows about babies: rocking calms them. Since then, I have tried my best to mimic Bonu's effortless-seeming baby-handling moves, but it's like trying to learn how to dance like Fred Astaire (while sleep-deprived). Actually, I'm not doing that badly -- for instance, I've found that a bit of strategically-timed rocking will keep him asleep for a good long while when he starts to wake, and I've been using this to try to squeeze out more sleep time for Greta.

In addition to dazzling us with her infant rapport, she also brought us a very nice gift basket, which included thoughtful things like sore throat-easing tea, for Greta's bruised-during-labor vocal cords. In short, Bonu rocks! Next to deciding on having a homebirth in the first place, hiring her was the best delivery-related decision that we made.