I had a doula for first-time labour and will again!

Hi everyone
For those of you umming and ahing about whether to fork out for a doula (couldn't get any rebate from health care), I cannot recommend it highly enough. She will be worth every penny. My labour (August 2005) was 41 hours. The doula came over at 3am on the second night and stayed by my side until 6pm the next day when he was born. I don't recall her even going to the toilet. She allowed my husband the space to do that and go out for a cigarette etc. Other poeple got her cups of tea and sandwiches. She was an angel. She mothered me but also stopped me from being a whimpering child by reminding me to "breathe all the way down to your little baby" (now I think about it that was just full yogic breaths she got me to do!). She reminded me to relax my shoudlers between every single contraction. She put the water bottle in my mouth constantly. She marched me round the corridors, kept me upright, moved me to the toilet seat (better than a birthing stool) for transition etc etc.

What I am saying is that her years of experience at hundreds of births meant that she did what no husband/best friend/rushed midwife can do. And I had no drugs whatsoever - not to be a hero, but for my baby's sake. I wanted him to be unmedicated.

Everyone at the hosptial (labour ward of Royal Womens in Sydney) said it was a textbook first labour and how great I was etc etc. But it was the doula - without her I reckon anyone with such a long labour would have said Give me Drugs ;)
So yeah, I am hiring her again for the second time round this December, even though I am more confident now and am sure it'll be heaps shorter!
A

Wow, Aleanbh, what you've written is really inspiring. It is encouraging to read feedback like that. I am training to be a Doula right now, and although I know in my heart and from my clients' feedback that our work makes a huge difference, it is really a shot in the arm to read feedback like yours. Two of my clients are first time mothers going into labour soon. It is so good to read about another first-timer who got through that challenging first labour so beautifully, and found that a Doula helped towards that.
Hope everything goes fantastic for you this December, look forward to hearing about it here on the BB forum. You go, girl! (Scuse the Americanism, counldn't resist!)