Supporting the Dying: A Doula's Inner Faith in Guiding Her Father Home.

This article is dedicated to my father who encouraged me to become a birth doula. I am sure he had no idea that he would be the one who would benefit the most from my new profession.

During the past year I had the opportunity to use my labor assistant skills once again. This time, however, it was not in the traditional sense of a birth doula supporting a laboring mom, but as a daughter supporting her father in his wish to die at the home where he had lived for almost forty years and where, together with his wife of fifty-five years, he had raised their eight children.

I am sure some of you are thinking, "How could this be an opportunity?" Believe me, this was an opportunity in every sense of the word. It is much like a couple whose wish is to have a homebirth. The criticism that they get from the medical community as well as from their families is sometimes overwhelming.

I thank God I learned how to be an advocate for my clients. I certainly needed to be one for my dad.

I thank God for all the comfort measures I learned as a labor assistant. My father loved the aromatherapy massage I gave him. When the pain was too great to bear I would use visualization to guide him to his favorite resting spot--a park bench underneath an old oak tree. It was peaceful there, the leaves just starting to fall, warm sunshine on his face.

I thank God for the reassurance I learned to give--every day he asked not to go to the hospital; every day I reassured him he wouldn't.

I thank God for the massage and counterpressure techniques I learned as a labor assistant; lying in bed day in and day out would cause my dad excruciating muscle spasms.

I thank God for the "take charge routine" I learned as a birth doula. So many times my dad wanted me to change his oxygen in the middle of the night only to fall asleep in the middle of me doing so; or when he wanted to get out of bed when there weren't enough of us to help him. It is so hard to take charge with your father or to say "no," but I know I gave him a few more precious weeks with his loved ones by doing so.

I thank God for learning how to work as a team. Many times the family became torn about dad's wishes and what the medical community wanted. As a team, working together we were able to fulfill our dad's wishes.

Lastly, most important, I thank God for learning, as a labor assistant, to believe in our bodies--a woman's body knows how to give birth; faith in that knowledge eliminates fear. The same is so in death; all life comes to an end and when we learn to face it with compassion and respect, the fear is gone.

Being a doula provided me the opportunity to experience a closeness with my dad that will remain with me for the rest of my life and that opportunity would surely have been missed had he gone to hospital.

Thank you to all doulas for giving me the knowledge of a doula and the wisdom to use it.

--Jill is an ALACE Certified Labor Assistant in London, Ontario, Canada.