Who needs an epidural when you can eat chocolate?

For starters, here's something wonderful: cheap red table wine and chocolate covered blueberries. Seriously good. I have very little interest in a wine and cheese tasting, but I sure wish someone would do a wine and chocolate tasting. Now there's something I would pay money for.
I now return you to our previously scheduled conversation.
As I mentioned last time we spoke, I have gotten involved with BOLD, an acronym for Birth on Labor Day. It's a fantastic organization whose goal is to make maternity care more mother-friendly. BOLD is a grassroots movement that uses the arts to empower communities to educate themselves, speak their truth about birth and finally to take action in regards to maternity care issues.
The foundation of BOLD is Birth, an amazing and inspiring play written by Karen Brody. Now for the third year, many cities around the world will stage performances of this play as fundraisers for their own grassroots organizations. After the play, they would also have a talkback, essentially a panel discussion about the current state of birth with members of that community, such as OB's, midwives, doulas, etc. My job is Performance and Talkback Coordinator. I am the behind the scenes person that will help all these communities ( hopefully many this year!) make this happen.
One of the things I have to do is filter through this email account and do alot of sending and receiving and lots of other techy-type stuff that is, let me tell you, way different than cooling a mom's head in labor and reminding her what a great job she is doing! Though maybe, as I sit here and write this, I will end up "doula-ing" these groups through their birth of Birth. Hmmm. Anyway, so yesterday I was sitting at my desk going through this inbox (which is very vast) and i see an email from Ina. Ina! Ina May! Holy shit! I could email Ina May! This thought sent shivers of joy down my spine and I was truly excited for the rest of the day. By the way, if you are reading this and you don't know who Ina May is, please, please, run to your nearest bookstore and grab Spiritual Midwifery. Please. Tell them the crazy doula sent you.

So here I am, at the beginning of this great new journey with BOLD, with a binder full of clients having babies and births, and for the first time in a while feeling fully optimistic. Of course, it could be the wine and chocolate. I'll let you know.