One year ago I got on a plane to Tanzania and I genuinely did not know what I was walking into.

I went to challenge myself. To challenge my beliefs about birth. To learn something I couldn't learn without going elsewhere. So I did. 

I worked in three clinics in Karatu. And I am still, a full year later, processing what I saw.

Let me paint the picture.

In the main clinic (the busiest clinic), the laboring room has about twenty beds. That same room is your prenatal room, your labor room, your postpartum room, it's just the room. When it's time to push, you walk across the hall to one of three delivery beds.

And then you push your baby into the world.

No epidural. No running water. No adjustable bed. No overhead fluorescents,  just natural light coming through the windows (or flashlights if the power is out). Tea, is constantly being pushed to keep your calories up.  Women who move because no one told them not to. Midwives who are mostly hands-off until the very end where staff often became too hands on. 

And when your baby arrives, your family,  who has been standing outside in the rain the entire time, just waiting , comes in. And you're all together in the postpartum room, a bunch of families tangled up with each other, helping, teaching, figuring it out collectively.

It was one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking things I have ever seen.

The breastfeeding thing still lives in my head rent free.

Side lying position. That's what most women learned first,  because the beds don't move, there are no pillows, and side lying just made sense. Especially when the clinic was overfilled and you had to share a bed with others. 

We treat side lying as an advanced position here in the US. Something you graduate to when you've got the "basics" down. But really it's a game changing position that works with your anatomy and not a million props. 

Bonus: I watched some of the best latches I have ever seen come from women learning it on day one.

I just kept thinking, wow we've been overcomplicating this.

And then I walked into a C-section.

I'm not going to overdramatize this because honestly the moment speaks for itself.

Minimal anesthesia. Major surgery. A woman on that table completely alone.

I'll spare you the details. 

But. I walked out of that room and I knew, not in a slow, dawning way, but in a very immediate, certain, clarifying way,  that I could not witness that and go back to a corporate fashion job like nothing happened.

I couldn't be okay with dedicating anything less than my whole self to this work.

So I didn't. I called my boss and I quit, so I could officially run Peachey Pregnancy Co. full time. 

Here's what Tanzania actually made me as a doula.

I walked into those clinics knowing maybe twenty words of Swahili. Twenty. And I had to figure out how to support someone without language. Without my usual tools. Without the ability to explain what I was doing or ask what they needed.

I had to learn to just be there.

And that sounds simple until you're actually doing it. Until you're standing next to someone and something is happening that you don't agree with, something that feels wrong, something hard to witness, and your every instinct is to fix it or stop it or say something.

And you can't. It's not your culture. It's not your call. It's not an option given the resources at hand. 

Birth is culture. It always has been. The way a woman labors, the way she's supported, the way her family shows up, the sounds she makes, the positions she uses, the rituals around her, all of it is shaped by where she comes from and who she is. And my job,  in Tanzania, and here, with every single family I work with, is not to arrive with my own agenda and call it support.

It's to show up and learn. To follow her lead. To hold space for an experience that belongs entirely to her.

Tanzania stripped away every tool I thought I needed and showed me what was left underneath.

Presence. Belief. Witness.

That's the whole job. That's always been the whole job.

I am a better doula because I had to figure that out in a room where I couldn't say a single word. And I carry that into every birth I attend now here, because the best way to advocate for a client is to truly believe her, trust her, and follow her lead. 

Believe in her before she believes in herself.

Here's what I want to be clear about:

Tanzania is not a cautionary tale. It is not a "be grateful for what you have" story. The women I saw were not victims of their circumstance,  they were powerful. The staff was resourceful and caring and doing so much with what they had.

What I witnessed wasn't lack. It was a completely different relationship with birth. One where the body is trusted by default. Where movement is assumed. Where community shows up, literally, in the rain,  because that's just what you do.

Do they deserve more resources? Yes. Absolutely. Equitable access to education and tools and pain management matters enormously and I will never pretend otherwise. It truly can be the difference of life and death. 

And also, I came home a different birth worker because of what I learned from every single person there. Both things are true.

I think about those women constantly. When I'm sitting with a client who's scared. When I'm helping a partner find their role. When someone tells me they don't trust their body. When sometimes I have to fight my urge to "help" and instead sit back and allow labor to unfold as it needs to. 

I think about a woman walking across a hallway, at 10 cm, to push her baby into the world, and then immediately get up and walk herself back over. I think you were always capable of more than you knew.

That's what Tanzania gave me. And I'm still giving it back, one family at a time.