Monday, Nov. 02, 2009 - 7:03 a.m.

Yesterday I:
1. retrieved J from the airport again. He keeps ending up there.
2. met with an auditioner for the position of doula in my upcoming drama. I think she'll do; she may actually be younger than me, which is a little unexpected, but she has glasses and a university demeanor that makes me comfortable.

As she was talking about reasons why people find it useful to have a doula, she kept mentioning the a sense of empowerment and satisfaction with the birthing experience. I found that, while entirely comprehensible, sort of funny since it reminded me of all the stuff I've read in the marketing literature about satisfaction with one's purchase experience and so on.

Anyway, I'm all in favor of satisfaction; in addition I've read good things (i.e., published studies in respectable journals, and some in journals whose cred I have no way to judge) about the measurable positive effects of having a doula around, in terms of concrete things like length of labor, need for additional medical stuff, etc, in addition to 'empowerment', so I'm looking forward to it. I expect her to make it not suck! (Not really.)

I shouldn't be so sarcastic about 'empowerment'. The term has been used in some silly ways, is all. But I do like to be well-informed and in control of my decisions as much as possible. Can't argue with that.

In other news, I made caramels and caramel apples on Halloween. I didn't mention it here because I wanted to surprise J. Now he has been surprised, and the apples are mostly eaten (I only made 3, and turned the rest of the candy into, well, candy.)

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