Doula
A trained non-medical companion through childbirth — a person whose entire job is to stay present through a hard passage.
A doula in a dream is the dream's image of a person whose entire job is to stay present through a hard passage. The doula does not deliver and does not prescribe; the doula is with the labouring person through whatever it takes. The dream brings the doula when something in your life — a friend going through a long illness, a project in painful development, a personal phase that has to be endured rather than fixed — is being met by a companion whose role is steadiness rather than rescue. A doula at the bedside through the night is the dream affirming the held company. A doula gone home before the labour finished is the dream noting that the presence was withdrawn before the passage completed, and the labouring person finished alone.