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What does doula care look like in the postpartum period?  As in everything with doulas, it can look different in different situations! I’ll talk first about the postpartum meeting I include in every birth doula package, and then about postpartum doula services specifically. Postpartum Visits for Birth Clients I meet with every birth client I serve once after they have their baby. I visit them in their own home (so no trying to leave the house with a newborn!) usually around five to seven days after baby has been born. If the client has a partner, I try to find a time where all threeRead More →

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Also be sure to read part one of my doula care series (What Does Doula Care Look Like? Part One: Prenatal Workshops)! The all-time most popular doula question: what does a doula do during labor? This question can take many forms, and has many shades of variation and nuance, including (but not limited to): Will a doula replace my partner/mother/family/friends/other support people? Will a doula make my other support person(s) feel excluded or unnecessary?  Why do I need a doula if I have a nurse at the hospital? What does it mean that a doula will advocate for me in the labor room? These areRead More →

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Doula care is, by nature, a custom-made service. Each client has different goals and needs, and so care for each client might manifest differently. This fluid and flexible process can make it somewhat challenging for someone considering doula care to get a concrete idea of what hiring a doula might look like. Expecting parents might ask, How can I invest so much money in something so nebulous? Enter: this blog post series. Over the course of three posts, I hope to lay out what a prospective client might be able to expect in hiring me (Rebecca Haley). Please keep in mind that flexibility is oneRead More →

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Dedicated to all the families bringing new little people into the world. The Day You Were Born The day you were born was a day like any other. People woke up and drove or biked to work. We dozed briefly on couches or beds made of vinyl after many midnight hours of holding hands and breathing. The day you were born people wrote emails and made lattes and poured concrete. We rubbed backs and caressed sweaty foreheads and dove again and again and again into the rhythmic, pounding, relentless waves of energy and muscle and pain. The day you were born people bought groceries andRead More →

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And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws til Max staid “BE STILL!” and tamed with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things. “And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!” I am an unabashedly huge fangirl of Lesley Everest, birthworker/healer/inter-spiritual minister and all-around Wise Woman. Pretty much everything that she speaks isRead More →

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As a woman who went through sex ed in public schools, I felt I was sold a bill of goods. It failed to prepare me for cervical fluids, cleaning my vulva properly, choosing the right menstrual products and more. Sometime in my early 20’s after being on hormonal birth control for several years already, I woke up. I read “Cunt, A Declaration of Independence” and it was raw. It stirred up feelings of anger and betrayal. I wasn’t sure what to do with this newfound information but what I could, quietly, in my bathroom. I found alternative menstrual products that felt better. Soft cups insteadRead More →

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Misconceptions about birth doulas abound. Ever heard Ali Wong’s bit about doulas? (Spoiler: I don’t even like quinoa. Marci might, though. I speak only for my own taste.) White hippie witch or no, I spend a lot more time reading Evidence Based Birth than I do perfecting my quinoa recipes. (Seriously though, I ate it once on my first foray into Paleo, ten years ago, and thought it was gross. Has it improved?) I SWEAR I HAVE A POINT. Lots of them, in fact. Here’s my point for today: Doulas are not just for natural birth. I say again, DOULAS ARE NOT JUST FOR NATURALRead More →

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When I first heard there was going to be a Women’s March in Washington, D.C. I wanted to be there, on the National Mall with what would turn out to be a massive crowd of women and men. A women’s strike. A strike against the new administration. A march for so many reasons and causes I care deeply about. I care deeply about reproductive issues. As a doula who works with women every day, I have seen fear in their eyes. I have heard their struggle to rationalize how hatred came into the White House. I hear women who are legal immigrants scared to speakRead More →