Why You Need To Hire A Doula - Birth Story Of My Third Child

I'm so excited to finally sit down and share my daughter Shaelyn's birth story! I've been meaning to share this for a while, but with three children age four and younger I didn't get the chance until now (and she's over a month old!).

If you are new to my blog (welcome!) she is my third child, but my first daughter, so I was super excited to

1) have a girl because I have such a great relationship with my mom. I will hopefully replicate that with her as best I can because my mom is truly my best friend.

And 2) After being in the birth space and working with new and expecting moms I knew that I wanted to have something different for this birth. I knew that I wanted to have a doula to support me while planning to have an unmedicated birth. I was very resolved that this time around I wanted to be able to do with without the epidural as I learned more about birth and felt that I hadn't given my first two births a real chance, just because I didn't know any better! So throughout my pregnancy I knew in my head "Yes I'm going to do an un-medicated birth. I'm going to hire a birth doula - it's all going to be super amazing!"

Finding A Doula

As time went by I kept thinking these thoughts, but I wasn't actually putting anything into action. I had kind of looked into some doulas, but I didn't reach out to anybody or do anything concrete. As time was winding down and getting closer to my due date I had yet to have a plan.

Here a give a huge shout out to the flourish fund and one of the founders Melissa specifically! Even though I was dragging my feet, she really helped me tremendously in my doula search! By now in my story it's probably around November when I really was thinking "oh you know what this baby is coming and I still do not have a doula lined up!" At that point I finally seriously started to look into other doulas in my area, but could not find anybody that had any availability with such short notice.

In addition to looking online, I had called my insurance to see if they would cover having a doula, which they do not. If you are in Massachusetts then there is a bill to allow coverage for doula services, so petition to help push that

along! If not in MA, check your states laws to see if you can help make change and get doula services covered!

So now it is really down to the wire and I did not have anybody until Melissa stepped in and helped me. If you have not heard of the Flourish Fund and you are creating a baby registry or are expecting or expecting to expect one day

this is something that you need to know about! The Flourish Fund is a baby registry, but you register for services and support instead of common baby items. With my first two I registered for all the bibs, all the burp cloths, all of those things that I thought I would need. But what I really needed was a doula, meal delivery, a prenatal massage, all things that were made available to be on my registry this time around. The Flourish Fund just really helps

connect everything that an expecting or a new mom can need.

Meeting My Doula

Back to my story! - I was talking to Melissa and I was just telling her "I really dropped the ball. I wanted a doula but I couldn't find one." But she was so amazing and so diligent she found me one with about two or three weeks left before my due date, which is so so amazing! My actual due date was Christmas Day, so I really didn't expect anyone to have a lot of availability, be it because they were going away or they already had their own clients. The doula lived about two and a half hours away from where I live, so she also connected me with a "backup" in case she was not able to make it in time.

We had first connected on a Saturday night through text, and on Monday we did a Zoom and she explained to me what it was like to have a doula and what that support would look like during birth. I filled her in on my pregnancy and my first two births/ I felt really comfortable with her right off the bat, she was amazing! I was looking forward to to having her there to support me and knew this birth would be so different from the others.

On Wednesday we did another zoom with my husband included and she had a backup doula, whose name was Shira she wanted to introduce me to. Shira was included because my original doula Bianca knew that she was two and a half hours away and third children can come pretty quickly, so she wanted to have a backup person that could come a lot faster. This way if my labor was progressing really fast and she wouldn't make it in time, at least I would have someone there in the room with me as a familiar face. That extra step just just made me feel really good because I knew that no matter what there would be someone there to support me. Worrying about traffic or snowstorm was not a non-issue thankfully!

Going Into Labor

Friday night I go into labor, so literally when I'm writing that I waited till the last possible second, I really waited till the last possible second! There was no extra time for me to find a doula so I'm so thankful that it all worked out perfectly! Again big shout out to Melissa for making this possible. However I would not recommend waiting till the last second like I did because sometimes it doesn't work out so well!

So Friday night I went to bed not feeling anything. Saturday morning I woke up having some contractions, but knowing they felt a little different from the others. For about two weeks before I had been having contractions every single night before I went to bed, so every night I was thinking "this could be it" but nothing ever progressed. I would wake up in the morning and everything was fine, no more contractions, so this particular night I knew that things were progressing because when I woke up at 4 a.m with they were not going away. I could not change position to have them stop, they were getting more and more intense where I was uncomfortable laying down. I had to get up and I knew - okay this is different, this is the real deal.

Around 6:30am I was really uncomfortable and the contractions were happening every five to seven minutes apart so I woke up my husband and told him "You know what I think it's time to call the doula. I know she's kind of far away so we need to get in contact with her now! We called both doulas and Shira, who is the doula that was closer to me, told me it sounds like you you need to start getting packed up and heading to the hospital. At that point in my contractions I couldn't talk through them, they were getting progressively closer together and were lasting a little bit longer so I knew it was time for us to go.

It took me maybe 40 minutes to get upstairs from our bedroom to downstairs in the car I had to keep stopping as the contractions are happening so fast. By the time we got to the hospital it was 7:40. Shira was there parking her car as we were parking the car so it worked out so perfectly that she was there to help support me help me into the hospital and upstairs into labor and delivery.

When I checked in at labor and delivery the nurse introduced herself, it was amazing she was super nice and although I don't remember her name she was wonderful throughout the experience. I was already five centimeters at 7 40 a.m, and Shaelyn was born by 9:30am so it was very very fast!

The Difference A Doula Makes

I cannot express enough gratitude to Shira through that labor process. It was fast but I did not think that I was going to be able to make it unmedicated as I had originally planned. We had a word that would be "the word" and we agreed like if I said this word it meant that I was serious and I wanted the epidural. I remember that I kept saying "I don't think I can do it, I don't think I can do it", but I never actually said the word "epidural" so I'm glad that I was able to to stick it through!

Just the very little things that Shira did that made such a big difference in my birth. The biggest thing is that she would do as I was going through a contraction is that she would just change her breathing, which would in turn just help me change mine. She didn't have to say anything, she just would automatically change her breathing and that would help me. If I was kind of like huffing and puffing through it she would just change her breathing to something more relaxing just to help me automatically do it. Looking back, such a small thing made the biggest difference .

She was also such a great advocate for me during the whole process. When the nurse or the doctor came in and would ask me questions or tried to ask me if I wanted my water broken, or tell me that I needed an IV with fluid because I hadn't had anything to drink in a while (which it was overnight so nobody really drinks overnight) she was really amazing and would say "yes that's a great point but can we wait, are there other things that we can do first before having to do that".

Having someone there just really gave me the strength to be able to turn away these things because I felt like typically with my other two births looking back there were a lot of things I said yes to that I felt like I wish I had known that I could say no to them. But when you feel outnumbered and that these medical professionals are telling you what you need, you're not sure yourself and just trying to make it through! Just knowing that I had her at my side and she knew exactly what I wanted out of the process took the pressure off me.

Shire set up the environment by making sure the lights were low. She set up candles and she had these affirmation cards that I could read from the bed to keep me focused. She was showing me different positions, asking me what was comfortable and what was not so really I just can't thank her enough because it made the whole process so much easier and I could not have done it without her!

If having a doula is something that you are considering, or you just want to feel really empowered and like you have someone in your corner during your birth experience then I would 100 recommend having a doula!! If you are local to the new England area than I 100% suggest going through the Flourish Fund because again there are doulas - but there are prenatal yoga classes, prenatal massage, sleep consultants, really everything and anything that you can need around having a baby.

To learn more about my journey with Shaelyn and her sleep progress, like and subscribe to my Youtube Channel! If you are looking for sleep support for your own little one, visit my website!