Doula support

In this session we will begin to explore your birth vision across the layers of the stages of labor and the role of your support team to enable this. Together we’ll discuss:

• Your vision for your birth - Deepening our understanding of what you imagine and hope for your birth

• Exploring your preferences for you labour - Stages of labor, how labor starts, pain relief options, questions to ask your caregiver

• Your support team - The role of your partner and doula Debriefing any previous births

At the end of our session you’ll walk away with a deeper knowing on what you need during the various elements of birth so you can begin to consider the support you need from your medical care givers, partner and doula.

In this session we will begin to create your birth map and explore how you can communicate this to your caregiver. Together we’ll:

• Explore your birth preferences - what is most important in your birth

• Communicate to caregivers - through the different appointments you have and during birth

At the end of our session you’ll walk away with the tools you need to create your birth map and confidently communicate this with your caregivers.

In this session we will listen to your strength and bring that into your birth space, individually and within your partnership. Together we’ll:

• Explore your current tool kit - Looking at your inner resources in how you manage pressured situations

• Create an inner resource kit for birth - Contextualise your inner resources and plan how to use them in the context of birth

• Reflect on your partnership - Contextualising your strengths and how to bring them into the birth space.

At the end of our session you’ll walk away with knowledge of how to bring your inner resource into your birth and work together with your partner's support.

In this session, we will focus our time together on bringing your partner into your vision for your birth and postpartum support. This session is helpful if you would like to do the other prenatal sessions on your own and then use this to bring them onto the same page. Together we’ll:

• Strengthen their belief in themself - discussing times that they has supported you and what they did in those moments that helped you feel seen and held

• Build their tool kit of support - with a set of resources they feels they can draw on during birth and postpartum to support you

• Listen to their needs - ensuring they feel equipped for the transition to a parent and knows what support they can draw on for themself in this time

At the end of our session you’ll walk away feeling connected together and ready to step into the birth space and postpartum as a team, with clarity on what is most important to you for the season ahead.

In this session we will begin to explore your transition into and through motherhood. Together we’ll:

• Recognise the various layers of impact that parent has on us physically, hormonally, emotionally, socially, culturally, economically, spiritually

• Explore the maternal mandate and how that shapes our cultural expectations of motherhood and fatherhood

• Unpack how we have been shaped to view what it is to be a 'good mother' and 'good father' and redefine that on your own terms

At the end of our session you’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of what to expect in your transition into a mother of two and clarity on what is most important to you for the season ahead.

In this session we will focus on your formation of your own mother identity. Together we'll:

• Explore the values that underpin your expression of womanhood and motherhood, creating your own sense of how you will be guided from within in this time

• Create a definition for motherhood that reflects who you are and how you want to live into this next season of your life

• Reflect on anything that arises around mother identity and create space to meet it with gentleness and care

At the end of our session you’ll walk away with a clearer picture on the mother that is already within you, the shape she has and how to step deeper into that part of you as motherhood unfolds.

I will provide a back up doula who can support you at your birth if there are any emergency circumstances that prevent me from being there (particularly in this covid landscape). You will have a meeting or zoom with the back-up doula to build a connection and I will provide a full briefing (with your consent) around your vision for your birth, birth plan and how you want to be supported.

I will be on call to support you in birth two weeks before your due date through to two weeks after your due date (38-42 weeks). Being on call means that I am available for you to contact me when you are in labor at any time (day or night). During this time, I regularly check in with you and hold space for whatever comes up in the lead up to your birth.

If your chosen hospital allows two birth support people to attend: I will check in with you for when early labour starts. I will then leave you to rest and labour at home with your partner until you are near active labour or you request my attendance.

If your chosen hospital only allows one birth support person to attend: I will provide early labor support in your home. In the event that your labor begins at hospital, this support will be transitioned to additional postpartum support including further birth debriefing, planning and visits.

When active labour is established I will meet you at your home or the hospital and support you in your birth. In the case that you require support beyond 16-18 hours, I may call in your back up doula (due to the impact of sleep deprivation on the quality of support offered) to continue to provide quality support.

I will stay with you for up to two hours after you have given birth, responding and tending to whatever you need.

This visit can happen within the first few days of returning home or whenever you feel most comfortable. It is to check in on how you are, debrief your birth and create space for you to ask any questions about birth and the early days with your baby.

In this session we will look at how to build a village of support. Together, we’ll explore:

• Your circle of support

• Who can meet you emotionally and who can meet you practically

• Ways to invite your circle of support into your postpartum in a sustainable and lifegiving way

At the end of the session, you’ll walk away with clarity on who will meet the different parts of you throughout your postpartum.

In this session we will explore the various postpartum areas of support, including:

• Breastfeeding

• Sleep

• Physical healing

• Mental health

• Environment

• Social

At the end of our session you’ll walk away with a concrete postpartum wellbeing plan, as well as ways to draw in the support required.

In this session we will look at what asking for help looks like when you are postpartum. Together we’ll:

• Map out what areas of support feel easy, hard and not applicable to you

• Ways you like to receive help - whether that is scheduled, who you would turn to in a crisis

• When to draw on professional support

At the end of our session you’ll walk away with a cheat sheet for how to ask for help in the midst of postpartum, so you don’t need to think about it then!

In this session, we will explore the different ways that your postpartum could unfold and how you would like to respond. Together we’ll:

• Go through various scenarious that could unfold and plan what your preference would be in each

At the end of our session you’ll walk away with a clear plan for what you would do in various scenarios, so that if the unexpected arises, you already have a plan.