This was probably the worst and most useless expense in my life. In short, here is my advice to all…read morenew moms considering this service: Beaumont nurses are wonderfully helpful, and even if you don't have a husband who can support you, they will do doula's jobs MUCH better than this particular company. Every time I had trouble holding my baby, or recalled my traumatic birth experience during a very painful recovery, I very much wished I saw a review like this before I hired these women. Hoping my feedback will help someone avoid my mistake.
For those who want to know the details, here is my story. I'll start by saying I did very much like Gina personally, she is sweet and charming. Hiring a doula was a decision made out of fear of my first birthing experience, and being far away from my support system, family and friends. Gina and Nicole sounded wonderful during initial visit, they were completely onboard with my plans to go natural, as my pregnancy was healthy and uncomplicated. I didn't have any illusions and understood that everything could go differently on the actual due date, but I felt more confident with doulas on my side. I was promised advocacy, support, and knowledge. I was also promised they will be available if I am late or early, no matter what. This is all I needed. Even if my birth plan went out of the window.
Everything went wrong from the very beginning. We went to the hospital after a while after the contractions started and intensified and the water broke, but doulas were not able to join us there, or advise when they would. Medical staff did not believe that the water broke and pushed us into invasive checkup. We didn't want any interventions, so my husband called the doulas yet again, and again there was no support or coherent advice."Just do what the medical staff says", was all we kept hearing. What did we pay for then?? Everything we discussed at initial visit seemed to be completely forgotten and we both felt neglected and scared.
After that it was just a cascade of interventions, as it usually happens. Gina was not available, and Nicole arrived after several hours. She stood there with her drink and chatted with my husband while I was walking around experiencing contractions that kept getting more and more painful. Luckily my husband stepped up and did the doula's job - he massaged my back and reminded me to breathe. In a bit Nicole started to convince me to go walk in the hall to speed up contractions. As many women in labor, I didn't want to go anywhere out of the room or see anyone outside. We discussed this at our initial meeting, I wanted to be focused on the birth and not have any distractions. Back then the doulas were agreeing with me. I was still feeling fine, walking around the room, using the ball, breathing and listening to my hypnobirthing tracks. Never even putting her drink down, Nicole kept pushing me to go for a walk. At some point it got so irritating for both me and my husband that we politely asked her to leave.
Gina was not available due to being at a postpartum shift. Despite promising me my due date (I was 4 days earlier) and several days before and after she will be available. After we dissed Nicole, Gina told us she would make it to us herself, and she did after a while. We were glad to see her, as she and her sweet demeanor was a welcome change from Nicole. However, here are several things that made me extremely disappointed in Gina as well: first of all, there was no advocating for me even once. She was supposed to help me choose natural, she never once did. Hence pitocin, epidural, and eventually C-section. There was no moment during labor when she was helpful. At one point I opened my eyes after briefly passing out to see her sleeping on my husband's spot on partner's couch, while he was dozing in the chair. Poor guy who did all their job, not to mention was sleep-deprived and worried sick! How unprofessional can you be to sleep at work taking your client's spot? During active labor all I remember is her yawning by my side. Non-freaking-stop. Can you imagine how irritating that is when one is in that much pain?
These doulas also have very misleading website where they advertise services they don't provide as a part of the birthing package, for example, visual birth plan. When we pointed this out, they simply said they didn't have a chance to delete these services yet. Those services are still listed as part of their package.
I did send them this feedback in response to their feedback request, hoping they would at least apologize. All I got was "Thank you for your feedback". I feel bad about their future clients that will get as unlucky with them as I did, so I have to post this here. Please be careful and be confident. Medical staff is helpful enough. Unfortunately, doulas are way overrated, if we take these ones as an example.