First time mom shares her journey through birth and doula care, in her own words

"We are so incredibly thankful that we had Tara! We truly don’t know what we would’ve done without her. We really enjoyed the education we received from both the course with Christine and visits with Tara prior labor and delivery….

I was feeling very uncomfortable on Friday night, so I texted Tara asking advice on things I could do to feel better. I noticed my back starting to tighten and release, so I decided to time when it would happen which turned out to be about every 5 minutes. I went to bed around 10pm and after waking up several times, I got up around 3:15 to walk around. I still didn’t think much of it but told Casey to put our bags in the car just in case. My contractions then escalated quickly. I texted Tara an hour later telling her that I was having painful back contractions that were coming every 3-4 minutes. We decided to head to the hospital and arrived around 5am.

We were admitted to triage, where they determined I was in active labor! After being in there a couple hours, we were moved into labor and delivery where Tara was able to join. There was such a sense of relief when she arrived and immediately began helping us through contractions. Throughout labor, she constantly had me move into different positions including side lying releases and knees in/out. She also helped educate us on various decisions that we were asked to make such as whether to have them break my waters or wait to allow it to happen naturally. We are both so glad that we had someone there with the knowledge to guide us through the entire process!

At 7pm it was finally time to start pushing. After an hour of doing so, we welcomed our beautiful baby boy- 8 lbs 14 ounces and 21 inches long! Tara stayed with us until we were moved into recovery. After leaving the hospital, we had 12 hours postpartum support at our home, which was absolutely wonderful. We can’t say enough about what an impact she made on our journey to becoming parents!"

Congratulations to first time parents on the birth of their baby boy!

Our doula best,

Tara and the Mindful Birth Doulas