To recap Part I: We considered tons of doulas, but struggled to find one we clicked with.  After many delays, we were now down to our final option: Doula B.

I have to give Mr. Tricycle some major props here – he’s actually the one that fielded most of the doula calls. He’s got discerning taste and he’s just much smoother when it comes to dealing with “strangers” on the phone. This time, though, I sucked it up and called Doula B during my lunch break.

Good news! Over the phone, she seemed great. I found it endearing (and relatable!) when she mentioned she was expecting company that night and was nervous about entertaining. As an added twist, Doula B spent four or five years as a labor and delivery nurse before deciding to become a full-time doula. I really liked knowing that her background combined traditional medicine with a holistic approach to childbirth.

This time I was smart enough to avoid making any commitments without sleeping on the decision, and Mr. Tricycle and I spent the weekend talking it over. Although her fee, at $750, was still higher than others we’d looked at, she wouldn’t charge us extra for childbirth preparation. She hadn’t mentioned religion, she was cool with our requests, and she didn’t subscribe to a specific childbirth method – all was good. After a quick phone call Monday morning, I could finally relax – Doula B was a go!

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Now that we actually had a doula that we clicked with, I thought my anxiety was over, but it turns out I’m a little crazy. We still hadn’t met our doula in person, and I managed to work myself into an anxious frenzy before our first meeting. The whole experience felt like a first date with someone I’d only met online. I cleaned my house and baked cookies, and then worried that cookies were a bad idea because what if she didn’t eat gluten? I was stressed about the dogs attacking her, the smell of leftovers we’d heated up for dinner, and my outfit. Basically, I was a nervous mess.

I didn’t need to worry, because the meeting went just fine.  Doula B was super pleasant and very low-key. She was great with the dogs, was happily satisfied with a cup of tea, and managed to make me feel rather sane. At this first meeting, we learned a little bit more about her experiences and we shared info on our background. She’d e-mailed me a birth-vision planning sheet ahead of time, so we went over this, discussing anything we didn’t understand or options we weren’t sure about. We talked about my medical history and the pregnancy, and then I just asked her a bunch of questions.

Our Q&A session was my favorite part – it was random and all over the place, but that’s what we needed. When I asked what I should bring to the hospital for the baby, she said just my boobs. I wanted to know if I should take a hospital tour, and she suggested we skip it (she’d be with us, and that’s where she worked as a nurse) because the atmosphere is a little crazy and she didn’t think it’d help my anxiety. When I asked about studying a particular childbirth method, she shrugged it off, pointing out that you don’t know what will work best for you until you’re in the moment, so it wasn’t necessarily worth it to devote a ton of time to any one technique – it’s her job to help us try lots of different things until we find something that works. She also suggested I find a favorite flavor of coconut water because it’s the perfect thing to drink during labor. All in all, her advice went a long way towards encouraging me to chill out about the whole process.

Our process wasn’t entirely seamless, but ultimately I’m happy with the outcome. Along the way we learned a few things. Numero Uno – don’t say yes until you’ve slept on it! We also developed a few talking points for our conversations. Although a list of prepared questions is great, I felt weird doing a formal interview. Luckily, almost everything we wanted to discuss naturally came up in the initial conversation. We always talked about:

  • Availability for my due date
  • Fees and what they included
  • Use of back-up doulas if something came up and she wasn’t available
  • Any specific birthing method she preferred to utilize
  • Her role if I got a C-section
  • Her stance on pain medication and interventions

We meet with our doula again next week for a crash course in childbirth education and then a reiki session (she’s a practitioner). I’ve never had reiki done, so I’m looking forward to it. She made me promise not to clean my house again before her visit, and I won’t bother making cookies, so hopefully there’s a lot less stress on our second “date.”

Were you anxious or nervous about meeting your doula?