I interviewed a doula who claimed she was fully vaccinated in our initial call. Later, in an email she decided she needed to "come clean" and let me know that she was not vaccinated and didn't plan on becoming vaccinated. To each their own, but to LIE? This relationship must be built on trust and to be lied to like that breaks all the trust. The second doula wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise and rushed me off the phone. No Thank you. read more

I used their placenta encapsulation service which by the way is one of the most affordable in the Seattle area, and I would definitely recommend it. Simple to get it set up, very communicative, and when you deliver they simply pick it up from your birthing place. From there it was ready within about a day, and my encapsulator Leigh was very gracious when I accidentally wrote my address wrong... she still found my house (in the dark) even though I wasn't answering my phone in the midst of the newborn fog. And on top of it all it has been a game changer for my postpartum- I've seen wonderful benefits from it. Would definitely do it again, and use expecting joy in the future. read more

TLDR: We'd highly recommend having a doula for your birth and Ryah Silvernagel specifically. We received a glowing referral to Ryah and she lived up to every word! The main downside to having a doula is the cost, but Ryah's excellent coaching and support was worth every penny. Also, we were able to offset the cost by not taking the typical birthing classes since we'd be getting two 60-90 minute one-on-one coaching sessions prior to the birth. Ryah also recommended several books that we read together and the combo of her education plus the books was plenty for us. Ryah was supportive, well-informed about evidence-based birthing options, and hands-on. I was unsure whether I wanted an unmedicated birth, and Ryah was supportive of either option. She was clear that she thought I was completely capable of doing an unmedicated birth, which gave me confidence to try. She was also helpful in having me think through the scenarios when I'd want to request an epidural, which we outlined in my birthing "preferences" form. I'd done reading on evidence-based choices for birthing interventions and options (mostly reading the Evidence-based Birth website and Expecting Better). When creating our birthing preferences, Ryah was always spot-on with the research when helping us to weigh options. She even brought us a homemade pastry during one visit, which was so thoughtful. Our daughter arrived 10 days early (July 2019), and I was unsure about whether I was experiencing Braxton Hicks or actual labor. After a few hours, my husband convinced me to text Ryah and she called back right away. She coached us to complete a few of the positioning moves we had practiced with her and asked us to call her back in 30 minutes. My contractions went from every 7-10 minutes to every 3 minutes within that time, so we knew it was real by that time (and woah those positioning moves work!). Ryah got to our house in about an hour and was the perfect blend of warm but also straight forward and directive when it came to suggesting positions and comfort measures. She was very calm and continually helped me to reframe any anxious thoughts and normalized everything we were experiencing. She knew that my mom had a quick birth, so took it seriously when she saw how quickly my labor was progressing. She had us leave for the hospital within 30 mins of her getting to our house, which was the right call because I was 7cm at check-in. She helped to coach the nursing staff on our birthing preferences and got me in the tub quickly. She was very hands-on and took turns providing counter pressure with my husband. She also seemed to know when to check me and had me out of the tub just in time to push. She was very supportive after the birth: our daughter had aspirated meconium and so my husband went with the baby to the special care nursery while Ryah stayed longer with me. She helped me to collect colostrum and stayed until I was able to stand up and go see my daughter. Ryah was very proactive in reaching out after the birth, which we appreciated. She came about 10 days after the birth to see us (we were in the NICU for a week) and did a nice assessment of how we were doing. She does take photos and videos during the labor and birth, and we're glad we have them. Overall, despite the stress of having a baby in the NICU for a week, we have very positive memories of the birth, and Ryah was a huge reason for this. We highly recommend her! read more

Short version: I'm ~14 hours after the birth of my daughter. Looking back at the incredible peace and insight that Vanessa, the founder of Expecting Joy, brought to process, I have to make time to write an endorsement. Hiring her was an absolute no-brainer for us. Let me go further: if she allows it, I will try to hire Vanessa for every single delivery we have. Longer version: *Part 1: My initial doubt.* I was skeptical about hiring a doula. Everyone in my family (and most of my friends) had avoided a doula even if statistics seem to indicate it was probably a good idea. I had a nagging feeling that I wanted to avoid flying blind, but I simultaneously had doubt that a doula would fight for the parents. Boy, Vanessa proved my doubts wrong. *Part 2: Researching Vanessa.* Someone informed said Vanessa was a legend, that I would be in "great hands". That's fine, but I'll do my own research. And research showed Vanessa was remarkably more qualified than other doulas I encountered. She'd been a nurse (including time as charge nurse) for almost 10 years, taught classes regularly on mid-wifery, and was a clinical instructor at both Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University. Oh, and she held a master's degree in mid-wifery. *Part 3: Off to a rough start, exclusively my fault.* Vanessa visited us before the birth date of the baby. I'm a no-nonsense person. I made it clear, in an unvarnished way, that the definition of success was helping me as I tried to help my wife and daughter have a safe and a healthy experience. Vanessa empathized through it all, understood where we were coming from (i.e., we've had multiple friends nearly die in pregnancy these past 2 years), and helped us find ways to communicate our concerns to medical staff and said she'd provide an extra set of eyes (and voice). *Part 4: The delivery.* Yesterday was my first time in a delivery room. I'm not a medical expert, so I'll avoid misrepresenting facts by providing too many details. But basically, medical staff repeatedly honored Vanessa, including the attending doctor, for being both incredibly effective and knowledgeable. Vanessa answered every one of my questions -- some twice!, watched the nurses like a hawk, provided strategic and helpful recommendations repeatedly, encouraged and massaged my wife with patience, and stuck by us with a huge smile for a long, long day and night of labor. We're super grateful. Highly recommended. read more

We interviewed a few different doulas from this agency, and in my opinion, the level of quality was super scattered and inconsistent. We didn't jive with any of the three we interviewed and ended up going with a different practice. It was not a straightforward process- we reached out to the agency, then over the next 2 weeks, received emails from different doulas offering interviews. It was unclear that multiple doulas would be reaching out, and some reached out so late that we had already gone with a different service. I just don't think that's a great experience. Finally, one of the doulas we interviewed didn't seem to get the memo that doulas aren't supposed to be medical professionals or give medical advice--early in the interview, she told us that the wildfire smoke causes severe birth defects and I needed to stay out of it. I left the call feeling very frightened, as anyone would when hearing the word "severe birth defects", as my doctor had never used that language. I wasn't reassured until my doctor appointment the following week, at which point my doctor said the doula was incorrect and overstepped--wildfire smoke exposure can be linked to lower weight babies or earlier born babies, but certainly has not been linked to babies with severe birth defects. (The doctor said clearly don't go outside if you don't need to, but if your dog needs to pee, a 5 minute potty break is okay.) So this doula almost gave me a heart attack for no good reason. Pretty upsetting and she shouldn't be spreading misinformation like this. read more

I'd encourage expecting mamas and families to work with another, more mature organization. We worked with Expecting Joy and were super enthusiastic initially. We were encouraged to see that many of the doulas including the founder had also studied at SPU and were excited about the international experience of several of the douals on staff. But the administrative management (difficult to get in touch with potential doulas to set up meetings, problems with paperwork and later payment interface) really became too much to excuse following our experience with the doula herself. We went into labor 5 weeks early, and despite emphatic promises during our initial meeting and birth planning session that she would be available, when we called to let our doula know that we *thought* we were in labor, she didn't ask any clarifying questions or help us understand what types of things might happen next ( test to confirm fluid as amniotic fluid, PItocin, inducing, membrane stripping, etc) though we emphasized the need for education during the process. Her first reaction was to say that she needed a full night of sleep to prepare and if we had no objections, she would rather come to the hospital in the morning. I immediately got off the phone because her dismissiveness was so shocking. When she did come to the hospital 12 hours later at 9am, I had already been in labor for 4 hours. She came ill-prepared to support me physically and only reluctantly provided massage for relief, after my husband had to request her support explicitly. She ran out of essential oils midday and didn't replace them. She didn't talk us through any of the scenarios that we were facing given that our water had broken more than 24 hours earlier. To a great extent she sat in the room and did not contribute the way we had discussed. She did show my husband how to perform counter pressure compressions for relief during contractions which was helpful, but this was the only positive we could identify. We discussed asking her to leave but felt uncomfortable with having a negative interaction in our birth suite and instead tried to simply cope with her passive presence. When I was finally pushing to give birth, she dropped my leg through several contractions and I had to come out of my meditation in order to instruct her to pick my leg up again. I had bruises on the bag of my leg where it kept hitting a metal edge. Her follow-up after the premature birth of our baby was negligible and not remotely what we discussed about postpartum care. At this point we were clear we didn't want to continue to work with her, but it surprised my husband and I that she made no effort to redeem the situation. We waited some time and sent her an email kindly outlining some of the issues that caused us discomfort and she dismissed them. Notably, Expecting Joy contracts are poorly written and do not cover how to adjust the contract and cost in the case of an early birth and therefore a failure to provide the outlined services. I recently emailed the founder and mentioned that it would be useful to discuss our experience, but she didn't even see fit to address me by name in her response email. This business is unfortunately immature and doesn't have sufficient professionalism in the way they conduct business. This is so disappointing, particularly to have a negative experience during one of the most sensitive and important experiences in a woman/family's life! Strongly recommend looking elsewhere. read more