Where to start.... I would recommend Sophia to anyone looking for a doula. She has found her niche as a superhero to expecting moms. There really isn't enough i could say to express my appreciation and thanks to her. The short of it is that we did not have much time to get to know one another before our estimated date and Sophia made herself a part of our family and birthing team with ease. She was able to listen and incorporate our needs, and hopes and help us formulate an approach that was implementable and empowering and gave us the birth of our dreams. She wasn't just a member of our birthing team, she was a beacon of light and knowledge and danced the dance of labor with me in a way that i could have only hoped for. I could not have had my baby, in such a beautiful way, without Sophia, and she will be our doula for all future babies.
The long of it is we came late to hiring a doula, at around 36 weeks, and the three of us (daddy, Sophia and myself) worked hard connecting and communicating . We had taken some hypno-centered birthing courses and wanted a natural home birth but could only afford a hospital birth. She advocated and hunted and was able to find midwives that could work with us on our budget and we were able to move forward towards a home birth. Whenever we had something we were interested in incorporating (pressure point touch, massage, different relaxation techniques, bonding strategies) she would find techniques and bring them to us. Her communication skills helped us develop, to our surprise, a deeper connection to one another and our baby and we left every meeting more prepared and ready for our birth. I was an educated and very happy pregnant woman, and we were a very connected and excited couple, Sophia was able to magnify those things and leave us feeling very capable, and empowered. She always communicated with my partner as much as with myself (a very important quality in my opinion), even though she was there to do a lot of work for me, the mom, she was ever empowering and supportive of dad. When our labor began, and Sophia arrived, she confidently eased and soothed the three of us through our 30 (or so) hour labor. She was always there for me but never stepping on dad's feet. And here is where it is hard for me to really explain the magic of labor, but Sophia knew where to touch to get me to relax, where to push to ease the rushes, when to urge me to move, how to get me to breath, and when things got complex and scary (we had to transfer for a cesarean, not due to any homebirth related issue) her words reminded us that we had the most beautiful birth we could have, we did the work, bonded on levels i didn't know were possible, and that any birth was still our birth. The hospital was a less daunting experience with her on our team. We would not have our birth be any different than it was, and are so thankful to Sophia.
From Daddy:
From the moment we met sophia she had a very comfortable aura that evoked both confidence compassion and fortitude of knowledge in regards to the birthing process.
There was a natural transmission whereby we went from being complete strangers to having an understanding of each other that felt intimate and empowering read more