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In our “Do I Need a Doula If…” series, we wanted to do a post about planned cesarean births.  We reached out to a former client, Heather, to see if she’d give us a few thoughts at having one of our doulas at her cesarean birth.  Heather responded with more than the quote or two we were expecting, so here is her answer, in its entirety:
 
     I didn't go into the pregnancy thinking about a c-section. In fact, that particular birth scared the bajeezus outta me and left me with shivers every time I thought of the possibility. Actually, if I'm being honest, it was truly my worst nightmare of a birth scenario. I had never been cut open before for anything. Okay, wisdom teeth, but that hardly counts. Nothing major. I had experienced two previous births, both of which I thought at the time were pretty awesome. I did not have a doula at those births, as I didn't know about them, but knew I needed one for the third because of their woman-to-woman power and calming effect on the birth partner. Oh, and the hand holding I knew I needed since I had some complications with second immediate post-birth.
    

Jami Conn here - one of the senior doulas and founders of Heart to Heart. One of the most common questions I get when I tell people what I do is "How did you get into that?"  It's the perfect time of year for that question, because it just so happens that yesterday was the 16th anniversary of the first birth I attended. I wasn't a doula. I didn't know know what a doula was!  A friend and her husband asked me to go to their birth with them. I thought that was the craziest idea anyone had ever had.  I knew almost nothing about birth, hadn't had a baby, and didn't plan on going into anything medical. At the time I was a receptionist at an insurance company!  But they asked, and I went. ​