Two Prenatal Appointments with Your Birth Doulas
For each birth doula client, we offer two prenatal appointments. This gives us a great time to learn about you, and for you to learn about us.
Your Doulas, Together or Apart
Some clients love to take advantage of the one on one time of the prenatal appointments with one of their two doulas. This gives everyone a great chance to get to know each other, develop a relationship with each doula, and help prepare for the big day.
Other clients love knowing that we offer a team approach, and want the entire team together the whole time. So both doulas will attend both prenatal appointments to reinforce this sense of team work, and really show each and every client that we are dedicated to them!
Whatever you choose, we want you to learn about your doulas as much as possible prior to your birth so you will feel completely supported by both of them during the birth. Plus, the prenatal appointments are great times for our doulas to ask some in-depth questions about your likes and dislikes, and even your partners likes and dislike, so during your labor, we are complete attuned to your needs.
Your Appointment, Your way
While we have a general idea of what we would like to talk about in each appointment, these appointments are about you and your needs! Tell us what you need, and we will help customize the appointments to more closely align to your wants and needs.
First Prenatal Appointment With Your Durham Doula
The first prenatal appointment is the birth planning appointment! And it can be a little bit of a doozy. We generally like to do this appointment sooner rather than later, and close to when you sign the contract to open the lines of communication between all parties.
During this appointment, we can go into as much detail as you wish! And trust us when we say as much as you wish: our birth plan document is nine pages long! If you know more about what you want and don’t want, we can gloss over certain parts.
By going over such a detailed birth plan, we are both helping you become educated about your options, while also encouraging conversations to occur with yourself, your partner, and medical provider. These conversations can range from, “I had no idea this was an option, I would love to do this!” to “I know that I do not want this, so I take these steps to avoid it”.
During this appointment, we also go over the various protocols at your birthing location. Knowing where to park alleviates so much stress on the big day!
At the end of the appointment, we introduce our postpartum plan, and encourage you and your partner to work on that before your next prenatal appointment.
Second Prenatal Appointment With Your Raleigh Doula
This second appointment is your partner’s time to shine! We will be going over early comfort measures so that when labor does start, you feel confident about what you are feeling, and make the right choice for you of when to head to the hospital or birth center.
We will be talking about labor circuits, how to incorporate your senses into your comfort measures, and even demonstrating over 30 comfort measures that you and your partner can use during early and active labor. So this is very active, engaging appointment!
We will also spend a good amount of time talking about the postpartum plan. While we are working with you for birth support, we want you to feel as prepared as possible for bring home a new baby!
