Amy's Birth Story

I had never considered using the services of a doula until a friend also expecting at the same time forwarded an email about doulas. I immediately cast it aside, thinking that because I was expecting twins, I wouldn't be having a home birth or water birth, so what use would a doula be? I couldn't have been more wrong!

As I got further on in my pregnancy and the reality began to sink in that, yes I would be giving birth to two babies sometime soon, my mind kept going back to that email. As neither me nor my partner have any family in the UK, I began to worry about who would support us during the birth. After reading a little more about what a doula does I also realized that we had done almost nothing to prepare for the birth! We honestly didn't know what we were in for!

I knew immediately that Mars was the doula for us; kind, calm, straight-talking and most importantly she made us laugh. All attributes which, I believe, made the birth of our twins the positive experience it was.

The birth we wanted and the birth we got were light years apart, however without Mars I think our response to the birth would also have been light years away from what it was.

Mars remained with us for the last 20 something hours of our 36 hour labour and only left (at about 2 in the morning!) when we had settled into recovery and she had helped me to breastfed the twins. She was present and supportive when we needed it and melted in to background at the right times too. She spoke calmly to me and rocked with me through many a contraction, she reminded me of my 'safe place' when it all started to feel too much and helped Dan to help me when he started to feel overwhelmed. Not once during the labour did we feel as though we had an 'observer'. She supported every decision we made, but in no way did she influence our decisions. This was so important in ensuring that we are confident that we made the right decisions for us at that time.

Post-natally, Mars helped us settle in to our home as a family of four and remained in contact with us by phone, text and email. Her timing is impeccable; she always manages to make contact precisely when I need her support: day three, when 'the blues' arrived, many a morning after a difficult night and at the beginning of every growth spurt!

I can't thank Mars enough for all she has done. She will be top of my list of people to call if I ever get pregnant again.

Every woman should have a Mars in their labour bag!