DoulaMamaWolf

Hi and welcome to The Pregnant Doula blog, where I apparently only post when I need to include a document in my videos ;) I am 33 weeks and 3 days today, which means I am nearly in panic mode to get everything ready for little Evelyn's birth. I have yet to complete my hospital bag, labour classes or really emotionally prepare for labour, but I have finally pretty much completed our homebirth preparations so that's something! A video will be going up on my channel today showing all of these items and I talk about the cost, reasons and safety of homebirth, see that video here: In the mean time, here is a physical list (mostly from the handout from our midwives) of the supplies I have rounded up for our planned home water birth: {Medical Supplies} 10 blue (puppy pee) pads 5 sterile gauze sponges Depends underwear Maxi pads Always Infinity Overnights & Regular flow (will last through recovery) peri bottle 2 large garbage bags 2 plastic sheets/shower curtains h...

Of course, I have taken forever, yet again, to update!  As you can expect, lots has happened in the past several months, including.... Seeing Our Baby for the First Time... Again at 19 Weeks.... Finding Out She Is a She... Revealing Her Name... Practicing for Tandem Nursing... ... And Getting Married (at 30 Weeks Pregnant)!! I am now 31 weeks pregnant and gearing up for the birth of our little girl - a planned home water birth! I am almost prepared, supply-wise, and am getting ready to prepare emotionally for the beautiful marathon that is giving life. As I again approach this huge undertaking of love, I expect I'll have a lot of emotions that will relate to my doula journey, so I hope to update here more in the coming weeks. In the mean time, please enjoy my Youtube videos, including my Birth "Wishes": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHeuROAta4 Also can be found on my Pregnant Doula blog: http://thepregnantdoula.blogspot.ca/2015/06/28-weeks-my-birth-plan.html And my rel...

Of course, I haven't written in FOREVER! I am 28 weeks and 5 days today, and can't believe the time is already here - I've hit the 3rd trimester, and that means birth preparations! In other words, my Birth Plan . ~ Watch the video that goes along with this blog post here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHeuROAta4 ~ I had a birth plan with my son, which I am very grateful for as I did end up having a hospital birth and I feel that my Birth Wishes helped my birth team be all on the same page and support me in the way that I needed. I absolutely needed to do another birth plan with this baby, as a few things have changed (including having a partner present this time), and being more knowledgeable on how I personally cope with birth & the usual practices at the hospital required some tweaking to make my birth plan as accurate as possible. 28 weeks is a great time to start thinking about your birth plan, as well as beginning putting together your hospital bag (wheth...

Hello, and Welcome to the Pregnant Doula - I can't believe I haven't updated since before 13 weeks! I'm 14 weeks 5 days today, and am getting closer to showing and feeling Baby Bug move all the time, I'm so excited! First of all, I did put up at 14 Week update on my Youtube channel, The Pregnant Doula. This has been the best week yet, I felt movement  and got a video of the heartbeat at our midwife appointment that day which is at the end of the update. I think I'm getting much more confident in front of the camera and as of today I have 22  Subscribers, 765  Views, and 1,585 Estimated Minutes Watched - Wow! Here's the link to  14 Weeks Pregnant While Nursing ~ HEARTBEAT & Belly Shot {The Pregnant Doula} :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_VyEeU7I0s I also put out an  18 Month Toddler Update ~ Roo! {The Pregnant Doula} Part 1 & 2  on my channel, here's the link :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN1ZEDVp9Bw This Week in My Pregn...

Hello! Welcome to my new blog ~ The Pregnant Doula! Okay, so I'm not a doula yet. I'm a "novice" doula - a doula in training. In fact, I started a blog titled The Novice Doula in October, 2014, chronicalling my journey to becoming a positive birth support for labouring mothers. You can find it at www.thenovicedoula.blogspot.ca Unfortunately I had to take a little break from my doula journey, as we moved in November, 2014, and just as we were settling into our new home in December, we got a big surprise (which you've probably guessed by now)... We're pregnant!! A little backstory: I had our son in August 2013, and absolutely loved my pregnancy/birth with him. I always felt so beautiful, so natural, so connected to him, so empowered.    I went to 41 weeks, 1 day with him, and had a beautiful, perfect, drug free natural birth in hospital, an experience I wouldn't change for the world (you can read about it in my October 13th and...

Welcome back to The Novice Doula! Today I wanted to share my birth story, as I believe this was the moment I realized I loved birth - the intensity, the calm before the storm, the beauty, the mess, and the incredible love in the moment a mother sees her child for the first time.  This is my beautiful belly at about 37 weeks. I went 4 more weeks after this photo, to have my son at 41 weeks 1 day. For most of my pregnancy, I truly believed in letting a baby come when they were ready, and in the end I was grateful to have a support system that encouraged me to stick with this in my most vulnerable moments.  My original plan had been a beautiful, serene home waterbirth in my living room with a midwife team, but the end result was a beautiful, serene, perfect hospital birth due to moving and needing to find a new practitioner late in my pregnancy - I ended up finding a wonderful doctor that was completely on board with my natural birth plan, even when my certainty wavered and I sug...