About Meri
I am a doula who will absolutely become part of your family. By the end of our time together, you will trust me with your home, your baby, your birth story, and folding your underwear. I will befriend your partner, your parents, and your small children if I see them. I am a mom, I will be a mom-like character whose only job is to smooth your path.
If you're looking for a doula or newborn care specialist who keeps to themself, does an amazing job, but leaves without truly connecting with you, I'm probably not for you. I am not household staff. While I have and will happily work with high profile families, I do not have the personality of someone who works well in a fully staffed home unless my presence is understood, respected, and truly appreciated.
Bringing home a new family member is very personal, emotional, and shocking. I experienced so much confusion and overwhelm after my first baby was born. I had been working with babies since I was in the single digit years! I knew about the cries, the wake windows, the best way to prevent liquid baby poop from escaping diapers. I did the professional nanny thing. I had studied early childhood development in college. It should have been so easy for me to just have my own baby and carry on. I did not thrive. I was fine, but we were young parents who barely knew how to be in an adult relationship, let alone manage the tasks that, no matter how many books we read, we were not expecting.
There is a better way!
Having me as your doula puts you way ahead of the game. I am in the homes of new parents and babies year-round. I know the best products to buy or to skip. I keep track of current safety guidelines. I make sure recovering parents eat, sleep, and shower. I cherish your baby while you rest; baby's sense of comfort, predictability, warmth, safety, and trust need to be nurtured as they adjust from the womb, to arms, to crib. I set into motion organization patterns that parents start to pick up as they adjust to new their newly enriched life: maintaining nursery areas, washing laundry, cycling through bottle and pump parts.
I take the vast majority of family stressors out of play, untangle issues before they knot up into resentment, and I love your family like my own. Many families share with me that just knowing I'll be there to take the night shift helps them to see the light at the end of the tunnel of exhaustion that comes with learning a whole new person's needs. I am there at 2 am to assure parents that a green poop isn't cause for concern, preventing a great deal of fretting and uncertainty.
In my 6 years of being a doula, I have encountered a couple of babies who were 'colicky'. What many people don't know about 'colic' is that it's a lack of being able to identify an issue. It's not a group of defined symptoms we can treat. Since I am not a first time parent, I am not exhausted beyond belief, and I have worked with 100+ babies, I had the capacity to soothe those little ones. When nothing seemed to make them better, I just loved them the way they were. I walked the floors, I patted back and butts, I hummed, I held babies between every-45-minute feeds to make sure some sleep was had for the parents. I do it all with a smile and snack delivery at 3 am.
New parents should enjoy their babyhood, love each other, ask any questions (weird or gross), and learn to love their baby just the way they are. This is how it should be, and I want to help make it possible for you!