Joy MacTavish, MA, CD(DONA, PALS), PCD(NAPS), ICCE Doula Profile

Joy was SO wonderful! She was invaluable in helping me transition into full-time motherhood when my partner had to return to work. I really don't know how I would have survived without her. The moment she walked in the door she brought a calm, peaceful mood that both baby and I felt and responded to. She was also generous with her extensive lending library of resources, from books on infant massage to a variety of swaddle blankets to try and see which worked best for my baby. She shared her expertise and compassion as she helped with diaper changes, soothing, laundry, and taking over with my boy so I could catch up on sleep. Joy is a fabulous doula and a kind, caring and delightful person.

We chose Joy because of her experience at Northwest Hospital, which is where we planned our birth experience, and also because of her comprehension of the philosophy that there are as many ways to give birth and be a parent as there are babies on this planet!

When interviewing doulas, I was particularly concerned about bias when it came to pain management - and it was very clear to me that not only was Joy experienced in multiple ways to manage pain - but she also respected parental choice to the utmost degree.  Our goals for our birth was to do our best to manage pain naturally, and Joy helped us achieve that for as long as possible.  She assisted us for several hours with poses we had learned in our birth class.  When I ultimately made the decision to ask for an epidural, Joy congratulated me for the work I had done up to that point, and helped me to be at peace with my change in plans.  She did a wonderful job communicating with my waiting family when we asked her to, and was very respectful about giving us space as a couple if we needed it.
 

Joy is calm, caring and capable.  She met all of her obligations to us and then some, even attending a breastfeeding workshop with me after our son's birth, and holding him for nearly an hour in my home one day while I showered and received guests.  We were most pleased with our experience with Joy, and would recommend her warmly.

My wife and I are first time parents without a lot of family support in the local area. Joy has been helping us a few times a week for more than 4 months. In the beginning, we were not getting enough sleep to remain functional in the day. It was a relief when Joy would arrive in the morning and take care of our daughter while we both caught up on much needed uninterrupted sleep. Joy has been great with handling our daughter. Our daugher does feel comfortable with Joy and now that she is older, she smiles when Joy starts in the morning and is ready for her play time.

Without Joy's help our early infant raising experience would have been much more stressful and tiring.

Joy was an absolute pleasure to work with.  I felt at ease the moment I met her.  I was having a lot of trouble breastfeeding my 2-month-old son and was ready to throw in the towel.  Enter Joy.  She introduced some great methods for getting the baby to latch on as well as great ideas for parenting and raising a newborn.  She was very sweet and professional and made us feel very comfortable.  She listened to us and never pushed her views on us.  Together, we figured out the best way to incorporate her suggestions into our lives and what was the best for our family.  Her ease and grace with the baby was also very comforting and helped give me confidence as a new mom--a great thing to have!  Thank you Joy, for the short but very special time with our family.

For scheduling reasons, we ended up working with two birth doulas. This was truly an instance where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. They are both fantastic and their strengths complimented one another. We would highly recommend working with either one of them. We immediately felt comfortable talking with Joy. She is warm and friendly, and we trusted that she could help us through the important, new, and potentially stressful experience of the birth of our first child. She is a great communicator, always making a point to include both me and my husband on all e-mails and using whatever contact method worked best for us. Her experience as an educator was important to us, for instance when she gave us a concise and varied list of reading recommendations to compliment what we would learn at the hospital-based childbirth education class or found research related to labor induction as I went past 40 weeks. Joy helped us think about a broad variety of coping strategies, come up with good questions for the doctor, and offered helpful suggestions about things like protecting the mattress in case my water broke in my sleep. Most importantly, she helped us draft a clear and concise birth plan that provided a good communication tool with the team at the hospital while keeping in mind that childbirth is unpredictable and doesn’t follow a plan. We felt good about our choices even though we ended up having to give up on the priorities originally laid out in our birth plan. We liked Joy so much that we chose to work with her despite the possibility that she wouldn’t be able to attend the birth if I went far past my due date. We were sad that Joy wasn’t able to be at the birth of our daughter, but her excellent choice of back-up partner and communication with her is further testament to Joy’s care and good judgment. She kept up with us over e-mail and had a wonderful visit after the delivery. We highly recommend Joy as a birth doula.

My husband and I are the parents of 8 month old twin girls.  We received Joy's name from the Seattle Families of Multiples website as a GREAT referral for a post partum doula when I was still pregnant.  I met with Joy and immediately liked her.  She has a very calming nature about her, is nurturing, well educated and experienced, and a delight to have around.  Because neither my husband nor I have family here, we really had to rely on our doulas to help us transition into parenthood.  My husband also did not take any time off of work, so I really had to jump right into mom life.  Joy spent days and, later, nights with us and our girls helping us learn the ropes, teaching us how to live somewhat normal lives and adjust to being not only first time parents, but also first time parents of twins.  I felt confident that our girls would be safe and well taken care of with Joy.  Regardless of whether she was here during the day or overnight, Joy always did the dishes and tidied the house before she left.  She maintained our sleep and feeding journal while she was here and left thorough notes about her time with the girls so that I could wake up from my nap and know exactly what happened while I was asleep.  I appreciate Joy as a doula, but I really appreciate how dedicated she was to our girls.  If we dare to add a third, we'd definitely hire her again.  

We met Joy, and she came to our house for a "get to know you" session. We hit it off right away, and my partner and I immediately felt comfortable with her. She seemed mellow, freindly, and most importantly, excited to help us. She was available by phone any time that I needed a question answered, or if I needed to voice concern about the birth. She made it clear that she was on call for us, and I greatly appreciated that.

It came time to give birth to our son, and our labor was fast. Joy was extremely attentive, yet, soft and unobtrusive. She waited to see a sign from me and reacted swiftly. She helped to keep my partner calm as we waited for the midwives to arrive, all while I held back the urge to push. When our son arrived, she was a master with the camera, snapping photos and video that I was completely unaware of. Imagine my surprise, when I went back to veiw the films. She helped us empty our birth pool, a would-be daunting task for a newly postpartum mother, and her awestruck partner. She stayed until she was sure that all of our ducks were in a row, before leaving us with a reminder to call her at any time. 

The birth of our daughter, was even faster than that of our son. Again, Joy was there in a flash, offering her support in any way that we needed. She stayed with us for a while afterwards, reminding us to eat, fixing us food, helping me to the bed, the couch, the bathroom. She helped us with breastfeeding questions, and was always at our beck and call. She was the ultimate overseer for us on both of those days, enabling us to simply enjoy our new babies. I would highly recomend Joy to any of my pregnant freinds, and if we have another baby in the future, we will surely use her as our doula again.

Joy came to help us soon after our first son was born. Being a couple of expats living in the US, we don't have family here, and she was such a welcome relief when I was feeling the most exhausted. She was always on time, flexible and extremely caring to our son. I felt very comfortable with her and so did my son. Only with her we managed to learn how to swadlle properly, something that helped us immensely afterwards :-)
Most of all, her calm demeanor helped me put things in pesrpective and stop worrying so much for no reason! I'm very grateful for what she did for my family.

Joy is fabulous! 
A friend recommended her and I am very grateful. Joy came to help us 16 months ago when our daughter was born, via c-section.She was very professional and gathered a ton of information on our likes and dislikes and needs. I felt totally comfortable leaving Isabella with her. Isabella had severe acid reflux, so she had to eat small amounts every hour to hour and a half. She had special excercises to do, because she couldn't tolerate tummy time. Joy handled all this easily. She has a calm demeanor, which comes in handy for an exhausted mom and frantic new born. We asked her to come back again, three months ago when our son was born. She came from 11pm to 7am so my husband and I could get some much needed sleep. It was great. We would wake up and the baby would be asleep, the laundry and dishes would be done and the toys were all picked up. She was like a fairy godmother. Joy also came during the day and watched both the children while I slept. She easily bonded with my toddler and used Dr. Karp's 5 Ss technique to soothe my infant. In addition, she kept notes on what happened with both children so when I got up, I got a full report. I really appreciated knowing what they had done and how they had faired while I slept.  I highly recommend her to both new parents and old pros.