When my friends urged us to work with a doula for the birth of our first baby, I could never have imagined the support, technical and emotional, that we would find with Megan and Marlee. I had a difficult labor and I am not sure we could have made it through without Marlee’s  coaching. Yet the physical pain of the labor was nothing  in comparison with the emotional anguish of being told that, because I had the flu during birth, I would have to be separated from my baby for an undetermined amount of time. This separation was accompanied by an utter lack of compassion by the mother-baby unit staff. If it were not for Marlee’s advocacy, the separation would have been that much more painful and most likely more prolonged. As 1st time parents know there is nothing more frightening than those first few days when you get home to find yourself responsible for a delicate human life. Marlee and Megan have been uncompromising in their willingness to answer all our questions at all hours of the day. We created a WhatsApp group through which they made themselves available day and night to answer all our questions with 0 judgment, only evidence-based answers, and a degree of patience and compassion to which I can only aspire. They tell me to not apologize for bombarding them with questions, but I keep doing it because I can’t find a sufficient way to show to them just how grateful I am. The comfort their support has afforded us in these anxiety-ridden days is simply invaluable. We are both  PhD students and make little money. Working with a doula was an expense that was beyond our budget. We interviewed several doulas, but the second Marlee and Megan left our intro meeting my husband and I didn’t even say a word bc we knew they were the ones. Working with them has been the best thing we could have done for ourselves and our baby, and in a time of such insecurity it is one decision of which we are entirely sure. 

   When my friends urged us to work with a doula for the birth of our first baby, I could never have imagined the support, technical and emotional, that we would find with Megan and Marlee. I had a difficult labor and I am not sure we could have made it through without Marlee’s  coaching. Yet the physical pain of the labor was nothing  in comparison with the emotional anguish of being told that, because I had the flu during birth, I would have to be separated from my baby for an undetermined amount of time. This separation was accompanied by an utter lack of compassion by the mother-baby unit staff. If it were not for Marlee’s advocacy, the separation would have been that much more painful and most likely more prolonged. As 1st time parents know there is nothing more frightening than those first few days when you get home to find yourself responsible for a delicate human life. Marlee and Megan have been uncompromising in their willingness to answer all our questions at all hours of the day. We created a WhatsApp group through which they made themselves available day and night to answer all our questions with 0 judgment, only evidence-based answers, and a degree of patience and compassion to which I can only aspire. They tell me to not apologize for bombarding them with questions, but I keep doing it because I can’t find a sufficient way to show to them just how grateful I am. The comfort their support has afforded us in these anxiety-ridden days is simply invaluable. We are both  PhD students and make little money. Working with a doula was an expense that was beyond our budget. We interviewed several doulas, but the second Marlee and Megan left our intro meeting my husband and I didn’t even say a word bc we knew they were the ones. Working with them has been the best thing we could have done for ourselves and our baby, and in a time of such insecurity it is one decision of which we are entirely sure.