Jessica A

10/30/2024

Im so grateful we found Abbie to help us with the birth of our second child. Abbie is the perfect combination of mama bear and gentle caregiver that I was looking for.  She was super informed and always had a different perspective to offer without making it feel to pushy or preachy.  I was doing hypnobabies and I really appreciated how she dove right in there with me and created a plan to support the birth choices I was making.  I loved having her at one of prental appts, she asked my midwife questions I never would have thought of!  I loved that we physically practiced comfort measures ahead of time, and how in communication she was with me and my partner as my due date got closer.  When my birth time finally came, I was 6 days past my due date. Abbie had my back in wanting to not have any interventions like membrane sweep etc.  We welcomed our baby girl into the world just 20 min after checking into the hospital.  I remember Abbie running in and grabbing my hand as my midwife was saying I was ready to push: she looked me in the eye and said you got this and I grabbed her hand and the strength she was sending me and brought our baby girl earthside.  If I can ever convince my husband to have a 3rd, she is the first person I'll call! 

Abbie Rickard

10/8/2024

Response and rebuttal to previous testimonial:  I was dismayed to read this feedback, as it was the first time I was hearing these grievances. When I was supporting this client, I worked in rotation with two other doulas and a backup for all day coverage, seven days a week. I had let the client know when she hired me that I was also on call for birth clients, and I would work with my partners to make sure the shifts would be covered if I needed to be at a birth. Two of the other doulas were also on call for births during this contract. A few weeks into this job, I was growing concerned with our ability as a team to cover all the shifts with the upcoming births and travel plans the four of us had on our respective schedules. When I raised this concern with the client, she told me she didn’t want to have any other people in the rotation, and I respected her wishes. As I suspected might happen, we reached a day where I needed to support a client in labor and my partners were not fully available to back me up for my shift with the postpartum client. My partner told me that she would figure it out, and the next thing I knew, I received an email alerting me that I had been fired. A week and a half after that, I saw this review. It saddens me to think that any client would feel that I neglected their needs or miscommunicated my obligations, and it’s unfortunate that they didn’t want to talk to me about how to move forward in a way that better suited their needs.

I also want to add that the handful of times I left a shift early (maybe 5-10 minutes) were after checking in with the client and confirming everything was set and handled for the night. When she asked me to stop doing this, I did at once with no further issue.

My best,

Abbie

ANA

9/20/2024

We had a very negative experience with Abbie. She was working for us, caring for our infant and helping with post partum services in our household. We found Abbie to have a lot of trouble communicating with us and she left us hanging a few times by leaving early (unannounced) and by not letting us know that she had several scheduled births that would make her unavailable to the hours she committed to with us. We hope that no other parents have to experience this sort of uncertainty during such a precious time. 

Julien Buenaventura

4/17/2024

Abbie was my doula for a hospital birth at Huntington Hospital in Feburary 2024 and she was amazing. Highly recommend! I had a traumatic experience with my first pregnancy and knew I wanted support the second time around. I found Abbie through the Village Birth. She was a great fit and a great price point, offering packages to purchase and I went with Package #2- 2 prenatal and 2 postpartum visits. Abbie even attended one of my OB appointments and helped me feel confident in asking questions and advocating for myself. She provided much education in the prenatal visits and helped teach my husband techniques to help with labor pains. Abbie was also so helpful during postpartum by providing meals (extra cost), household work, and taking care of the baby so I could sneak away for some "me-time." Abbie was such a joy, so helpful and super responsive to all my text messages and questions. Abbie was a great birth and postpartum doula!