Accepting MassHealth for Birth and Postpartum Doula Care!
Birth and Postpartum Doula care
At Tender Courage Birth and Wellness, you abide at the center of your mandala of care. You are guided to create layers of support in the unique and beautiful ways that will serve you and your family best through this transition.
About My Work
My approach
I believe in birth and birthing bodies. I believe in an uninterrupted birth process. I believe human birth is driven by the innate needs of bodily autonomy and community support. I believe we can learn about ourselves from watching our animal friends give birth. The experience of giving birth is unique each time. However, as a birth-worker of over 22 years, I have never witnessed (or experienced!) a birth that was ‘no big deal’. No matter what birth brings, it is a threshold and it necessarily brings about challenge and change.
Having a doula by your side can make all the difference in how this wild ride of birth plays out, both in terms of the clinical specifics and in terms of how the story of birth takes shape inside of you, your child and your family. I have come to firmly believe that the kind of birth you have is not nearly as important as how you and your baby feel about your birth.
It is important to me that partners feel supported so that they can relax and be authentically present without the burden of having to ‘know it all’ or to shift gears into an advocacy role.
As your doula, I am your constant support for questions, concerns, a listening ear and more. I am available to you via phone, text or zoom and in-person when possible, any time of day (and night once I am on-call). I bring my years of experience as a midwife and doula, as well as my knowledge of plant medicine, massage and Craniosacral Therapy to support your process as it unfolds. I am able to offer various comfort-measure techniques and positional change suggestions that can help move labor along. I also use a rebozo to help the baby navigate the pelvis when needed.
Benefits of doula care
Doulas can empower mothers (birthers) to achieve the best birth outcomes possible, and all outcomes— births, infants, and mothers—seem to be affected more positively if support is provided by a doula in addition to the medical personnel. The doula focuses on individualized support before, during, and after birth; whereas nurses often are attending to several women in labor and responsible for many clinical and administrative tasks besides direct labor support. Research indicates that the expectation of nurse support by expectant women may be far greater than what is actually provided (Tumblin & Simkin, 2001). Hospitals could address this disparity by including a system of doula support.
— The Journal of Perinatal Education, Impact of Doulas on Healthy Birth Outcomes
Prenatal Appointments
During prenatal appointments there is time to discuss:
- Upcoming milestones and ‘tests’ that will be offered, such that you can make informed choices when possible
- Hopes and preferences, fears and concerns, so that you can find more ease and confidence in your path forward
- Expectations of a hospital, home, or birth center birth and how to advocate for your wishes and preferences
- Herbal remedies and nutritional support for common complaints of pregnancy
- Resources for evidence-based information on topics relevant to you and your hopes for your pregnancy and birth experience
- Comfort measures, movement, and pain management options for your birth
- And anything else that feels important to you.
My experience Includes
- VBAC
- Cesarean birth
- Unmedicated natural birth
- Epidural supported labor
- Hypnosis for birth
- Parenting after loss or infertility
- Sexual or other trauma
Sliding Scale
I offer a sliding scale. You are welcome to place yourself anywhere on the scale as you see fit. I also maintain a Community Supported Wellness Fund through contributions from clients and community members. If you would like to contribute to it or draw from it please do let me know! I try to offer at least one free care option per year. This is my small way of helping to create equity in an inherently inequitable system.
This website does a great job of talking about how to place yourself responsibly on a sliding scale. If you are in a hurry, just scroll down to the ‘green bottle’ info graphic.
Create your own care package and add-on services to any package
In place of choosing a care package below, you can choose to create your own package and I will come up with a custom price!
Add-ons include: Birth tub rental for early labor or postpartum bathing ritual, private or group childbirth classes, craniosacral sessions, herbal consults, additional hour-long postpartum appointments, additional prenatal appointments or postpartum care on an hourly basis.
Postpartum care
Traditional cultures the world over have understood that the postpartum period is a tender time of great opportunity. It’s a time to bond, establish breastfeeding, negotiate self-care routines, and it reveals a great need for rest, nourishment and warmth. It’s the beginning of relationships that last a lifetime. How the postpartum period unfolds can create deep-seated roots in the health of the birth parent and child later in life. A postpartum doula can make all the difference in how this time is optimized to give the whole family the best start possible.
As your postpartum doula, I am available to help with newborn care, breastfeeding comfort and trouble-shooting, light household chores and housekeeping, meal prep, older sibling care, sleep support, birth process work and placenta medicine preparation. I bring my skills as a midwife, herbalist and craniosacral practitioner to offer support in many unique ways that are often incredibly beneficial for the postpartum period. I cater my care to the needs of your family, weaving together aspects of Ayurveda, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and Traditional Mexican Medicine to create a framework for understanding what is happening and what is needed physically and spiritually in this time of restoration and recovery.
My rate for hourly postpartum care is $40-$50 per hour.
I am in the process of creating a new ‘container’ for postpartum care called Postpartum Village Mentoring (PVM). The vision of PVM is to educate and utilize the resource of a birthing families’ own community to help with the specific care needs in the postpartum period. Please see the link at the top of this page or scroll down toward to bottom to learn more.
Doula Care Packages
Package #1
The Birth Nest
The Birth Nest offers two prenatal appts (other appts can be added on an hourly basis), day-time availability for check-ins via phone and text, on-call coverage from your 37th week on, attendance at your home or place of birth from active labor onward, help settling into the immediate postpartum, including establishing breastfeeding if possible. It also includes 2 postpartum appointments.
Cost: $1750-$2250
Package #2
After the Hatch
This plan includes all of what is offered in Package #1, plus 3 extra hour-long postpartum appts extending to your 6th week postpartum.
Cost: $2050-$2550
Package #3
Fledglings
This plan includes all aspects of Packages #1 and #2, plus 12 hours of postpartum care and two craniosacral appointments (for you and baby!) to be used prenatally or postpartum (ideally one for each!).
Cost: $2480-$3150
Package #4
Babymoon
This package offers 30 hours of postpartum care in the first week or two postpartum. This can be used as a stand alone package or added to any of the other 3 packages .
cost: $1150-1450
Rituals
Ritual adds depth and meaning to significant transitions. It prepares us to enter the next steps of life in gratitude for all that is gained and all that is released. At Tender Courage, we co-create a tactile shape, or container, in which to witness these transformations as they relate to pregnancy, birth, postpartum and any other transition or healing process that calls for a Threshold experience. All backgrounds and beliefs are honored. The ritual does not stem from any one set of beliefs, instead it is nurtured through a process of mutual discovery, for which I offer presence and facilitation. Let me know if you are interested in a free consultation to talk about your ritual.
Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy
Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy helps the birthing parent and baby adjust to the experience of pregnancy and birth under any circumstances. It calms the nervous system and helps your body to resolve any trauma that may have imprinted so that healing can naturally occur. These imprints, left unresolved, can impact bonding, breastfeeding, on-going development, and the overall story of how birth is ‘lived’ within the body moving forward.
Postpartum Village Mentoring
Postpartum Village Mentoring is designed with three things in mind: First, not all families can afford to hire a Postpartum Doula to be in their home helping them transition to new life as much as is needed. Secondly, there are often well-meaning loved ones (the village) who would like to help but don’t know how. And thirdly, our culture could use a lesson or two in how to care for postpartum families within the context of a birthing families’ community.
Let’s create a postpartum revolution!
Together we can re-weave the web of community support, creating a ‘postpartum village’ for each family to rest in, one family at a time and one village at a time! That is the vision of Postpartum Village Mentoring.
This dearly-held vision is a creative birth-in-process for me. If you’re curious about Postpartum Village Mentoring, please do let me know. We can set up a free consult to find out when this birth will be complete, if it is something that fits with your own vision and if it lines up with the timing of your birth!
“Jessie was how we got through our very long labor. She was beyond attentive and had a way of knowing exactly what I needed to hear during each new challenge. Her intuition and ability to read me were spot on. During transition I found myself begging for nitrous. Jessie got really close to my face, and asked with such kindness “Do you believe you can do this?” My answer was definitely “No, I’m done.” Then Jessie asked “Is there any part of you, deep down, that believes you can get through this? Even if it’s just the size of a tiny grain of sand.” I remember thinking “no, no, no…. Wait, a grain of sand?”. I found that grain of sand. I had a water birth and I caught my baby myself. It was incredible and beautiful and Jessie was pivotal in how transformative this birth was for me and my husband. I still think about that grain of sand when I need a gentle, loving push. Jessie is exceptional at what she does. Anyone who has her attend their birth is truly lucky.”