You've just had your twenty-week scan. Maybe you left the midwife's office with excitement and a head full of questions you didn't think to ask. Over the next weeks you'll find yourself talking about the nursery. Your friends back home keep asking which hospital you've chosen, and you're not sure how to explain that here, it doesn't quite work that way: you cannot choose the hospital, also you are not under the care of an OB and already that's difficult to explain, together with probably, way...

There is a particular kind of message I receive, usually comes with a late evening email or at the end of one of my yoga classes. "Sorry, I know this is last minute. I should have thought about this months ago. You're probably fully booked." This woman is thirty-four weeks, or thirty-six, or once memorably thirty-nine and a few days. Typically she has been circling the idea of a doula around her twenty-week scan, sometimes because some of her friends had one, sometimes because of a social...

There is a particular kind of silence around money in birth work. Women write to me about their due date, their midwife, their fears about induction, the birth they had before and don't want to repeat. And then, somewhere near the end of the message, almost as an apology: could I ask what your rates are? I understand that hesitation. Asking about the cost of a doula can feel sometimes a little vulnerable: I had clients reaching out and sharing that they were considering if the investment was...