This was my second time, and I had a difficult delivery with painful, tough experience for the first time. Thus, I was so scared to give birth again. Miina, my doula, listened to my anxiety and fear carefully and gave me useful information to cope with them. In addition, she gave a lot of information related to delivery, like as how to exercise to convert breech baby, how to release pain during a delivery, how my husband can support me, and so on.
Why I hired a doula? The first reason is because of my anxiety on giving birth resulted from my first delivery. The second reason is that we are from Japan and we do not have relatives living near, so my husband needed to take care of our first child. In case I need to go to a hospital alone, I thought it would be nice to have someone who can come with me. Miina was helpful more than I expected. During pregnancy she gave useful information for pregnancy and delivery. In addition, she kept giving me the message that she is always there for me if I need any help.
During birth she cheered and encouraged me a lot during the delivery. It was also helpful that she could translate Finnish to English when there was a nurse who could not speak English well. Language issue is also the huge thing for foreigners like me who cannot speak Finnish well.
She also gave many information about taking care of baby (e.g., breast feeding) and taking care of myself (mother). It was nice to have a reflection session with her after the delivery to positively review the delivery process. My husband and I are very satisfied with our doula, so there is nothing to wish more. Maybe one thing I had a difficulty is to find out doula in the beginning. Although my Neuvola nurse helped me to find doula, there were several contact information and I did not know who should I contact first.
Thank you very much for your help! We are glad to have you in our delivery. You made my second delivery experience totally positive!