Bay Area Birth Support

Tabitha attended the home birth of my daughter as the assistant to our Midwife, Treesa McLean. She was involved with my prenatal care from the very beginning, and always made me feel comfortable and confident. During my daughter’s birth, she was the calm and loving presence I needed when I began to have self-​doubt. Tabitha played such a pivotal role in our birthing experience.
She was also excellent with postpartum care. As a mother of 3, she has such an extensive knowledge of breastfeeding and newborn care, you can really trust all of her recommendations.
I am so glad that Tabitha will soon be a Midwife herself, because that means that she will continue to empower birthing mothers and their partners for many years to come.

Tabitha’s birthing course was a truly incredible and empowering experience. The course brought my partner Matt and I closer together. Till this course, becoming a father still felt pretty abstract to him, and by taking the course, he was able to learn techniques for supporting me during the birth process. My birth plan had been to have my daughter, River, at a birthing center, but when my water broke at 33 weeks, that was no longer an option. Though having my baby at a hospital wasn’t in the plan, it was extremely valuable to be able to tap into the skills and tools I’d learned in Tabitha’s class when I was in labor. It gave me a way to feel powerful even within a context that I hadn’t chosen. I’m grateful to have learned a variety of different techniques from her, many of which we implemented. Tabitha’s course was filled with information, highly interactive, personalized, fun, and creative. One of my favorite moments from being in labor was having my partner and my dear friend sing to me while I was experiencing intense contractions. Though I was experiencing a lot of intensity and discomfort, that singing really carried me through. Without Tabitha’s course, it would have never occurred to me to sing while in labor, and I wouldn’t have such a sweet and tender memory of the way in which we brought our daughter into the world.

It was amazing having Tabitha as our birth doula. She took the time to really get to know us and our preferences before the birth, and during labor she was an invaluable resource for us. I really liked the fact that she has a scientific back ground and that she keeps up to date on the latest evidence-​based practices and recommendations. It meant that my husband and I never had to second guess her advice or information, and it really put our minds at ease. Having Tabitha as our doula undoubtedly made a huge difference to my stress level during the pregnancy and the labor. I am so grateful to her! She is also very well connected in the birthing, breastfeeding, and childcare community, and I have made so many invaluable connections through her since the birth of my son.

Shoshana and Tabitha were my doula team for the birth of my first child. What an incredible team! Both were there to help me out during the pregnancy with the pre-​natal visits. Their in home visits felt supportive and were really informative. They helped to boost my confidence and to feel more ready for this life changing event! I had several unexpected twists during my pregnancy and the information and resources they provided proved invaluable. I was impressed with the amount of thought they put into their responses to my questions and the thoroughness of their answers. I went from feeling stressed and confused, to confident and empowered thanks to their support.
It was great to meet and work with both of them. They alternate their schedules so that one of them can assist at the birth. So during the labor, you either get one of the other to support you. It’s great to have already established some rapport with both of them ahead of time with the prenatal visits.
Shoshana was on call when I went into labor. Turned out that I had a very long labor, around 50 hours! She was there to keep me grounded and focused the entire time. She was mindful of the birth plan that we had created beforehand and did an excellent job of gently steering me back towards the original goals that I had expressed. However, as the labor progressed and dragged on, I changed my mind regarding some of my pain options. She was respectful of my decision and supportive. I am absolutely happy with the way that my son’s birth unfolded and have no regrets. I know that I did my absolute best and gave 100%; I don’t feel that I would have been able to be so present without Shoshana by my side.
Birthing is absolutely the most incredible experience I’ve had in life. The feeling of being so strong and so vulnerable all at once is almost indescribable. Shoshana had a way of making me feel completely at ease in her presence and that was truly a gift when I was riding those waves of pain!
If we decide to give our son a brother or sister, we will absolutely call on Shoshana and Tabitha again for their support.

Hiring Tabitha was one of the best decisions I made during my pregnancy! My husband and I hired her as our post-​partum doula and it made a huge difference. Her calm presence, her willingness to do whatever was needed (including laundry and cooking — yay!) were the perfect thing during the first month after the birth of my daughter this past August. Also, her incredible knowledge about pregnancy, the post-​partum time, and caring for a newborn made me so much more comfortable as a new mom. I could ask her all those funny little questions I had about my baby, and she gave thorough, thoughtful answers. She was also such a baby whisperer with my rather fussy baby and could get her to sleep so I could sneak away and take a shower, which even my husband sometimes had trouble doing. I highly recommend Tabitha.
We also hired her and her partner Shoshana as our birth doulas. Shoshana ended up being on call when I gave birth to my daughter, but Tabitha was an excellent support person in our two meetings prior to the birth and also in the post-​birth meeting. Again, she is so knowledgable, calm, and thorough in her answers. She and Shoshana made me feel so much better about a hospital birth that I had felt fretful about, and it ended up going incredibly well.
I give Tabitha my very highest recommendation.

While she was not my birth doula, she helped me transition into motherhood as a postpartum doula. She’s warm, kind, caring, patient, and everything I could have asked for in a caretaker. She’s also a great cook, and thanks to her I got to eat real meals and not lean cuisine or granola bars. I recommend her postpartum doula services to new mommies who need a little or a lot of TLC.

I think Tabitha is a real professional! Her education and her calm and intuitive presence is the backbone of her success. :)

My daughter had a wonderfully special birth, with the help of my doula (and new found friend) Tabitha. My birth was full of interventions because of a preexisting medical condition. A total of 30 hours of pitocin, and I was able to manage the pain entirely medication free, thanks to Tabitha and my husband. Tabitha taught us different pain coping techniques before the birth, reminded my husband of how to use those techniques, and supported both of us by taking over the physical aspects of the pain coping, so my husband could support me emotionally. (She pressed against my back during labor, while my husband held me, stroked my hair, and talked to me.) Tabitha was such a calming presence for the entire time she was with us.
My doctor was wanting to take a more aggressive approach when I wasn’t dilating «fast enough». I had been keeping Tabitha in the loop while I was hooked up to the pitocin, and when I did finally ask her to come in so we could talk about our options, her attitude and presence helped me relax enough to actually start to have some change! I wanted my labor to be as natural as possible, and I got pretty much what I wanted.
I haven’t used her postpartum services, but Tabitha is still an invaluable asset to me. Every time I look at my beautiful daughter, I remember all the hard work I did, and all the help Tabitha gave us. If it wasn’t for Tabitha, my birth would have a very different story.
If we have another baby, even though I’ve been through labor and delivery now, we will DEFINITELY be hiring Tabitha again.