A Joyful Doula

As a fellow placenta encapsulator (or placenta lady as I like to call myself), I have had the pleasure of partnering with Joy when I was traveling or not able to take on another placenta. She has always been extremely reliable and the families she has helped have raved about easy the process was, with prompt communication and fast turn around times. Plus the packaging she uses is beautiful and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. I would HIGHLY recommend Joy for placenta encapsulation, she is the best!

I am a midwife and very quickly Joy became my «go to» referral for placenta encapsulation. As a midwife I am always concerned with cleanliness and cross contamination. I always check in about processes with placenta encapsulators. I felt confident with Joy. Many of my clients used her to process their placentas and every one of them was happy with the experience. She is very responsive and incredible fast. Even when she was fully pregnant herself she managed well coordinated pick-​up/​drop-​offs and rapid processing. I wish she was still in the area so that i could continue to refer her!

It has been such a blessing to know and work with Joy! She is a treasure chest of women’s health knowledge and a true advocate for empowerment and choosing the birth that’s right for you. I have worked with her as a doula and have also used her placenta encapsulation services. And I’ve referred many a client to Joy. I can’t say enough good things about her. She is reliable, responsive, caring, determined, and lives from a very passionate place. She is an asset to any birth team and all new parents.

Joy is a beautiful person, inside and out, and we were lucky enough to have her as part of our doula team, with her co-​doula, Heather. When I initially met Joy and Heather, I immediately thought they were amazing! They were kind, caring, and exuded such a positive energy regarding birth and mamas, which I thought was very special. They were also SOOO experienced and SOOO intelligent; it was apparent that they loved being doulas and supporting mamas and their families. As a second time mama, and this being my second experience with hiring a doula (…and I’ve met and interviewed probably a dozen doulas) I was EXTREMELY impressed! I knew that they would be an invaluable part of my birth experience.
Joy is extremely knowledgable about everything healthy and natural regarding pregnancy, birth, postpartum, newborn care and beyond! She has a gentle, peaceful, loving, and grounding spirit. She was always available and there to answer any questions or concerns I had.
Joy encapsulated our placenta, and she was SO fast, efficient, and organized! She educated me thoroughly about the process and all the choices I had. I loved having her paperwork about the process and the choices I had regarding the different methods of preparation. Heather dropped our placenta to her immediately after our birth, and Joy completed the process before we left the hospital. She even offered to drop it off to us. I love the pills, and the placenta prints. The prints were done beautifully and I will cherish them forever. They provide a reminder to me of the nourishment our bodies provide our little babes during such a miraculous time.
We love Joy… and are extremely grateful for her! We highly recommend her services!

Joy showed up to the hospital shortly after the birth of our beautiful daughter. She picked up the placenta and returned to the hospital so quickly! I don’t even think 24 hours passed… everything is kind of a blur ;-)
I do know that the placenta pills WORK. I have recommended her services to several of my friends and can say that this «luxury» is SO worth it! My husband and I would have paid twice the amount she charges. My family has a history of hormone imbalance. I skipped an afternoon dose by accident and felt a little crazy. After my loving husband GENTLY suggested that I may have forgotten to take my placenta pills, I realized he was right… took two right away and 40 minutes later was back to normal. So this service is legit. Joy is a total professional. I will continue to recommend her to anyone with an open ear :-)

My husband and I connected with Joy and her co-​doula through their doula services when I was a few months pregnant. Not really knowing what we were doing, but getting clear that we wanted to work with a doula for the birth of our baby, we began meeting with doulas and Joy stood out right away. Working with her was so beneficial; the information she provided was clear and so informative, allowing me and my husband to make informed decisions and to have a really beautiful birth experience.
I chose to have Joy encapsulate my placenta and the process was equally wonderful. The instructions she provided were incredibly clear and the process was made so simple for us during a time when so much else is going on. Joy got the caps to us very quickly (while we were still in the hospital) and dropped them off to us personally. Not only did I get so much benefit from taking the caps postpartum, but I again felt fully supported and informed along the way.
Thank you so much, Joy! My husband and I HIGHLY recommend the services she offers.

We hired Joy as our doula and she was amazing. Not only is she confident and knowledgeable but she is also extremely warm and kind. We were also excited to learn that Joy offered placenta encapsulation services. I wasn’t very knowledgeable about the process or the effectiveness of placenta pills for postpartum but I can now speak to how valuable it was to have them. My husband called them the magic pills! Joy made the process very easy and provided the pills very quickly — before we even checked out of the hospital. She even included citz bath tea from her personal recipe. We will absolutely work with Joy again on future births!

Joy is such a wonderful person! All the glowing reviews are absolutely true. I asked Joy to encapsulate my placenta. I was shocked at how fast she came to me after my birth with a bottle full of the glorious pills. The whole process was incredibly easy, and so worth it. I was on the fence about whether or not I should have this done, but now I would highly recommend it and Joy to all Mamas.

Joy and I have been co-​doulas for years now. She has done placenta encapsulation for all of our doula clients that have requested the service. She’s incredibly organized, reliable, speedy, and a wonderful part of our birth community. Yay for Joy and the gift of placenta encapsulation services.

My wife and I feel extremely lucky that we hired Joy. Our goal was to have a natural birth at Kaiser SF. The amount of information and knowledge that we gained by meeting with our doulas and talking through our birth plan was priceless. To be honest, without our doulas we would most likely have had a c-​section, but instead we had a natural birth. The labor was difficult and long, and contrary to what you may have heard, having a natural birth at Kaiser SF is not as easy as it may seem. They bombard you from the start with things that you do not want (morphine, breaking your bag, pitocin, etc.). If you are not prepared with a solid birth plan and a good knowledge of what the doctors and nurses will throw your way, it would be really difficult to stick to the birth that you intend to have. The doctors and nurses do their best to be persuasive and try to dictate how your labor will go. Our doulas really prepared us for everything.
Once the labor got going, Joy was great with trying different positions to ease my wife’s pain and help the baby get in a better position. Joy was so dedicated and there for us every step of the way. She was also there for us, when we had to make every decision along the way. It took a lot of pressure off of me, as the husband, to be the only birth partner. Our labor took 72 hours, and it was really great to have someone there to support us, who was well rested, and could offer help in every way. We were amazed by her stamina and amazing attitude.
I highly recommend Joy.

My wife and I hired Joy initially for a hospital birth but later decided to have a home birth. Joy was thoroughly knowledgeable about both paths and helped us fine tune our birthing plan. She has a very lovely, motherly complexion and was pivotal in helping us through the birth of our first daughter. We felt very much in great hands the entire time and would use her again.
If you are considering doula services, you should definitely give Joy a call and find out what shes all about!

Joy Kobrick is just lovely. I first met Joy professionally as a doula colleague and recently had the opportunity to work with her personally throughout the postpartum time with her new baby.
Joy’s warmth, knowledge and passion shine through as both a doula and a new mother. She truly shows up in her life and for her doula clients with an open heart and a non-​judgmental mind for how things are to unfold.
I can’t recommend her highly enough and any family would be blessed to have her support!

Our daughter was born February 2014. We hired Joy and her partner, Heather, the December before. Though we met other doulas, we knew almost immediately they were the ones for us. Besides being extremely knowledgeable, Joy has a very calming and peaceful aura about her. We’re so glad with our decision — both she and Heather were everything we had hoped for in a doula: informative, supportive, caring, reassuring, and 100% committed to helping us have the best birthing experience possible.
Our birth story has several twists and turns during a 4 day process. Joy was always a text or phone call away and then at the hospital by our side as soon as we needed her. Though we didn’t get the natural birth we wanted, in some ways, it was even more important that we had our doula with us. What ended up being a long and bumpy labor was manageable and remarkably stress free thanks to their support and guidance. In retrospect, I think I might have freaked out a couple times during the 4 days, but I having Joy and Heather gave me the confidence and security I needed to be in the moment and enjoy the birthing process as much as possible.
I can’t praise Joy enough. You can’t go wrong having her in your birthing corner. Best of luck to all you expectant mommies!

We hired Joy to be our doula for a planned homebirth this January. Initially we weren’t sure that we needed a doula since we had a midwife and my husband would be with me throughout the birth, but we had also heard that a doula can be one of the things that helps make a homebirth successful. Joy was recommended by one of the midwives teaching our birthing class, and as soon as we met her we knew she was the perfect person for us.
I have a hard time feeling comfortable with people I don’t know well, and was especially concerned about hiring a doula because I knew I’d be extremely vulnerable during the birth and we would only have spent a few hours together prior to that day. But something about Joy immediately put me at ease. I felt that she had the perfect combination of warmth and professionalism; I totally trusted her expertise from the very beginning and somehow knew I could relax with her. The night I went into labor, Joy came to our home about four hours after labor began, and jumped in to helping ease the pain of my surges right away. She also was an incredible support to my husband, and helped him know when to take a break and how to support me better. She also helped us know when things were progressing to the point when we should call our midwife.
In the end we had to transfer to the hospital, and Joy was with us all the way. She stayed by my side as I pushed for many hours, even though she must have been exhausted from being with us for so many hours. The next day she visited us to see how we were doing, and once we got home she came to deliver my placenta pills and debrief the birth with us. The post-​natal visit was almost as important to me as her support during labor, as it allowed me to process my many different emotions about the birth. Joy held the space for anything and everything that arose.
As others have mentioned, we also found Joy’s resources to be extremely useful. She provided a great handbook as well as many stretches and supportive posture work that we did in the weeks leading up to the birth. Joy truly helped to ensure that our birth was what I wanted it to be – full of love and free of fear. I would hire Joy again in a heartbeat.

Joy is a wonderful person and an amazing doula, I would highly recommend her!
We asked Joy to be our doula for the birth of our first child. She provided us with great prenatal support, advice and materials for preparing for our labor.
We ended up having to be induced unexpectedly one month before our due date and Joy was able to be available to attend the birth and answer lots of questions for us in the early stages of labor. She helped us make informed decisions along the way with the options we were provided with from our medical team at the hospital. During labor, she was extremely helpful at creating a calm and relaxed environment, and helping use various positions and techniques to assist the progress of labor.
Finally, she checked in with us at a follow-​up visit to answer any questions we had about our birth experience and provide ideas for healing and nutrition.

Joy was our doula for my recent pregnancy and delivery. I found her to be the perfect mix of professional and «alternative” – she’s super organized, very communicative, and reliable, but also very warm and knowledgable about natural childbirth processes and homeopathic treatments.
Once we hired her, my husband and I met with her twice prior to the birth, where we discussed our desires for the birth process and she wrote up a birth plan for us to approve. So helpful! She also showed us several exercises and stretches to do during pregnancy (some of which felt awesome on my huge pregnant bod) and was very knowledgable about supplements and homeopathic treatments for various ailments.
During labor (which was long and hard, as I suppose almost all of them are), her presence was calming and grounding, even as things took many unexpected turns. She was supportive even when I asked for an epidural (something not on the birth plan), and she stayed with us over two days, even sleeping on our couch. During delivery she reminded our caregivers of some of our other birth preferences like delayed cord clamping, etc. – something both my husband and I were certainly not in any mindset to do.
In short, she was a wonderful resource during both my pregnancy and labor. (She also encapsulated my placenta for me post labor which was great as well – so nice to have one person doing all of this!) Even though my labor was not what I would have planned, I felt safe the entire time and came away feeling like the whole thing was a good experience – something I think Joy played a very important role in.

We hired Joy as our doula for our first baby, who was born on January 9^th. My husband and I had interviewed 3 doulas and Joy was by far our favorite. I could tell right away when meeting her that she was warm, kind, and really loved what she does. In our first prenatal visit, Joy explained exactly how she would help during the labor and birth, when to call her, the different ways my husband could help me during labor and even during pregnancy. She gave us a booklet that she put together with tons of information on the labor and birth experience, what happens right after the baby is born (vaccines and other medical processes that are done to the baby and the pros/​cons of each), postpartum information for infant care, etc. She also put together our birth plan based on the information she collected from us in our first visit. She was more than happy to answer any of our questions in person or via email along the way and she also checked in with us throughout the third trimester. In our second prenatal visit, we went over all the different laboring positions, the massage techniques my husband or she would use during labor, and other «tricks» she could try to help ease my pain during labor. Finally, leading up to my due date, we were in close contact regarding any labor symptoms I was having or doctor visits and progress updates.
The day I went into labor, my water broke at the acupuncture’s office that she recommended! (Need to write a Unilocal review for Amy Gordon!) Even though our plan was to labor at home for as long as possible before going to the hospital, because my water broke, my husband and I decided it was best to go straight to the hospital. Joy met us there when my husband told her we were ready for and needed her support. She was in constant contact with him while we were laboring on our own. Joy was such great support during my labor and really helped bring a sense of calm to the experience. My mom, who was also in the L&D room, really connected with Joy and told me days later that she wanted to adopt her. Ha! I can understand why. Throughout my labor, Joy was there to answer any questions we had about what was happening, or whether the baby was ok, or if I was progressing at a good pace. When it came time to push, she was there cheering me on, holding up my leg, etc. Overall, I would highly recommend Joy if you are considering hiring a doula! She is such a caring, strong woman who obviously loves supporting mothers and their partners through their birth and labor experiences.

Can’t recommend Joy highly enough.
She became our doula early on in my wife’s pregnancy, and every step of the way, she gave us awesome advice, books to read, etc. A lot of the other posts on here do her justice, but I’ll just add that our baby came out totally perfect. My wife was in labor for a total of about 6 hours. Only 2 – 3 of which were the tough parts. Joy helped every step of the way, and has been very accessible for any questions we have had post partum. Definitely using her for any future kids, and recommending any other pregnant friends to her!

I had initially hired a colleague of Joy’s for our placenta encapsulation. She unexpectedly was busy when I went into labor and quickly called Joy to fill in for her. Their transition was seamless!
Joy promptly arrived at CPMC within hours after our LO was born in August 2013. She was so supportive and provided a calm presense while I was still spinning from the birth experience. As promised, she arrived early the following day with a huge bottle of pills. I followed her instructions and had amazing results.
For those sitting on the fence about placenta encapsulation, I think it’s the easiest solution for postpartum trauma. I never cried or had the baby blues during my initial weeks of motherhood. My stomach/​uterus swelling went down so fast that my husband, family and friends noticed it immediately. Most importantly as a breastfeeding mother, my milk came in 24 hours after I left the hospital. Without a doubt, we will be encapsulating my placenta for baby #2 and utilizing Joy’s services again.

Joy was one of the two doulas at the birth of our daughter, and it’s hard to imagine how it would have been without her there. We had originally wanted a natural birth with no interventions at all, but that plan was dashed when we were put into a high-​risk category. So instead of giving us a midwife, our hospital assigned a team of doctors and residents, and all of a sudden the birth was feeling very medical. When Joy and our other doula arrived, they provided us with great advice, comfort, and assurance that we were doing the right thing. And during the birth itself, they were always at my partner’s side with nurturing touch, gentle encouragement, and grounding common sense.
Joy in particular brought a warm and loving energy to the whole event, and I’m very glad she was there. We also opted to have her encapsulate the placenta. Five stars!