If you are pregnant and plan to birth the baby, hire a doula. Not just any doula, hire Holly. I don’t care what your birth plan is. I don’t care if you are planning on getting an epidural or going natural. I don’t care if you’re birthing your first child or your 10th. I don’t care if you have the best doctors around. Hire Holly. When I went in to making a birth plan, I started at A: I’m pregnant and having this baby, had all these plans in between (natural birth, hypnosis, etc), and ended at Z: having a happy healthy baby. All that B through Y in between didn’t go as planned for me. However, that end result of a happy healthy baby and a happy healthy me are due in large part to having Holly there. I truly believe she saved me from narcotics that would have been transferred to my baby, possibly saved my baby with how quickly my birth experience changed and how busy everyone was, and her encouragement to push kept me from a c-section. That, to me, was undoubtedly worth every last dollar we spent in hiring her. Her knowledge pre, during, and post birth have been invaluable. She is a kind, compassionate human being. I can’t imagine what my birth story would have been like without her, and I’m glad I don’t have to.