2017 has been quite the year for my little birth doula business! Here are a few of my favorite highlights.

I was invited to attend 14 births this year, bringing me to a career total of 81 babies! One of the births this year I attended as the backup doula, covering for my dear friend Mandi Campbell while she attended a family wedding. Try as we may, birth and babies defy our feeble plans, so when two babies, due two weeks apart, decided to share a birthday this year, Mandi assisted me with backup doula care as well. After 2 hours of overlap support, I was able to provide support to both families in birth. I am thankful for the Lincoln doula community, I know that I can call on any one of them to back me up in a pinch, and vice versa!

Three of my past clients chose to include me in their birth experience again this year! I am so honored!

Overall, my doula clients have welcomed 40 girls and 41 boys, however this year welcomed 9 girls and just 5 boys.

2017 welcomed the smallest Doula Joyce baby to date, weighing in at just 4 pounds 11 ounces, born several weeks prematurely, and doing very well now. The largest baby this year weighed 9 pounds 3 ounces.

I seriously believe in DONA International's vision, a doula for every person who wants one. One of the ways I meet that vision is by setting a goal for pro bono services every year. My goal is 10% annually. Overall, I have provided free or reduced professional birth doula services to 16% of my clients, for 2017 it was 7%.

This year one of my clients gave birth by Cesarean. Overall, my clients' Cesarean rate is 13.6%.

I am passionate about increased access to Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC), which is why I am proud to support women both as a doula and through my volunteer efforts with the International Cesarean Awareness Network as Lincoln's chapter coleader. This year I supported three women with past Cesarean births who planned VBAC. All three gave birth by VBAC. Overall, I have supported 16 women who planned VBAC, with an achieved VBAC rate of 87.5%. 

In my 81 births as a doula, 7 babies chose their estimated date of delivery for their birthdays (exactly 40 weeks gestation). Three of those babies were born this year! 

Six clients opted for epidural anesthesia this year, or 43%. Overall, 37% of my clients chose epidurals. 

I had my busiest month ever, with 5 babies born in October 2017!

Thank you to everyone who has included me on their birth teams over the last 8 years!