I especially appreciated that she did not try to convince us that there is just one proper way of doing things, which is unfortunately something that young parent hear very often, but rather she always tried to guide us in a way that we were always able to find our own approach to our role as parents that we felt comfortable with. My main motivation for originally wanting to have a doula at my birth because I was concerned that I, a foreigner that doesn’t speak Czech, would not be able to communicate with the doctors and nurses at the hospital and therefore would not be able to assure that my desires for the birth and my baby’s care after birth would be known and respected. In the end I had a c section and my needs were clearly communicated to the doctor and nurses before the birth so the doula wasn’t necessary for the reasons that I had thought. However, Lenka had an even more important role than I could have imagined. She had in important role in convincing the hospital staff to let my daughter stay with us instead of in the nursery in the first 24 hours and stayed with my daughter, my husband and I for the first day of the birth and for a number of hours on the following three days. Thanks to her, my daughter was able to bond with me on my body in my private room in the hospital in the important first hours after birth and learn to breastfeed properly right from the beginning, despite the fact that she was born with a c section.

Angee