About Me
Stefanie Sasinek-Roil, Labour and Postpartum Doula:I adore pregnancy, and birth, and babies. There is a sense of wonder and anticipation involved that draws me in and gives me a sense of hope. I’ve always been fascinated with the magic that takes individuals and creates families. I’ve heard it said that being a Doula is a calling, and it is often referred to as a labour of the heart. Certainly, in my case becoming a Doula has given me a sense of peace, of rightness, within me.
My husband Martin and I have three wonderful children in our blended famly, two sons and one daughter, ranging in age from preschool to preteen. I have been a young, single mother. I have been a mom on bedrest for preterm labour. I have been a newly married mom with postpartum depression. I have watched my due date come and go with no sign of labour in sight. My births have been exhilarating and scary and difficult. They have been induced and spontaneous. They’ve run the gamut in many ways from one end of the spectrum to the other. Never have I given birth at home, although it had been my dearest wish on more than one occasion. Never have I needed surgery. Never have I had a doula.
For all the variations and similarities, when I look back over the arrival of my three children, the only thing I really wish I could change is the absence of a trained, attentive support person. I wish I’d had a doula.
Every birth is unique and precious, whether it is the arrival of your first child, or your fifth; a singleton or twins (or more!); a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean) or a surgical delivery. Families spend months dreaming, both literally and figuratively, of the arrival of their baby. They often feel overwhelmed by the information, risks, and options available to them.
I chose the name ‘Family Way Doula’ for several reasons. The first, and probably most obvious, of those reasons being the play on words with the rather old fashioned phrase ‘in the family way’ to refer to pregnancy. But there is more than that to my choice. I have been trained by CAPPA to be a Birth Doula, and also to be a Postpartum Doula. My training gives me tools to help new families in those exciting and sometimes endless, last few weeks of pregnancy, through the arrival of the new baby (or babies), and also during the first days and weeks with this new little person. Beyond my CAPPA training I also offer support in ways that I wished I had been supported during my own pregnancies; help and company when I was confined to bed and feeling isolated and stir-crazy; an adult who’s focus was able to be completely on my older children as the sudden changes and whirlwind activities of preparing for a new child demanded so much and created so many questions.
My job isn’t to tell my clients what to do or how to do it; rather, it is to help them come into their own as parents, to weather the changes to their family that every new child brings. My role is to help families find their OWN path, their own way, whatever that may be.
Being a doula is the job of my dreams. Each and every client offers me the unique and precious honor of witnessing and supporting one of life’s true wonders. Not just a birth, but the birth of a family.