Alta Bates Doula for VBAC?

I highly recommend Stacy Hattori.  She was my doula at Alta Bates for both of my pregnancies/deliveries. For my first child I was induced and ended up having a C-section, the second was a VBAC.  She is amazing.  I was highly anxious for both births for differing reasons.  She helped calm me (and my husband) and help advocate for what I wanted while also being extremely respectful of the medical professionals and their opinions.  I've recommended her to two friends who were similarly pleased with her. 

Hi,

I am expecting my first any moment now. I have done all my pre-natal check ups with Sutter and will be delivering at Alta Bates. So I can't speak to my experience giving birth at Alta bates, I can say all the classes we have had there and the support from Sutter so far has been awesome. They are much more on the side of less medical intervention if at all possible and more on the "mid-wife" type model while still all being MDs. In addition, we hired a doula to help us through the process. Our doula is Blythe Lee (3Daughters doula). We have done 3 pre-natal visits with her and she is amazing. She is incredibly intelligent, down to earth and an interesting person overall.  The pre-natal sessions we have had with her have been very practical and her information is based on the current research and knowledge about child birth (I am a scientist and have spent probably too much time looking up the recent lit on childbirth). I believe she had started a nursing degree but was unable to finish it due to life circumstances. She has been a doula for many years and has trained many of the other doulas in the area. I'm happy to give you an update after my baby arrives if you are interested.

Kim 

I cannot recommend my doula enough... Melissa: http://www.twicethelovedoulanapa.com/. She's got many, many years of experience as a doula and is currently studying to be a midwife so she really knows it all yet is price-competitive with lesser-experienced doulas. She is always available via text or phone for questions and provides more visits pre- and post-birth than other doulas I spoke to. I had 100% trust in her to help us through difficult decisions during labor. The only downside is that she's in Napa, but she travels to you for the visits so other than needing a little more time to get to you when labor starts, it's not an issue. Good luck!

I highly recommend Roxana Bahar! She brings a wealth of knowledge and deep understanding of the birth process, and has a lot to say about what to expect in a hospital setting. And, quite honestly, I wouldn't have been able to give birth to my son naturally without her. Because of her academic background — she has a PhD in sociology and spent years researching women's experience of the birth process from that angle — he's also less woo-woo than a lot of other folks in the field (if that matters to you). That said, she's also incredibly warm.
Learn more at http://www.betterbirtheastbay.com/.

The team of Lori Jaffe and Shoshana Friedman-Hawk was FANTASTIC for us. I don't know if they have specific VBAC experience, but they are warm, supportive, non-judgmental and there with you for the journey no matter what happens (speaking as someone whose birth experience [at Alta Bates] strayed pretty far from what we'd hoped/planned for). They come together to all prenatal/post-natal visits and alternate who is "on-call," so one of them will be present with you for as much of your birth as you want them there for. I'd strongly recommend you reach out to them. loridjaffe [at] gmail.com & shoshana [at] encirclingmothers.com