Rachel Mans, Doula

05/25/2026

🙌🙌

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A doula can GREATLY influence the outcome of a birth (for good or bad!). An amazing doula may be worth more than your provider! You should consider hiring one. She can do a lot to facilitate a better and healthier birth for you and your baby and she should passionately want that for you.

BUT a doula can’t work miracles.

She’s not a magician, a prophet, or Jesus. Hiring a doula is not your guarantee of the perfect birth outcome. Signing that contract means the experience, support, advice, information, and time she is equipped and agrees to give.

⚠️ If you’re choosing a provider who is at odds with your birth plan...

⚠️ If you’re choosing interventions or testing that may compromise your choices...

⚠️ If you’re unwilling to examine your fears or trauma...

⚠️ If you’re expecting her to save you from the work of labor...

⚠️ If you won’t say no to a provider, a nurse, or hospital policy...

⚠️ If you’re expecting her to be your one-stop shop for all your education and research...

⚠️ If your husband isn’t supporting or trusting you...

⚠️ If you’re simply handing your authority and responsibility to her instead of the system...

⚠️ If you can’t set up boundaries with family...

⚠️ If you won’t consider any of her suggestions...

⚠️ If you have very real unavoidable complications...

“But I hired a doula!” isn’t going to fix it.

Even Jesus asks our cooperation and active participation to work in us and change outcomes. A good experienced doula CAN profoundly improve your birth. But she can’t birth for you. She can’t learn for you. She can’t make choices for you. She can’t fix situations outside her control. She can’t guarantee an outcome.

It is incredible joy and honor to be present at a birth. It’s humbling and rewarding when I know I’ve made a difference in a woman’s and baby’s birth and even longterm health. But best outcomes and experiences are when I serve a mother willing to do the work, willing to do the hard things, willing to claim the authority and beautiful birth God has for her.

A doula can do her best to work for Him but she can never ever BE Him.

🤍

05/21/2026

Postpartum snuggles are just so fun! 😍

This boy's mama did a wonderful job with her 2nd VBAC! It was MUCH quicker than her first, and had it's stressful moments, but I, midwife Talia Cruz Whittington, & her nurse all worked together so well to help her navigate the birth, follow the Lord's guidance, feel supported, and achieve another VBAC!

Compared to her 1st VBAC, which I also attended, this one was even better! It was such a blessing to see her have a much quicker birth, see 4 of her families members watch in awe, AND have the exact birth team we prayed for 🥰

01/07/2026

I took it easy this year & it was such a blessing! 🥰

I was still able to serve 6 doula clients, 5 of which were repeats & 1 was a referral from a wonderful chiropractor!

I'm pretty sure I attended 6 births as a midwife's assistant with Harmony Health and Home Birth - Southern Illinois, but honestly, that number might not be correct 😆 Just before Christmas, I got a bonus Christmas gift & was able to attend a VAGINAL BREECH HOME BIRTH with one of their clients. For those of you who know me, you know I LOVE breech birth!

I was also able to teach 1 childbirth ed class for a Mercy Birthing Center patient, I had 2 postpartum doula clients, AND I was the MC for "A Night with Dr. Stu" through Christian Birth Workers of St. Louis, which was a dream! 🤩

I also officially stopped creating new podcasts episodes 😢 That was a hard choice for Tiffany Muniz CLC, Certified Birth Doula & I, but it has given us more time to focus on other aspects of our work, as well as our wonderful families!

Overall, 2025 was a wonderful year! Looking ahead at 2026, I already have 9 repeat clients, as well as plans to keep assisting for Harmony 🥰

12/04/2025

I'm SO excited for Kacey 🥰❤️🥰

If you are considering a home birth, talk to her! She is so loving, compassionate, and an all-around wonderful midwife!

If you're already familiar with Harmony, then not much is actually changing for you! It's the same team of assistants (me included), same midwife, and same extremely high quality of care!

Big news today for Harmony!

In 2021, Harmony was started with so much love and the idea of wanting women in IL to be able to birth the way they wanted, in the comfort of their own homes. Local, more rural hospitals were closing their labor units left and right and it just wasn't fair or right to force women to travel an hour plus to receive care within a hospital system when they could barely make it there to birth in the first place.

In mid 2023, our family felt called away from the area. It was a super hard decision to make, but that decision was made easier after I had met Kacey. She had recently been laid off from her long time position as a hospital based CNM and a friend suggested we get together to talk about options. Once we met, it was an obvious solution! Kacey stepped in as lead midwife, keeping Meghan at her side as a consistent primary birth assistant and secondary midwife. We continued to run operations from afar but slowly turned over more and more responsibility to Kacey over the past two years.

Today, Kacey takes over as business owner. Most of you already know her well, but for those of you who don't, I have no doubt she will do a fantastic job. She's an amazing midwife and she already knows all of the ins and outs of Harmony and what she doesn't know is easily teachable. Plus, we're just a quick phone call away!

For our current clients, please know operations will run pretty seamlessly and you shouldn't notice much of anything at all during this transition. Kacey will be your go to person for all things. :-)

And just for fun and to bring it full circle, here's a pic of us together doing what we love at Kacey's first home birth. That was definitely one for the books!

With so much love and unending support,

Maggie Petry

10/30/2025

I have space for a postpartum client in December! November is booked, but I'd love to help a mama have extra rest and support just before the business & joy of Christmas 🌲

Let me know if you want/need an extra set of hands, you deserve it 🥰

10/13/2025

Wooo! It's been a minute!

I have been working hard, just not on doula work 😆 These past several months have been filled with kids and family and sports and homeschooling and more!

But after a good long break, I am offering postpartum doula care again (1-2 days/week)! $50/hour during the day, with discounts if you book 12+ hours of care up front.

All moms deserve a little extra help and support! Message me for more details ☺️

Send a message to learn more

08/30/2025

Births and postpartum visits are always such a joy! But when it's a friend, it's even better 🥰

This sweet mama had her first baby at 42+6 😳 after choosing to transfer from a home birth to the hospital for an induction for decreased movement from the baby. After a couple rounds of cytotec, she had a birth free of pain meds!

With her 2nd pregnancy, she still desired a home birth. There was talk of transfer at one point during pregnancy, which worried both of us. BUT it never happened and she rocked her 1st home birth with so much strength and excitement!

I got to see her today and brought my sweet girls with me to meet her new little girl. It was such a blessing to support her birth and then cuddle my sweet friend's baby 🥰

08/07/2025

This is a MUST WATCH! 😂❤️

06/28/2025

Postpartum visit with a wonderful repeat client and Natasha B. - Birth Wishes Doula (and her adorable girls)!

This mama had a big surprise when her water broke at 34/35 weeks gestation. Her home birth plan changed to a hospital transfer and a nicu stay for baby boy (although he came out over 7 lbs and breathing great).

But Mom and Dad did such a great job handling the twists and turns of their entire birth. And big sister was thrilled to stay with Grandma so much 😂

Navigating the nicu is hard, especially when it's your first experience with birth and postpartum in the hospital. But this handsome guy was totally worth it 🥰

06/19/2025

We're always finding out MORE BENEFITS of following nature instead of intervening. 🙌 Delayed cord clamping is just one example of that!