Counselor Gayathri Iyer shares her extraordinary experience working with Janel for the birth of her son Svadhyaya.
As a queer single woman of color who began my journey at age 38 toward the major steps in fertility, pregnancy, birth, and parenthood, there’s a label of “by choice” that’s meant to signal self-sufficiency and pride in the challenging process that life has brought you to. The truth is that many of my options toward motherhood felt limited in choice - I felt lucky to get pregnant with an undetectable egg count in a pandemic year of stalled treatments, where it was rare and risky to enlist even a best friend to accompany me to appointments or supportive company at home. In that story, deciding to work with Janel (and Oula Health who listed her on their referrals) was the true first time I felt the boon of choice, and all the liberation and empowerment of the choices that came after with her guidance and nurturing. Janel’s framework and mentality is all about non-judgmental choice, tempered with realistic goals, and imaginative possibility for me and my new baby in the home, hospital, and most of all the anxious headspace before and after.
My standards as a counselor, care worker, feminist, and someone with deep familial connections were very high for someone working so closely with my body and kin, and Janel was an instant and instinctual fit. She is warm, wise, precise yet fluid, thorough, available, accountable, creative, reflective, and a thing I forgot to desire but came to value deeply – fun – as a support person in the pregnancy, birth, and parenting experience. I describe Janel to my community as someone who feels like an old friend - she was my first phone call from the referral list because her work seemed both intellectual and embodied, personal and political, global and expertly local to New York. She is still one of my first people I think of when I think of the hardest and proudest moments of this biggest year of my life transforming into a parent. Janel is a hip and hop-to-her-feet New Yorker and poised woman of color who made me feel home in sharing a plate of ethnic snacks when we talked about some of the fears I had for my body, and held my hand and drenched hospital gown when I later lived them, as she swiftly returned to birthing room from home in the middle of the night when my contraction patterns changed. She understood and brought immense comfort, cultural relevance and reverence to my older immigrant mother who was primary to my birth plan, in everything from validating her feelings of limitation and self-consciousness about the changes in modern pregnancy practices, to guiding her through hotel seeking in the middle of my hours of labor. She communicates in comforting, confident code with the midwife team and hospital staff who managed my delivery, and made my best and worst moments seem valid and unique despite her vast and varied experiences with so many births. There are elements of care that she will provide that you may not even know you needed until they arise, like the way to direct the otherworldly kinetic energy that fills your body when you are about to meet your baby. I treasure that Janel was with us when my son was born and my mother became a grandmother, and she became woven into my village of aunties and superfans. I will never forget the empathic responses she offered to my idiosyncratic but personally earth-shattering postpartum questions from lactation to family dynamics to vitamins to appointments to swaddling strategies for success. Janel is a standout professional who has found the work she is meant to do in the world bringing full meaning to the choice and voice that a doula can provide to a birthing person, and I recommend her to anyone with enthusiasm.