Acu-Doula

We had the most phenomenal experience with Yume!
So, I’m generally sort of a sceptic. Way more than my wife, Kat. She wanted a doula, and she was the one who was going through the hard part. After our initial meeting with Yume, we didn’t even consider interviewing any other doulas. Engaging the services of a doula hadn’t been in our budget, but I was as sold as Kat was after initially meeting.
While our birthing classes (through Kaiser) gave us important preparation for what we were going to be going through the institutional lens, our prenatal meetings with Yume were so much more. She was crucial to us considering all of the options when putting together our birth plan, deciding what was really important to us. The prenatal acupuncture treatments helped Kat to know that everything was «on track,» and we appreciated the reassurance that we’d have another potent tradition with us in the hospital to balance out the clinical Western one.
When Kat’s water broke at home, our birth plan pretty much went out the window. Yume helped us adapt as reality forced some compromises. In the hospital, she knew when her presence was helpful and when to disappear. She helped manage the nurses and doctors, keeping them on the path we were trying for and helping mitigate the increasingly interventionist/​pharmaceutical methods we were being encouraged towards. Yume was everything I wasn’t. And everything the doctors and nurses weren’t.
Kat chose to have Yume encapsulate the placenta, and found the capsules to be post-​partum saving grace.
We are so grateful we had Yume to guide us through the most urgent/​beautiful experience of our lives.
Love!

Yume is extremely knowledgeable and skilled at acupuncture. Her calm and kind demeanor put me at ease right away which was something since I was in considerable pain. A couple sessions with Yume really helped me and I feel a lot better. It was nice to go to someone I felt I could trust. The whole experience with Yume was positive. Her clinic was relaxing and felt tranquil and was easy to get to. I have totally recommended her to friends and all have said the same great things about their experiences.

My experience working with Yume was not only satisfying from beginning to end but also extremely educational — she did things for me I never could have known I wanted done!
Starting out, Yume’s demeanor both before and during treatments set me at ease — she made me feel safe, asking questions and really hearing my answers. Being with her feels sort of like being with my mom — like nothing bad could ever happen to me. I loved not needing to know exactly what I needed, and to still leave every session feeling that I had been totally taken care of.
During treatments, Yume took great care to keep me comfortable but also gave me plenty of space for quiet, which I felt was really helpful in deepening the benefits of the work I was receiving. Accupuncture, moxa, stretches, and other modalities I’d never known of worked in harmony to make me feel whole, body and soul. When we weren’t together and I had questions, she was quick to answer, and helped me make good choices on multiple occasions when I wasn’t sure what was best. Having her on my team made me feel much more confident in going through this brand new experience for the first time.
Yume’s presence at my birth was, in-​keeping with everything that came before, very calming and again provided a feeling of safety. In the eleventh hour, those cold compresses could not have been more deeply appreciated! I had some postpartum complications, and her guidance and support during those first few weeks were a great comfort, creating a continuity between the «before» and «after» that I found really important.
At the end of it all, to be given this beautiful package — the gorgeous placenta prints, the lovely little umbilical cord art, the strengthening placenta pills — made my pregnancy and birth feel complete, a sweet prize for my hard work!
Yume’s breadth and depth of knowledge combined with her grounding energy and generous spirit make her truly one-​of-​a-​kind. You get that luxurious spa feeling you’re wanting, the expert medical attention you’re needing, and a general sense of being just where you’re meant to be that happens when you’re with an old friend or taking deep breaths of fresh air. She’s simply the best!

Yume came to us in a pinch! My daughter came 4 weeks early and I was planning on having my placenta incapsulated. I knew I wanted Acu-​doula to do the encapsulation but hadn’t contacted her yet. My husband called her minutes after we gave birth and she showed up a few hours later to take the placenta away. A couple of days later she hand dropped it off at our house. I feel very strongly it helped me through the toughest time of having a new born and fighting postpartum. I HIGHLY recommend Acu-​doula for your placenta encapsulation. If I had my shit more together she would have been our doula too! Thank you Yume for all your help and love!

Acu-​Doula was instrumental in what was a very positive birth story. In the months leading up to special day, Yume gave me the tools to breathe and move through the pain and fear. Thanks to her compassion and confidence, I felt comfortable staying home and in our neighborhood for the lion’s share of my 37-​hour labor. Also, Yume encouraged my labor development with thoughtful and timely acupuncture treatments.
We went to the hospital only when necessary. And she was there, advocating for my birth plan, holding my hand, rubbing my back, and reminding me that I had the inner power to push through the pain in spite of my very real exhaustion. Thanks to Yume’s expertise, I had a drug-​free (minus the morphine the hospital gave me to help me sleep to gain some strength), which was a big personal goal. And we gave birth to a healthy baby girl who quickly latched to my breast.
We are pregnant again and our second child deserves the same chance for a positive birth experience, so we’re happy to say we’ve booked Acu-​Doula again.

My partner and I were extremely fortunate to have Yume as our doula and highly recommend her services. Her presence, knowledge and support were so critical during the pregnancy and birth process. The birth of our child was such a special moment in our lives and we were glad Yume was on our team.
As a gay couple, we felt Yume was extremely caring and informed about the particular challenges that LGBT couples and families can face during this process.
Yume was excellent in her communication with the medical staff and our extended family who were there at the hospital. It was incredibly reassuring that Yume knew exactly what to do during the labor and when it was time to call the doctor to deliver the baby. She was right by our side helping us push and bring our child into the world.
The pre and post-​birth visits that Yume did were really useful for us. Yume is extremely knowledgable, listened to our concerns, and answered all our questions. She was very informed about the policies and practices of hospitals and went through our birth plan with us. It was great to have her walk us through the concerns we had with laboring at home for too long.
Yume created an herbal sitz bath that was instrumental in my healing — it really helped relieve the pain and discomfort I had when I came home. She also does placenta encapsulation and provided me with pills that helped my postpartum recovery. Postpartum, I felt strong and my recovery was good — I can thank Yume in large part for that!

Yume was wonderful to work with from start to finish. First off, the acupuncture treatments were simply divine. I found them much more relaxing and longer lasting than a massage. She also encapsulated my placenta. I delivered at John Muir Walnut Creek via cesarean and had spoken to my OBGYN about saving my placenta (it was no problem — they just need to know ahead of time). In the operating room they bagged it up and while I was in recovery, my husband met Yume and handed off the organ I grew from scratch. Within two weeks (it was a bit later because Yume had a cold and didn’t want to work on my placenta while she wasn’t in perfect health — thank you!), she dropped off a pretty container with all my capsules. I also received a jar with a piece of my placenta with the instructions to swirl daily for 8 weeks. This tincture is to be saved and used when I am going through menopause. I also received a dried, heart shaped piece of the umbilical cord as well as photos of my placenta. She also takes PayPal which just makes life easier :)