We were very fortunate to be referred to Shelia Kandeler by Penny Simkin, leader of our Childbirth Education class, and our experience working with Shelia proved to be a singularly positive force during the many phases of my wife’s arduous and ultimately successful labor and delivery at Swedish Hospital.

To draw out the qualities, expertise, and actions of Shelia’s that most impressed us is no simple task … we feel so very fortunate that she possesses all of the skills one would want in a doula.

Shelia’s excellent communication skills, her organizational capacity and professionalism, were evident from our first e-mail and voicemail exchanges, as well as our prenatal meeting (increasing our confidence and reducing our fears as first-time parents). She was a terrific collaborator throughout, including during postpartum and with regard to breastfeeding consultations.

Her knowledge and experience as a doula, her ability to offer practical advice and to share both medical research and received wisdom with us, in addition to the quality of her personal perspectives and guidance relevant to the many questions and decisions we faced, were all simply outstanding.

During the process of labor itself, Shelia’s ability to offer advice and comfort measures, to be constantly present in both an emotional and physical capacity, and to help finesse some of our interactions with hospital staff added a dimension to our experience that we now know is critical … Shelia’s ability to ‘mother’ and nurture both of us, combined with her enthusiasm and sheer endurance, helped sustain us throughout.

Shelia’s abundant caring for us and for our newborn, her instincts as a coach, her obvious love for her work, and, yes, the excellent ‘birth story’ she wrote and that we look forward to sharing with our kid one day, have all made an impression on us. We could not recommend her work as a doula more highly!