Author Archives: Lauren

About Lauren

Working with families has been Lauren’s passion for over ten years. Her tremendous work ethic and devotion to helping parents has made her a must have in the birth setting, postpartum, and beyond. Lauren serves her community as an educator, via postpartum planning curriculum and as a Labor and Postpartum Doula. She has a certification in breastfeeding counseling and started her training with DONA; being mentored by established Doulas in Colorado Springs. Lauren is now a professional member of ProDoula and a pre-certified Labor and Postpartum Doula. Lauren will be taking additional training in placenta encapsulation and business by the end of the Summer. Paving the way, Lauren is the Co‐owner of Colorado Mountain Doulas LLC provides the community with much needed education, local resources, sibling, postpartum, and labor Doula services. Lauren is the mother of two young children, and has been married since 2008. She loves to cook and entertain for her friends and family in her home in Colorado Springs.

Save the Babies-Newborn Screening

I met Sarah Wilkerson when I was hired as a postpartum doula to help welcome her daughter home. Sarah was blessed with three children but I would only be helping with two. Sarah says she learned the importance of newborn screening the hard way. As a mother who chose a natural birth path, including Bradley method classes, she felt a lack of information on the screening done for newborns and even some sway against them. After her own researching Sarah and her husband decided that going forward with the testing was the right decision for their family. Sarah had her first baby Noah, safe and naturally on a Friday. After arriving home, Noah was lethargic and not the best eater. On his fourth day, Noah stopped breathing, and they were unable to revive him. Noah’s screening test showed that he was positive for MCADD, (Medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency) A rare metabolic genetic disorder, but because he was born on a Friday, and the lab was not open on the weekend. His results were not processed in time to save him.

After losing Noah, Sarah became an advocate for change in newborn screening, formerly known as PKU testing. Sarah has traveled several times to Washington DC to lobby for change. She speaks with the governing board quarterly and was featured in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Deadly Delays series. Her efforts, along with many others with stories like hers, have created great changes in the ways newborn screenings are handled. It is now mandatory that Labs are open six days a week, and hospitals are no longer allowed to “batch” screenings. Batching is the practice of holding tests until there are enough births to warrant the postal service. The tests now include at least thirty different diseases, with many hospitals and labs looking at over fifty different disorders.

With Policy changes well on their way, Sarah says the biggest hurdle now, is getting the education to parents and loved ones.

One in every Three-hundred families will be affected, and she hopes to see every labor method and childbirth education course, cover this incredibly important issue.

For more information on newborn screening you can visit Savebabies.org or BabyGenes.net, a local resource for parents wishing to have the fastest possible results.

I was so lucky to work for Sarah and her amazing family and I strive to share the education she gave me on newborn screening.

Working with families has been Lauren’s passion for over ten years. Her tremendous work ethic and devotion to helping parents has made her a must have in the birth setting, postpartum, and beyond.
Lauren serves her community as an educator, via postpartum planning curriculum and as a Labor and Postpartum Doula. She has a certification in breastfeeding counseling and started her training with DONA; being mentored by established Doulas in Colorado Springs. Lauren is now a professional member of ProDoula and a pre-certified Labor and Postpartum Doula. Lauren will be taking additional training in placenta encapsulation and business by the end of the Summer.

Paving the way, Lauren is the Co‐owner of Colorado Mountain Doulas LLC provides the community with much needed education, local resources, sibling, postpartum, and labor Doula services.

Lauren is the mother of two young children, and has been married since 2008. She loves to cook and entertain for her friends and family in her home in Colorado Springs.

Not My Baby on Board Part3

Hello friends, and welcome back to another edition of “Not My Baby on Board”. When we last left off, I was going to go through the medical steps involved in becoming a surrogate. While it’s not quite as tough as brain surgery, there are still quite a few steps involved. So without further ado, here we go.

After having Skyped with the intended parents and agreed that we were right for each other, it was time to make sure that this oven was in tip-top shape. One of the steps involved in this was meeting with a shrink and answering some questions to make sure that I wasn’t crazy and really wanted to do this.

I’d been told that these were standard questions but they ranged from “How are your relationships at home?” to “Have you ever thought of killing your spouse?” (My response to that one was a very mumbled “All the time”, followed quickly by “Hmm? No I haven’t”). This meeting was supposed to be in fabulous Las Vegas where all of the actual medical testing and procedures were to take place, but the psychiatrist was on vacation. So rather than being in a nice doctor’s office, relaxing in a nice chair, I had to answer those lovely questions at home with two little ones running around. Apparently a little gallows humor when it comes to my spouse is a plus, because only a couple of days later I was in Vegas.

I traveled with my friend, Doula, and business partner Jenn. It was in Vegas that the medical procedures began, and took a lot less time than I thought they would. These were simple things like having blood drawn and also having saline pumped into my uterus to check for any defects via ultrasound. Like I said, these didn’t really take that long, and I got the results before I flew back out too. Everything was great and we were right on track.

The best part of the trip was getting to actually meet the intended parents. We got to have dinner together, and they were adorable! I can’t tell you much because they are international super spies (not really) but I assure you they are absolutely wonderful and I am eager to help them grow their family.

After arriving home, and being cleared medically, I was tasked with starting all of legal side of things. Much like a game of telephone I started with all my desires for birth and prenatal care and after it gets passed around to lawyers and the intended parents I eventually ended up with a contract. In my case it was nowhere near the standard surrogacy contract and instead, mainly because of my career path as a doula and two previous unmedicated births, I was able to have a lot of natural sway to our plans.

Did I mention how fantastic the couple I am working with is? Onward and upward, things start moving quickly after this step. I’m excited to tell you all about it next time.

Working with families has been Lauren’s passion for over ten years. Her tremendous work ethic and devotion to helping parents has made her a must have in the birth setting, postpartum, and beyond.
Lauren serves her community as an educator, via postpartum planning curriculum and as a Labor and Postpartum Doula. She has a certification in breastfeeding counseling and started her training with DONA; being mentored by established Doulas in Colorado Springs. Lauren is now a professional member of ProDoula and a pre-certified Labor and Postpartum Doula. Lauren will be taking additional training in placenta encapsulation and business by the end of the Summer.

Paving the way, Lauren is the Co‐owner of Colorado Mountain Doulas LLC provides the community with much needed education, local resources, sibling, postpartum, and labor Doula services.

Lauren is the mother of two young children, and has been married since 2008. She loves to cook and entertain for her friends and family in her home in Colorado Springs.

Not My Baby On Board Part2

When last we talked, I told you about how I’d been matched with a nice couple from the East Coast. Now I’ll tell you all about how we met, in this segment called “How I met your Surrogate”. I really think CBS stole the title from me, but I could be wrong.

I have to back track a little again to get everything set up for you.

One of the steps in becoming a surrogate is that the future oven (me), and all future ovens, have to fill out a profile, very much like a famous social networking site.

In filling out the profile, I had to answer all of the standard questions you’d find such as “Where do you live?”; “Do you have children?”; “Why do you want to become a surrogate?”; “Who is your favorite Star Wars character?” You know, all the standard questions.

For those of you wondering, my answer to that last question (an answer that still makes my husband shake his head in disbelief), is Jar Jar Binks. (Seriously, my husband is shaking his head and muttering “WHY?” under his breath as I type this).

Now, you’d think that saying something like “I love Jar-Jar” or “sometimes Mommy needs a stiff drink” would automatically disqualify me from becoming a surrogate, but nope. In the end I think my honesty in saying that Yes, I really do love my kids, but sometimes I still need a tall cold beer or a nice dirty martini, helped the IPs in choosing me to be the oven for their bun. Not only did they get to see my profile, but I got to see theirs. Once I saw their profile, I knew that we were going to be a good match.

After talking it out with my husband, and deciding that I had found my match, it was time to meet the IPs face to face.

Now, seeing how this is the 21st century, meeting face to face no longer means having to travel half way across the country and be a nervous wreck when the meeting finally takes place.

Now there’s Skype. Now you get to be a nervous wreck at home.

I had that feeling….that pit in your stomach awkwardness that comes with a first date.

The plan was for me, Darci, and the IPs to talk to each other, using Darci as the “mutual friend” who set up the biggest blind date any of us had ever been on. Like all blind dates, things didn’t work out as planned.

Sadly I’m not the best at Skyping, so even though I was in the comfort of my own home, I couldn’t get my end to work. I’m really not good with these computer contraptions believe it or not.

We couldn’t get Darci to dial in so we had to go it alone, just me and the IPs.

Remember all that nervous wreck stuff I talked about before? Yep, it was there, times a million! I wasn’t in full blown I-think-I’m-gonna-throw-up nervous wreck mode, but I definitely wasn’t cool-as-the-other-side-of-the-pillow either.

The good news is, it went really well. We talked, and talked some more. Babies, families, vacations, upbringings, and the future were just some of out topics. I told ya, first date, right? After almost two hours (longer than I thought), the call, sadly came to an end.

The next step was that both parties had to confirm with Darci, that yes, they were right for me and I was right for them. I was itching to tell Darci how eager I was to help make the intended parents dream come true but they beat me to it!

Minutes after the call ended I got a text from Darci “THEY LOVED YOU!”

Whew. Next up: the medical steps involved in becoming a surrogate.

Working with families has been Lauren’s passion for over ten years. Her tremendous work ethic and devotion to helping parents has made her a must have in the birth setting, postpartum, and beyond.
Lauren serves her community as an educator, via postpartum planning curriculum and as a Labor and Postpartum Doula. She has a certification in breastfeeding counseling and started her training with DONA; being mentored by established Doulas in Colorado Springs. Lauren is now a professional member of ProDoula and a pre-certified Labor and Postpartum Doula. Lauren will be taking additional training in placenta encapsulation and business by the end of the Summer.

Paving the way, Lauren is the Co‐owner of Colorado Mountain Doulas LLC provides the community with much needed education, local resources, sibling, postpartum, and labor Doula services.

Lauren is the mother of two young children, and has been married since 2008. She loves to cook and entertain for her friends and family in her home in Colorado Springs.

Not My Baby On Board Part1

Let’s put it out there, I’m going to be a surrogate. The road to this decision was not an easy one. There was lots of going back and forth, both with myself and my husband (who is awesome) as well as a ton of research including such questions as:

How do I become a surrogate? How do I pick the intended parents? Do they pick me? Is it a combo of both? What’s the infield fly rule?

Like I said, lots of important questions. This is the road that I’ve taken (so far) to become a surrogate. It’s not so much a straight road like “I’m-running-down-the-block-to-hit-the-red-box” kind of road, but more of the “let’s-drive-half-way-across-the-country-without-knowing-where-we’re-going” kind of road. It’s going to take some time, so please bear with me.

A little back ground info on me before we get too far ahead of ourselves.

My name is Lauren Silk. I’m married to a totally awesome guy with whom we have two totally awesome kiddos. I’m also co-owner Colorado Mountain Doulas, a doula agency based here in Colorado Springs. My first child birthing experience was in a hospital and, for me, wasn’t that great. My second was at Mountain Midwifery Birth Center, and was, again for me, amazing. It was during my second pregnancy that I started to become interested in becoming a doula. This was to become a major moment for me as it then lead me to not only become a doula, but start my own company.

It was after a prenatal visit with one of our clients, that I mentioned to my business partner that I was interested in becoming a surrogate. An oven for someone else’s bun, as it were. This was the first time that I’d ever said this out loud to anybody. Not too long after that I worked up the courage to tell my husband.

Now, I don’t know what I was expecting when I told him, but I don’t think I was expecting him to be as cool with it as he was. I thought that there was going to be a big debate about it. There wasn’t. And while we did have conversations about what was going to happen later, the big debate I was expecting just never happened. Here’s what did:

Once I decided that I wanted to be a surrogate and told my husband, the next step was finding out HOW to become one. I was pretty sure that the local Chase branch didn’t do those kind of “deposits”. I did some research, and by research I mean I Googled “Surrogacy Agencies in Colorado”. I found one that I thought would work, but in the end, it didn’t work out. After that, becoming a surrogate kind of took a back seat to life for a little while; but not for long.

Only a few months later I was contacted by a private party as well as a nice lady named Darci from Silver Linings, an agency that finds surrogates for intended parents. After talking it over with my husband, I decided to go with the agency, mainly because they would take care of most of the work involved.

 

After getting contacted about becoming a surrogate, the next step in the process was sending off my medical records to make sure that there hadn’t been any previous complications with my births. Check, check, check, and then not even 24 hours later, I was notified that there might be a match for me with a nice couple from the East Coast.

Next I’d meet the intended parents, for whom I’d be carrying their baby. Whoa that happened fast! Stay tuned I’ll tell ya all about it.

Working with families has been Lauren’s passion for over ten years. Her tremendous work ethic and devotion to helping parents has made her a must have in the birth setting, postpartum, and beyond.
Lauren serves her community as an educator, via postpartum planning curriculum and as a Labor and Postpartum Doula. She has a certification in breastfeeding counseling and started her training with DONA; being mentored by established Doulas in Colorado Springs. Lauren is now a professional member of ProDoula and a pre-certified Labor and Postpartum Doula. Lauren will be taking additional training in placenta encapsulation and business by the end of the Summer.

Paving the way, Lauren is the Co‐owner of Colorado Mountain Doulas LLC provides the community with much needed education, local resources, sibling, postpartum, and labor Doula services.

Lauren is the mother of two young children, and has been married since 2008. She loves to cook and entertain for her friends and family in her home in Colorado Springs.

I Have Faith

A woman approached my business partner and I at a coffee shop yesterday while we were in a meeting. She felt she needed to interrupt and said she had overheard us talking about home birth.

She had had three children at home and was happy that we were helping women birth in a home setting. She called it a ministry.

That word stuck to me all day. I’m not known for being a religious person but she made me realize I do have faith a lot of faith and I preach about my faith wildly. I have faith in women! I have faith in birth and in nature.

I believe in us.

Every woman has the power within her to create life and bring a child earth side. Doula “ministries” and support empower women with education of what mother nature has made them capable of. In religion we are taught to let ourselves be embraced by a higher being and if we have full trust we will be enlightened.

When women give themselves to nature and let their primal instincts take over they can reach that euphoric state of pure light and happiness.

Birth in itself is a religious experience. It changes all who witness its power.

People rejoice, speak in tongues, and are even spiritually healed by birth. I hear in my practice from woman after woman that experiencing birth naturally changed their lives.

I have faith that we are turning a corner and more women are putting trust in themselves, nature, midwives, and doulas; staying home surrounded by love and light to truly find their faith in a setting that nurtures the growth of love in their hearts and family. I HAVE FAITH!

Be Well,

Lauren Silk

 

Working with families has been Lauren’s passion for over ten years. Her tremendous work ethic and devotion to helping parents has made her a must have in the birth setting, postpartum, and beyond.
Lauren serves her community as an educator, via postpartum planning curriculum and as a Labor and Postpartum Doula. She has a certification in breastfeeding counseling and started her training with DONA; being mentored by established Doulas in Colorado Springs. Lauren is now a professional member of ProDoula and a pre-certified Labor and Postpartum Doula. Lauren will be taking additional training in placenta encapsulation and business by the end of the Summer.

Paving the way, Lauren is the Co‐owner of Colorado Mountain Doulas LLC provides the community with much needed education, local resources, sibling, postpartum, and labor Doula services.

Lauren is the mother of two young children, and has been married since 2008. She loves to cook and entertain for her friends and family in her home in Colorado Springs.