Meet Samantha Trebilcock of Windy City Doulas in Lincoln Park

Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha Trebilcock.

Samantha, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My path to becoming a doula was different than most. In 2007, I was a high school junior looking for an independent study topic that would one look good on a nursing school resume and two would allow me to miss first period. The grandmother to the little ones I nannied for was a doula and suggested I look into it.

Turns out trying to become a doula at 17 is relatively hard. After much persistence and some tears, I found a DONA trainer willing to accept me and attended the training over the summer before starting senior year of high school.

Living in middle of nowhere of New Hampshire made finding clients hard so I focused on the education side and took all the classes I needed and did all the reading while waiting to move to Chicago.

Once in Chicago, I started my bachelors in nursing and doula work simultaneously. My first birth as a doula was LONG (40 something hours), but I loved it. I joined Chicago volunteer doulas (a 501c3) and worked with their on-call program attending births at four city hospitals for low income families and also teaching childbirth classes. I learned a ton and made good working relationships-half my team at Windy City Doulas is actually from CVD.

The summer before my senior year of college I decided to have gastric bypass surgery. I had a lot of complications and had to take 6 months off from births and missed it like crazy and realized I was going to have trouble leaving doula work behind to be a nurse.

As my nursing program settled down, I slowly started to take private clients and by graduation I had a steady number of clients. I took a leap of faith and accepted a part time job as a pediatric nurse and continued working as a birth doula. Within 18 months of doing both, my doula business was l booming and without telling my family I left my RN job and decided to doula fulltime for a year.

My practice continued to grow and adding postpartum doula work was a huge change for me. By 2015 I realized I couldn’t do this alone and Windy City Doulas was born that summer. I had a business partner for the first 7 months, but we quickly learned we were not a great match and I bought her out and continued the agency on my own.

We’re about to turn 2 yrs. old, have 8 subcontractors and attended over 100 births a year, 5-10 placenta encapsulation a month and about 100-150 hrs. a week of postpartum care.

Has it been a smooth road?
I have been lucky that the road to success has been relatively smooth. I grew up with two self-employed parents who gave me a really good understanding of business and a strong work ethic.

For me being very young and very obsessed was hard. I started out as a doula at 19 and childless and trying to get clients to believe you’d be good at your job was hard!! But as I attended more births and providers and clients started referring to me it got easier and easier.

The other part was in college I was over 340lbs. As a society, we don’t love morbidly obese people. Having the gastric bypass when I was 21 and losing 160+lbs was life changing. Clients saw me as more professional, I had higher self-esteem and my body was able to work more hours!

Lastly breaking up with my business partner was so so scary. I had decided to open the agency with a partner because I didn’t think I could do it alone, and now I was being forced to. Turns out it was the best thing that could have happened!

We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are a full-service doula agency for the modern family. This means we provide professional and personalized emotional, physical and educational support to families during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum free of judgment.

We work with clients who are planning home birth and C-sections. We work with OBs and midwives. Waterbirths and epidurals. Formula and breastfeeding. Single moms, older couples, same sex couples and more.

Our office offers childbirth and breastfeeding classes. Our doulas provide both birth and postpartum doula support as well as placenta encapsulation.

Outside of our amazing birth doulas we specialize in working with twins and triplets and post C-section recovery.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I love being a doula in Chicago. I purchased a house in old town last year because I’m here to stay. That said there are a lot of doula agencies here in the city. Though burbs are lacking an agency!

Pricing:

• Births fees range from $1200-1400
• Placenta Encapsulation starts at $300
• Postpartum Doula Services range from $30-40/hr
• Childbirth Classes start at $250

Contact Info:

• Address: 2451 N Lincoln Ave, 205, Chicago, IL 60614
• Website: Www.windycitydoulas.com
• Phone: 773-599-2040
• Email: windycitydoulas@gmail.com
• Yelp: https://m.yelp.com/biz/windy-city-doulas-chicago
• Other: https://doulamatch.net/profile/12449/windy-city-doulas

Image Credit:
This is Family

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