Ventura Birth & Bodyworks

My husband and I interviewed Jaci to potentially hire her as a doula. She seemed very knowledgeable and had a lot of experience, she's been working with birthing parents for over 30 years. We met another doula who we clicked with a little bit more, but still wanted to work with Jaci. She'd been highly recommended by our OBGYN and by other moms in the area. So we signed up for her birth class. We discussed the class during our doula interview and thought we understood what to expect from the class.When the first session came around, she sent out a required video to watch before class without any context. It was advertised as a video featuring 7 birth stories, implying 7 different birth stories. The video was an hour of interviews preaching about home birth and the horrors of hospital births and epidurals in particular. The video seemed like a huge departure from the vibe we'd gotten from our meeting with Jaci, especially since the video is over 15 years old and includes very outdated medical information.I emailed Jaci to understand where the disconnect happened. I asked her why she hadn't advertised the class as being focused on 'natural birth,' aka unmedicated and home birth. Over several emails she told me that she had not misrepresented her class. Looking at the class description and based on the conversation we had with her, my husband and I were both caught off guard, so we both felt the class wasn't accurately described. I replied that the information she had available wasn't clear. She doubled down again and said she was sorry I was unhappy. "This isn't an issue of being unhappy. This is an issue of your class not being accurately advertised. You're telling me it is, I'm telling you as the customer it isn't." This proceeded for several emails longer than was necessary.I'm still not sure why she continued to email me again and again assuring me that her advertising was accurate when I told her it wasn't. She seemed to take my feedback that I didn't understand the focus of her class as a personal attack. This whole interaction has left such a sour taste in my mouth. I wouldn't work with her or recommend working with her.

Our family was so happy to have gotten to have Jaci for childbirth classes and as our doula. She is so competent, attentive and kind. Her presence was so calming and reassuring during a long labor. She has been involved with natural childbirth for a very long time, and is so knowledgeable about all aspects of the birth process. Her suggestions for both comfort and progress in labor are invaluable. Her postpartum care was wonderful and we even used her for placenta encapsulation. Can’t recommend her highly enough!!!

Hiring Jaci is the one regret I have about my labor and delivery. Jaci is great for prenatal yoga, birthing classes or a massage but I would NOT recommend her as a doula. I paid Jaci $1500.00 to be there for my delivery but when I called her at 4am and asked her to come help me (after laboring by myself for 6 hours) she told me to go back to bed. When I asked my partner to call her again at 7am and ask her to come, she said she was going to work (I thought this was her job....), that labor was long, to tell me to stop over reacting and she would check in with us after her first massage.......by the time Jaci decided to come, my midwife was on the way and I was holding back baby, my body was already pushing. Jaci was not a part of my delivery (gave birth at 10:30am), she was barley just arriving and present while I gave birth and a waste of money. She never came back to help me adjust because she was busy with another family members birth. I wish I would have spend my money on a different doula.