I made birth plans with my babies. I took the hospital class. I filled out the form. I thought I knew what I wanted.
And then I had a baby.
If you’ve already given birth, you probably know exactly where this is going.
Birth has a funny way of reminding us that we are not completely in charge. Babies have opinions. Bodies have opinions. Things change. And sometimes the birth you pictured is not even close to the birth you have.
That’s why I wanted to have this conversation with Nikki Zweber and Stephanie Sinclair, the doulas and co-owners behind How2Mom. They support Minnesota families through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and all the moments when you suddenly realize the Google search you did at 2 a.m. did not actually prepare you for this.
We talked about birth plans, but Nikki and Stephanie gave me a much better way to think about them: birth preferences.
Because you can prepare for birth without trying to predict it.
And that tiny shift in language? It changes a lot.
Meet Nikki and Stephanie of How2Mom
Nikki Zweber and Stephanie Sinclair are the co-owners behind How2Mom, a Twin Cities doula agency supporting families through IVF, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and lactation.
Their team offers birth and postpartum doula support, lactation services, placenta encapsulation, childbirth education, and other resources for growing families. Stephanie founded How2Mom in 2015, and today she and Nikki lead a larger team of professionals who help Minnesota families feel informed and supported.
What I loved about talking with them is that their approach isn’t about telling you the “right” way to have a baby.
Instead, they want parents to understand their options, think about what matters to their family, and have conversations before they’re making decisions in the middle of labor.
That feels a whole lot more useful than trying to create the perfect birth (because babies are famously respectful of our carefully organized plans).
Why I’m Rethinking the Words “Birth Plan”
This was the part of our conversation that immediately clicked for me.
Nikki and Stephanie told me they often start by changing the language from birth plan to birth preferences.
A birth preference sheet isn’t supposed to be a script for exactly how your baby will arrive. Instead, it can be a communication tool. It gives you a chance to think through what matters to you and share those wishes with your partner, doula, OB, midwife, nurses, and the rest of your birth team.
That difference matters.
Because preparation and control are not the same thing.
I learned that firsthand with my own births. I never imagined having a C-section with my first baby. By my third, I knew much more about what I could ask for, including skin-to-skin in the operating room. Having that knowledge changed the experience for me.
It didn’t mean I controlled everything that happened.
It meant I knew I had options.
That’s a huge part of what Nikki and Stephanie want parents to understand, too.
And if you’re already thinking, “Okay, but how am I supposed to know what my preferences even ARE?” keep reading. That’s exactly what we talked about.
Watch the Full Made for Minnesota Moms Interview
I know how this goes. Maybe you have 45 minutes to sit down and listen. Maybe you have four minutes while somebody eats a snack and nobody is asking you to find their other shoe.
Either works.
You can watch this conversation below (and you can find the rest of my interviews with local pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experts) on my Made for Minnesota Moms YouTube channel.
If you’d rather read, keep scrolling. I pulled the big questions from my conversation with Nikki and Stephanie into the Q&A below.
One quick note before we get into it: this conversation is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Talk with your healthcare provider about decisions specific to your pregnancy, birth, and health.
Q&A With Nikki Zweber and Stephanie Sinclair of How2Mom
1. What gap do you see most often between what moms expect and what actually happens?
Nikki and Stephanie said there isn’t just one gap.
Every family comes into pregnancy and birth with different experiences, expectations, support systems, and ideas about what motherhood will look like. But they consistently see a difference between what families see online and what actually happens at home.
They also see a gap between the support families receive and the support they may actually need during birth and postpartum.
Social media certainly doesn’t make this easier. We see tiny pieces of other people’s experiences, and it can start to look like everyone else has this figured out.
Meanwhile, in our actual homes? We’re all figuring things out as we go.
2. What is the problem with traditional birth plans?
Their first answer surprised me: sometimes, it’s the word plan itself.
Especially for someone who likes things organized and predictable (hello, my fellow Type A moms), calling it a birth plan can make it feel like there’s a specific outcome you’re supposed to achieve.
Nikki and Stephanie prefer birth preferences.
Your preferences can communicate your hopes, desires, values, and priorities to your birth team without creating the expectation that everything has to unfold exactly that way.
Flexibility is part of the preparation.
As they put it during our conversation, “We can prepare for birth, but we can’t predict it.”
That might be my favorite summary of this entire episode.
3. How do you figure out your birth preferences when you’ve never given birth before?
This is where preparation becomes so much more than checking boxes on a hospital form.
When Nikki and Stephanie work with families, they get to know them deeply. They ask about their relationships, families, communities, values, stress responses, communication styles, and even past experiences that could affect how they feel during labor.
They might ask: How do you respond when you feel vulnerable? How do you and your partner handle stress? What experiences from your past could come up during birth?
Those conversations help them understand the person who will be giving birth, not simply the birth they hope to have.
And you can start doing this even if hiring a doula isn’t right for your family.
How2Mom offers a free downloadable birth plan outline that walks through labor, delivery, C-section considerations, comfort measures, newborn care, and feeding choices.
Use it to start conversations. Circle things you want to research. Bring questions to your provider. Talk about them with your partner.
You don’t need to know everything. You just want to avoid meeting every option for the first time while you’re also, you know, having a baby.
4. Does hiring a doula replace your partner during birth?
No. And Nikki and Stephanie said this is one of the biggest misconceptions they hear.
A doula supports the entire family and can actually help a partner be more involved.
Think about what we ask of partners during labor. We expect them to remember everything from childbirth class, know which comfort technique to try, advocate, stay calm, provide emotional support, understand what the medical team is doing, and somehow remember to eat and use the bathroom.
Meanwhile, they’ve probably never done this before either.
Nikki and Stephanie help partners with comfort measures and positions before labor. Then, when it’s actually happening, they can remind them what to try and help execute those tools.
They’re also paying attention to the partner.
When did you last eat? Have you had water? Do you need the bathroom after holding that position for three hours?
Supporting the partner helps the partner keep supporting the birthing person.
And ultimately, Nikki and Stephanie said they don’t necessarily want a family to look back and remember how great their doula was. They want the parents to remember each other and feel like, “We did that together.”
I loved that.
5. Why talk about C-sections and other possibilities if they aren’t part of your birth preferences?
This conversation hit home for me because I had three C-sections.
Nikki and Stephanie make an important distinction between hard conversations and scary conversations.
Talking about an induction, unplanned C-section, scheduled C-section, or another outcome doesn’t mean you’re expecting something to go wrong. It means that if the direction changes, it isn’t the first time you’ve heard what might happen next.
For example, during my first C-section, I was taken away while my husband was left behind to get into scrubs. He didn’t know what was happening or what he was supposed to do.
Knowing ahead of time that this can be part of the process wouldn’t have changed the C-section.
But it could have changed how that moment felt.
That’s the point of talking through different scenarios.
It’s not about spiraling through every possible “what if.” It’s about replacing some of the unknown with information.
6. Why can knowing your options change your birth experience?
Because sometimes an option exists, but nobody thinks to tell you about it in the moment.
Nikki and Stephanie explained that medical staff have their own responsibilities during birth. A doula has a different role and can help parents understand what’s happening, remember questions they wanted to ask, and advocate for getting those questions answered.
I experienced this myself.
It wasn’t until my third C-section that I realized I could ask for skin-to-skin. Once my baby was on me, my anxiety dropped dramatically. I wasn’t as focused on everything happening around me. He was there. I could see him and feel him.
The procedure wasn’t suddenly different.
My experience of it was.
That’s why knowing your birth preferences and understanding your options can matter even when birth changes course.
7. What are families most underprepared for postpartum?
Nikki’s answer was identity.
You might also hear this transition described as matrescence.
There can be this strange moment at the end of pregnancy when excitement sits right next to anxiety.
You wanted this baby. You love this baby. You’re excited to meet this baby.
And you might feel sad that your old life is changing.
Nikki and Stephanie are big believers in that “and.”
You can be grateful and overwhelmed. Excited and terrified. Completely in love with your baby and miss the freedom you had before becoming a parent.
One feeling doesn’t cancel out the other.
Stephanie also talked about how quickly we try to fix uncomfortable feelings. If a new mom says something is hard, our instinct can be to immediately make her feel better.
But sometimes she doesn’t need a solution.
Sometimes she needs someone to say, “Yes. This is hard,” and sit beside her in it.
And because emotional support is only one piece of those early weeks, I also put together my Real-Life Postpartum Care Kit with some of the practical things I wish more moms had ready before they were running on two hours of sleep.
8. How does perfectionism make postpartum harder?
We compare our whole life to a tiny piece of somebody else’s.
Someone’s baby is sleeping. Someone else says breastfeeding came naturally. Another mom swears by one particular swaddle.
Then you try the same thing and it absolutely does not work.
Nikki and Stephanie’s reminder was simple: these are different babies and different families.
What worked for the baby next door might not work for yours. What worked for your first baby might not even work for your second.
Parenthood involves trial and error.
That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
And if you’re preparing for those first weeks now, How2Mom also offers childbirth and postpartum education courses that you can work through on your own schedule. Their courses cover childbirth, comfort measures, postpartum, breastfeeding, and newborn care.
9. If a mom is listening at 30 weeks, what mindset shift could make the biggest difference?
This answer was less about another thing to research and more about trusting yourself.
Stephanie tells families to start believing in their intuition before the baby arrives.
Nikki added something I think we forget to ask moms all the time:
What do you think?
Not what your friend thinks. Not what Instagram thinks. Not what the mom group thinks.
What is your gut telling you?
They shared advice from a former client that has stuck with them: “Use your voice, even when it shakes.”
You’re allowed to ask questions.
You’re allowed to have preferences.
You’re allowed to change your mind.
And, as Nikki and Stephanie reminded me, you don’t have to defend every parenting decision you make to everyone around you.
(That last one might need to go on a billboard.)
How2Mom Birth and Postpartum Support in the Twin Cities
Stephanie founded How2Mom in 2015, and she and Nikki now co-own the agency with a larger team supporting Minnesota families.
They offer birth doulas, postpartum doulas, lactation support, placenta encapsulation, childbirth education, and other pregnancy and postpartum resources. They also host their own Mom to Mom podcast and provide free educational resources online.
You can explore How2Mom’s services and resources, browse their pregnancy and postpartum courses, or start with their free birth plan template.
If you’re still pregnant and trying to build your local support team, my free Minneapolis Pregnancy Guide also includes Twin Cities doulas and local pregnancy and postpartum resources. How2Mom is one of the doula agencies included in the guide.
The Real Life Rescue Kit
I end my Made for Minnesota Moms interviews with questions that have nothing to do with credentials and everything to do with surviving an actual Tuesday.
Because sometimes you need evidence-based birth education.
And sometimes you need someone to tell you where to get dinner.
- Takeout Rescue: Nikki and Stephanie’s families gave very realistic answers first: Chipotle and Culver’s. But their local Cottage Grove recommendation was Lisu’s Thai Taste. They especially love the egg rolls, lo mein, and chicken pad Thai (plus, the whole family will eat it, which automatically earns bonus points). When they’re working together, Crisp & Green is another regular lunch pick.
- Worth-the-Effort Outing: For younger kids, they recommended Minnesota’s ECFE programs and getting outside. Minnehaha Falls was one of their picks because there’s plenty for babies and kids to see and explore, plus walking and food nearby.
- Local Mom Resource: Nikki and Stephanie mentioned AMMA parenting groups, especially for moms who are new to Minnesota or don’t already have a strong local community. They also recommend How2Mom’s own resource directory, which connects families with support for different stages of motherhood.
Because finding another mom who is in the same weird, wonderful stage as you can sometimes be the resource you needed most.
A Personal Note From Me
I walked away from this conversation thinking about how different my own births might have felt if I had understood some of this beforehand.
Not because I could have controlled what happened.
I couldn’t.
But I could have known more about my options. My husband could have known more about what to expect. We could have walked into those moments with a little less “WHAT IS HAPPENING?” and a little more confidence.
And really, that’s why I started Made for Minnesota Moms.
I’m a Minnesota newborn and family photographer and a mom of three, but I keep meeting women who know things I wish I’d known when my kids were babies. So I’m asking them the questions and putting the answers somewhere Minnesota moms can actually find them.
If you’re pregnant, start with my free Minneapolis Pregnancy Guide. It includes Twin Cities providers and practical resources for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
And if baby is already here (or you’re trying to prepare for those first blurry weeks), I put together my Real-Life Postpartum Care Kit with the practical things that can make postpartum feel a little more manageable. You can find my Real-Life Postpartum Care Kit here.
You can also follow the Made for Minnesota Moms series on YouTube for more honest conversations with Minnesota experts and community resources.
And if you’re in the middle of preparing for baby and realizing you also want someone to preserve what this season actually looked like (messy hospital room and all), you can always get in touch with me here.
Birth might not follow the plan.
But that doesn’t mean you have to walk into it unprepared.
Disclaimer: This blog post and interview are for educational and informational purposes only and do not provide medical advice. They are not substitutes for professional medical care, diagnosis, or treatment. Always talk with your physician, midwife, or other qualified healthcare provider about questions related to pregnancy, labor, birth, postpartum, or your health.
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