Nan's Magic Hands
Grounded and peaceful in-home postpartum care for families in the general Burlington, VT area.
Inspired by generations of grandmotherly support.
Postpartum Doula
Darcie Talbott
My Story
Hi! My name is Darcie, I’m a Montréal born, Vermont raised postpartum doula currently practicing within a one hour driving radius of Shelburne, Vermont.
I gave birth to my son in the fall of 2022 in a beautiful home birth in the house I grew up in. I had an amazing birth team and felt incredibly supported in my birth. And then postpartum hit… I immediately entered a tumultuous few days with my son’s father and became a full time single mom less than one week after giving birth. Within that first week of being a mom I had given birth to the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen, ended an eight year relationship and moved across the small state of Vermont back in with my parents. Luckily, I have the most supportive and wonderful family that flocked to support us. My grandmother and mother stocked our freezer with frozen foods. Almost every morning my mother would load my son in a baby carrier and take him on her morning dog walks, giving me a few extra hours of morning sleep. My father would sing and rock him to sleep at night giving me time to shower. My siblings and friends drove and flew from far and wide to visit and love on my sweet baby and my next door neighbors brought homemade snacks and checked on me often.
And yet with all this support I wish I had rested more. I wish I had let my body, my heart and my mind heal. I felt this fierce need to be independent. To prove that I could do it all, that I could care for this sweet little human every day and every night, entirely by myself. I wish I had been able to FULLY accept the help that was being offered. I felt alone and supported, at the same time.
As my son has grown and we’ve met other families in the community I began to realize that the support I experienced is incredibly rare. In the past, postpartum support has been supplied by surrounding community: friends, family and elders. For many people, community is not as big of a resource these days, especially after the isolation caused by the global pandemic. My hope is to provide a safe environment for postpartum folks to feel held and nourished, allowing their body and mind the time it needs to heal from their birth experience.
About My Nan and Grandma
My Nan, affectionately known as "Nan the Great" was my mother's grandmother, my great-grandmother. She was a tiny firecracker of love. She had five children, twenty grandchildren and many more great-grandchildren. Despite being my grandfather's mother she was my grandmother's postpartum support after all five of her births. She would bustle around fixing meals, changing diapers and doing laundry. Once she retired, after my Bumpa (great-grandfather) had died, she would spend extra money on groceries and cook big stews and soups on her little stove. Then she would feed her neighborhood.
Decades later, I have memories of watching her dance around her colorful kitchen in an apron, tending to pots on the stove while in between offering us cookies or showing us some magnificent blanket or pot holder she had knit recently. She created magic with those wonderful weathered hands, magic that spread beyond the walls of her home and beyond her family, touching the lives of those around her and building a sense of community.
When I went off to University I chose a school near my grandmother and visited her home weekly for stories and homemade meals. She is one of those magical people who can make you feel loved through her cooking and baking. I feel so lucky that many of the things she learned from Nan and her own mother she has passed on to me (with her own added feminist flair of course!).
This work is their legacy as much as it is mine.
