Comfort care for home life during illness and recovery
When a mom is too ill to keep her home going — by severe pregnancy sickness including hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), by chemo, by surgery recovery, by anything that makes everyday work impossible — the routines that hold a family together start to fray, and everyone’s stress rises. This proposed in-home support service keeps the rhythm of home life going through it all.
How we would be in your home
The heart of the proposed service would be not only what gets done, but how it gets done: quietly, compassionately, and with an understanding of how severe illness can make ordinary sights, sounds, smells, and conversation unbearable.
Helpers will use quiet voices, move gently, and avoid loud sounds or disruptive tasks unless the family says they are tolerable.
Helpers will arrive without perfume or fragrance and will not introduce scented cleaning products into the home.
No apology will be needed for the dishes, laundry, or how far things have fallen behind. Helpers will meet the home as it is—with compassion, understanding, and actual help.
Trust, made specific
Every helper will be background-checked before being assigned to a visit.
Every helper will be trained to care for moms through severe illness — starting with severe pregnancy sickness including HG — with practical attention to scent and food triggers, noise sensitivity, exhaustion, compassionate communication, service boundaries, and when to escalate a concern. Trained in the illness itself — including the hardest rule: no unsolicited advice, no 'have you tried…?'
Helpers will be expected to work independently, minimize questions and interruptions, and let mom truly rest rather than making her supervise the help.
The work that keeps home life going
Comfort care comes first: protecting her rest, reducing triggers, and keeping essentials within reach. Laundry, dishes, meals, errands, and help with children are the practical work behind that promise. This isn't a cleaning service — it's one person who tends your home and looks after you.
A cool cloth on your forehead, fanning your face, brushing your hair, soothing touch such as a back rub — small comfort measures for the days you can't get up. Always opt-in, agreed in advance. Your rest area kept ready: emesis bags stocked, water and snacks within reach, room reset. The care a mom gives a sick child — for the mother who needs mothering. Excluding hands-on assistance with self-care such as bathing, toileting, lifting, and medical tasks.
Wash, dry, fold, change sheets, and reset the room—without asking you to manage every step.
Clear the sink, wipe surfaces, take out trash, and handle the small tasks that pile up fast.
Prepare tolerated basics and work carefully around personal smell and food triggers you identify.
Pick up the things your household needs, so a partner or family member does not have to leave you alone.
An extra set of hands with children while a parent is home: play, meals, morning or after-school routines at home, bedtime. Not standalone babysitting, and never driving children anywhere.
This is the menu, not a checklist. You set the priorities at intake; the visit follows them. One visit won’t cover everything — it will cover what matters most.
What a visit is meant to feel like
This is more than a housekeeper arriving with a generic checklist. The proposed service is practical home-life support built around the realities of serious illness — severe pregnancy sickness including hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), chemo, surgery recovery: exhaustion, sudden changes, scent sensitivity, and very limited capacity.
The goal is to reduce mental load—not make you supervise someone while you are ill.
When home life is steadier, partners and children carry less disruption, worry, and stress.
Household and family assistance only. Bathing, toileting, lifting or moving you, and medical tasks stay with clinical professionals and chosen caregivers.
The honest comparison
Fair question — here's the straight answer.
A house cleaner cleans your house. She doesn't sit with you, restock your emesis bags, or keep the kids occupied while you rest. She leaves when the house is done — not when you're okay.
TaskRabbit or an app gig is a stranger from the internet: no background check you chose, no illness literacy, no one who'll be back next week. Rolling those dice from the couch is its own kind of stress.
A postpartum doula is the closest thing out there — she mothers the mother through the newborn phase, and she's wonderful at it. But mothering the mother isn't just for the fourth trimester: HG, chemo, surgery recovery, a mom incapacitated by illness with three kids climbing her. That's our lane.
DoorDash and Instacart bring things to your door. They don't come inside, reset your room, start the laundry, or stay.
Home health means clearing hurdles first — a qualifying diagnosis, a doctor's order. And it's built around a medical plan of care, not around whatever your household needs that day. We're for everything else: no medical anything, no hoops, just help.
One trusted person, four hours, whatever the day needs. That's the whole idea.
Already have a cleaner and a nanny? Sanctuary isn't a third staffer. Your cleaner keeps the house clean, your nanny keeps the kids covered — neither was hired to take care of you. That's the whole of what we do.
One visit, every kind of help
Measured only against a house cleaner’s rate, $220 will always lose that comparison. But you’re not buying four hours of cleaning. You’re buying four hours of someone who does the right job at the right moment — the dishes when the dishes are the crisis, an extra pair of hands when the kids need one, a quiet presence when that’s what the afternoon calls for.
Trained, background-checked, and illness-literate — one person your family doesn’t have to manage.
For the partner or caregiver holding everything together
You may suddenly be carrying work, children, meals, laundry, errands, appointments, and the worry of watching someone you love suffer. That strain is real. This proposed service would be designed to relieve you, too—not only the mom who is sick—so you can spend less energy keeping every household plate spinning and more time being her partner.
For the people asking “What can I do?”
Know a mom who’s drowning? Gift her a 4-hour visit ($220). Scheduled with her, never a surprise — it’s the thing she actually needs.
And no one person has to foot the whole thing. Family and friends can chip in together toward her visits — like a gift registry, but for help instead of baby gear. It takes the awkwardness out of asking, and the guesswork out of helping.
And if you’re the mom reading this: let someone give this to you. Send this page to the person who keeps asking what they can do.
Why this exists
Sanctuary was created by a mom who knows what it’s like to be the one on the couch, too sick to keep up with everyday life. After experiencing hyperemesis through every pregnancy, she understands firsthand how much the right kind of help can matter.
With a background in occupational therapy and experience in home health, she knows what thoughtful, respectful support looks like when someone is sick, overwhelmed, or unable to manage everyday life on their own.
Sanctuary is the kind of support she wishes had existed when she needed it most: trustworthy, unobtrusive help that allows you to rest while the everyday things around you are gently taken care of.
That’s the standard every Sanctuary helper is held to.
The waitlist is open
Waitlist & contact: sanctuarysupportok@gmail.com
Clear from the start
The proposed pilot would have a firm service boundary so families always know what a helper can—and cannot—do.
The question that matters
Choose the closest honest answer. Your selection is not stored or sent automatically; you can copy it or email it directly to the research inbox.
Questions families may have
No. This page is testing interest in a possible Tulsa-area pilot. It is not accepting bookings, payment, or personal medical information.
That is central to the concept. Helpers would be trained to understand severe pregnancy sickness, including hyperemesis gravidarum (HG). Training would cover common triggers, compassionate communication, household safety, and a strict “observe and escalate—never diagnose or advise” boundary.
That is part of the proposed model. The person receiving support would still need to agree to the visit and set the household preferences.
Four hours is long enough to complete meaningful household work without turning the visit into another thing the family has to coordinate.
No. The service would provide non-medical household and family assistance only. A client would continue working with their own medical team and caregivers.