Editing, closing, or re-opening your care requests

Open Care requests — the bottom tab on a phone, or the menu under your photo on a computer — to see every request you've posted. Each open request is a card with its status (Open or Booked), how many providers have replied, and View, Edit, and Close buttons. Click Show closed requests to see older ones.

View opens the request's own page: your request exactly as providers see it, with Edit request and Close request at the top, and below it every provider you're talking with about that request (filter by All, New replies, or Awaiting reply).

Posting more than one request

You can have several requests open at once — many parents add a second one for after the birth, such as a lactation consultant, night nanny, or sleep coach. Click New care request at the top of the Care requests page (or Start another request) and answer the same quick questions. Each request reaches its own set of matching providers, and your Messages page gets a chip per request so you can see who replied to which. Keep different needs in separate requests so the right people reply.

Editing a request

On the Edit your request page you can change:

Your Description (minimum 50 characters)
Your Due date / baby's birthday
Your Location (choose a ZIP code from the dropdown — if you see "We couldn't find that location", pick one of the suggestions rather than typing freely)
Who you're looking for — up to 3 provider types
Your preferences — budget, timeline, distance, schedule, certification, insurance, and languages. These are the follow-up questions from sign-up; you can answer or change them here anytime.

Click Save changes. If you change your location or provider types, your request is sent to newly matching providers. Saving also re-opens a request that had closed.

Closing a request

Click Close (or Close request) when you're done searching. We'll ask "Did you find a provider on Bornbir?" — if yes, which one, and we mark the request Booked; if not, a quick reason — and then close it. Providers who never heard back from you can no longer message you about it. Conversations where you and a provider have both written stay open, so you can keep talking, scheduling, and paying — with the provider you hired, for example. To stop hearing from one of them, use Ignore conversation (see "Finding and messaging providers"). Only that request closes; your other requests and conversations aren't affected. Your answers are private and never shown to providers — they only see that you closed the request.

Requests also close automatically

Birth-related requests (birth doulas, midwives, childbirth educators) close about a week after your due date, unless you also asked for postpartum support.
Other requests close about 30 days after posting, or about a week after your due date — whichever is later.
If you never verified your email or phone, your request closes after 7 days.

Requests that close for time show as Expired. Before that happens, we check in by email — "Did you find someone?" and, near the end, "Still looking? We'll close your request soon" (plus a text, "Your Bornbir request closes soon. Did you find a provider?", if you've opened a conversation with a provider). Clicking I'm still looking in those emails keeps your request open for another 30 days; the same email has a Close your request link if you're done.

Re-opening a closed request

There are three ways:

Open Care requests, find the request under closed requests, and click Re-open (or Re-open request on its page), then confirm. We notify matching providers who don't already have a conversation with you, and every provider can contact you about it again. Only that request re-opens.
Send a message to a provider who hasn't written to you yet on that request (for example, one marked Matched) — that re-opens your request automatically. Replying to a provider who has already written to you doesn't re-open the request; that conversation just carries on between the two of you.
Edit the request and save it.

Re-opening restarts the 30-day clock. If your request was removed by Bornbir rather than closed by you or by time, Re-open request points you to our support team instead — email support@bornbir.com and we'll take a look.