Daily Inspiration: Meet Sarah Southards

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Southards.

Hi Sarah, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
In 2010, I was expecting my first baby. I was young and naïve to the fact that one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. I was hopeful and excited and looking forward to being a mom. At 14.5 weeks, I started experiencing some heavy bleeding and horrible pain, so I went to the hospital. I ended up miscarrying my son at the hospital. Where I delivered, twelve years ago, there was no bereavement program in place for mothers in my shoes.

There were no mass graves, cremation services, or memorial services, for babies who were born too soon. There was no list of resources for moms grieving a sudden and unexpected, life-changing loss. I was never even moved out of the cold ER room, and as soon as my baby’s body left mine, he was scooped up, wrapped up, and quickly taken away. I had no time to process what was happening, or even think about asking to see him, nor was I given the option. I asked to see him before I was discharged and received the horrific news that he had already been discarded and there was no way to get him back.

Leaving that hospital with a shattered heart and an empty womb where my baby had been just hours earlier, I was lost and alone. I was given no resources, no support groups, shown no empathy. I was simply told to come back if I started having symptoms of excessive blood loss or infection. I spent hours searching the internet for help, anything to find someone to connect to who had been in my shoes. During this time, I learned of doulas and realized that is what I wanted to do, but I wanted to specifically support women on one of the darkest days they will ever face, and so I began a journey to learn to support moms and families so that they never felt like I did.

Over the course of several years, I ran multiple support groups and provided in-person support to moms and families, and added on infertility support as I was battling primary infertility, trying to conceive my rainbow baby. I was able to achieve pregnancy multiple times with the help of some of the country’s best reproductive endocrinologists, but I was never able to carry it to term. During this time, I helped several other families on the same path, learn about infertility treatments and the options available to them on their journey to parenthood, while still focusing primarily on bereavement families.

Since the beginning, I have always offered my bereavement doula services at no charge to families, understanding that on one of the days you feel most alone, you shouldn’t have to worry about how to pay for someone to help you through. I am able to provide this sacred work to families through the generous donations in our community and the occasional memorial gift families graciously give in honor of their baby. After I was finally successful in having my first rainbow baby in 2016 after years of primary infertility, I decided to add on birth and postpartum services, in addition to the bereavement and infertility services.

I specialize in high-risk birth, hospital birth, and pregnancy after loss. I have since added on more children to my own family following secondary infertility while walking with over 300 families through their own conception, birth, and postpartum experience. I have taken extensive education to become a skilled expert at the support I offer, with ongoing professional education to keep me informed with the most up-to-date, evidence-based, best practices.

I am an Evidenced Based Birth professional member, a graduate of Birth Monopoly’s ‘Know Your Rights” course, and I have studied with stillbirth and bebo mia, for bereavement, birth, and postpartum, specific training. I also offer peer lactation support with the intent to sit for my CLC very soon, and I am a certified babywearing peer supporter.

I teach families biologically normal infant sleep and I am an advocate for instinctual, responsive, attachment parenting. I have a passion and a strong desire to help families find their strength and give them the resources they need, through education, empowerment, and advocacy. I am honored to share my work with you all!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely has been a difficult journey. In the beginning, I shied away from miscarriages in the second trimester due to my own trauma that I was working through, but the more I did this work, the more I realized there simply aren’t enough bereavement doulas. I started immersing myself, learning everything I could, exposing myself and my vulnerabilities, to the families I worked with.

I found that sharing my story, and my pain, helped them to be able to trust me and my presence in their own story, and it created a common ground that I was able to build a foundation for them to create their story on-the story of their baby’s life, their birth, and their transition at the end of life. I found drawing from what I wished for in my own experience, helped me to be able to be prepared for any wishes, whether cultural or religious, that families may wish to incorporate into their story, and in doing so, I found more healing and beauty in my own.

I miss my son every day, and I regret with every fiber of my being that I was not allowed the chance to hold him or see him, but every time I work with a family and they are able to create long-lasting memories that they will be able to treasure-photos, handprints, footprints, a lock of hair, a special layette, birth announcement cards with birth stats, and other little keepsakes, or when I am able to provide a Christening gown or an angel gown for the little ones who don’t have a special out of their own, I find peace and comfort that they will never have to live with regret or “what ifs” as long as I can be there.

It can feel daunting. It is emotional, hard, challenging, demanding work. I cry over each family. Every little baby I get to cradle in my arms, and each mother that I hug, feels like an extension of myself, of my family, of my very heart and soul. We are bound through a tie that no one ever wants to know, no one ever wants to experience for themselves, but it is such a supportive, strong, and beautiful, community. There is a dread in my stomach when I receive a call for bereavement services.

It is so unfair when families need what I can provide for them, and it breaks my heart to be so intimately privy to their raw grief and unthinkable loss, but when I think about what I am giving them in return, the moments and memories they may have not thought to capture or create, I know that I can help them to find some peace in their journey, and I pray they find some small step forward in their grief. Financially, it is difficult to provide these services, as it does take time away from my own family, it takes resources to drive to hospitals (I have a 90-mile response radius but try to stay under an hour) and provide childcare for my own family while I am away.

There is the cost of memorial items I carry with me-inkless pads for fragile skin, announcement cards I hand letter at birth, hand/foot molds, teddy bears that I can add weight to so it will be the weight of their baby, shipping, and processing for angel gowns and pouches, in addition to maintaining an ongoing and ever-growing resource list as well as continuing education in how best to service families, and behind the scenes costs such as printing materials and delivering packets to various support groups and hospitals. I hope someday that our community will be more aware of bereavement doulas and the desperate need for funding in the community for these services.

I hope to be able to start fundraising drives and have special events to raise money to put towards being able to provide these services to even more families, and I hope to someday grow a large collection of bereavement doulas under myself that serve in hospitals in the metro Saint Louis area, that I have personally been able to train and have them shadow me, to ensure they are providing the highest quality of supportive care that I have come to be able to offer over the years.

Because there is nothing more heartbreaking that to get home from an angel’s birth and receive a call from another hospital and know that logistically, you just cannot make it. I wish I could respond to each and every call, but there is only one of me but I hope to change that, however, I understand this work is very difficult, and everyone’s time is meaningful.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a doula. I am not a “full-spectrum” doula, as some call themselves. I refer to myself as a family heritage doula, because as a Christian, I believe each and every baby and child is a gift from God, and I am honored to be entrusted with such little precious ones and the families who love them. I am someone who provides specialized, continuous, individualized, ongoing support to mothers and families, including emotional, physical, and mental support.

I help with learning about options, choices, and education on decisions and diagnosis. I empower them to make choices that best fit their story and their goals by presenting them with evidence-based research and accurate information, while advocating for them and with them to prevent any mismanagement of care while taking care to minimize their risk of trauma surrounding their birth. I specialize in high-risk birth, hospital birth, medically necessary inductions for risk factors, pregnancy after loss, pregnancy after infertility, vaginal birth after Cesareans, and bereavement support, in addition to other forms of care for families, as a trauma-informed doula.

During preconception, I help couples going through difficulty conceiving by helping them understand the various treatment options available and what the process is, giving them a peer-to-peer/layman’s explanation of the various avenues of treatment they can pursue. I also provide ongoing emotional and mental support through non-medical support and consults, to discuss how they are doing, how it’s affecting them, and ideas on how to manage the complexities of other relationships during infertility treatments.

Such as navigating the emotional waters of when a family member or close friend is suddenly expecting and how it can affect their dynamic, by ensuring my clients make space for their own wellbeing while protecting themselves. During pregnancy, I meet with clients for childbirth education, newborn care basics, labor prep, birth plan preferences, and general information to help prepare for the type of birth they envision and help to work through any previous trauma or birth experience that may impede their labor progression and satisfaction with their birth.

While in labor, I am hands-on providing physical support to the laboring mother, ensuring she feels safe, supported, empowered, and heard; providing and holding space for her as she works to bring her baby earthside. I remind mothers of their strength, their innate inner power, and their abilities to work with their bodies to birth their babies and help them with various positioning and coping techniques as their labor progresses. I utilize Spinning Babies and other various modalities including the birth ball and the peanut ball to encourage the baby’s descent through the birth canal while paying attention to the sensations that mom is feeling.

I help the family understand the decisions presented to them through their labor journey and help dads when there is a need for a Cesarean while they wait to join mom in the operating room. I stay with my clients from the time they are in labor and as for my assistance, the duration of labor, and then through the first 2-3 hours postpartum, helping the family to bond and establish breastfeeding, if desired. In the third trimester and while postpartum, I go to clients’ homes and provide in-person support with infant care, emotional support, physical help, and feeding goals-whether exclusively breastfeeding, pumping, formula or donor milk, or combination feeding.

I care for their baby while they rest and tend to light household duties and meal prep. If there is a need for services from other professionals, such as craniosacral therapy or chiropractic care for the newborn, an IBCLC for feeding issues beyond my lactation expertise, belly binding, massage therapy, etc., I help to facilitate these introductions and secure appointments. During bereavement, I offer families support and care, whether they are facing early miscarriage, stillbirth, fatal diagnosis, or fatal outcomes at birth, and help them to create memories and bond with their baby before they move forward with saying farewell to their baby.

I help with funeral services, memorial funds, resources for parents and siblings, referrals as necessary, and ongoing support for the family. Beyond the scope of typical doula care, I offer basic babywearing education as a certified peer supporter, lactation coaching, newborn care, childbirth education, as well as biologically normal sleep and attachment parenting education.

I am honored to have been a doula for 12 years and I am grateful for the families that have welcomed me into their stories. I look forward to all the families I have yet to meet!

What do you think about happiness?
Happiness is not a state of being, it is a choice. It is looking around you-finding quiet peace and joy in the early morning quietness before a birth. Watching tears of joy roll down a mother’s cheek as she meets her rainbow baby. Watching a dad beam with pride as he looks over his stillborn son’s body. Joy and sorrow can simultaneously exist. There is beauty in pain and there is grief in joy-it is up to us to find the balance and to see what we keep our focus on.

For me, I find happiness when I see a family achieve their birth goals or embrace the changes that labor brought to their plans. I find happiness in seeing a mother find the strength and power to achieve her VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarean) or the grace to accept a repeat Cesarean after she has done all the work her body can do. I find happiness when a family realizes that they need me less for postpartum support as they find their rhythm as a family. I find happiness in the smile and success of a mom who has been working hard to make exclusive breastfeeding a reality.

I find happiness in the knowledge that what I do matters-that I help families set themselves up for the best possible start and that when things don’t go exactly as planned, we can adapt and make changes in a way that protects the family, and most importantly, the mother/baby dyad. It brings me tremendous joy to know that the work I do and love, that I am so passionate about, has been proven to improve mental health in the postpartum mother, improve birth outcomes and satisfaction rates, and lower the need for interventions and Cesareans.

It is my gift to other women, to help them find their power and own their feminine abilities, to care for families in their darkest days to help them find light, and to guide new parents through the haze that is bringing a new baby home.

Contact Info:

• Email: heritageconsultingstl@gmail.com
• Website: http://heritageconsultingstl.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heritageconsultingstl

Image Credits
Katherine M. Blanner