Who I Am Today

Hello, My name is Sarah McCloskey and I’m the other voice behind the Freebirth Sisters!

I went into doula training with hesitation at first. I wanted the education but felt I wasn’t adequate enough to help women since I had no babies of my own. When I completed the training, I was so full of inspiration and knowledge about birth and womanhood that I couldn’t stop myself from telling the world what I had learned. Doula training honestly changed my life; it opened up the reality that everything begins with birth and what happens in those early hours and days between mothers and their babies is so important. Changing it to be a positive experience for both will honestly change the world.  I was very fortunate that the beginning of doula work for me looked like attending home births with a lay midwife. I didn’t actually see an obstetrically managed birth until several years into birth work. I am forever grateful for the opportunity I had to see what normal, undisturbed women centred birth looks like. I saw that birth is this beautiful paradox where it is so intricate and complicated that we can easily interfere and disrupt it, but it is also so simple, an extension of our everyday life and not this huge interruption and traumatic occurrence as is the reality for so many women. The undisturbed home births I witnessed were beautifully simple and peaceful. When I eventually started attended more hospital births, I was horrified and angry. Nothing I changed or adapted about my approach as a doula could stop these women I was helping from having their births sabotaged. I wasn’t able to make the difference I thought I could when I was a very naive and new doula. Instead, every birth broke a little more of my heart and I had to start dealing with the vicarious trauma that comes from witnessing abuse and violence. There was no amount of ‘this is not my birth” that could stop me from caring deeply about these women and their babies and the atrocities I knew to be completely avoidable if they had just stayed home. I think it was even more horrific because I had developed such a wonderful foundation for knowing what normal, undisturbed women centered birth looks like compared to what happens in the conveyor belt of systematic obstetrical birth. If these women I was serving had just stayed home, I knew they would have had their babies, how they wanted, with love and support, entering motherhood with power and authority.

I went into birth work because I knew (and still know!) that if we want to see peace in this world, it begins at birth. What happens to us in the first moments and hours of birth has a lasting imprint on our entire life. The primary relationship we begin to form with our mother at the time of birth will set the foundation for every relationship in our life. And how the mother's experience of birth unfolds will affect how she parents and bonds with her baby and how the early years of their relationship will transpire. Our experience of birth frames our story and exsistance in this world. It all begins at birth and this is very much a big part of my life story.

My mother went into preterm labour half way through her pregnancy with me, which resulted in painful weeks of bedrest for her. I was born at 36 weeks.  My birth was a VBAC induction with pitocin (which we now know increases the risk of uterine rupture substantially) and thankfully my mother was okay. However, I wasn’t ready to be born yet and struggled to take my first breath. During resuscitation, they punctured a hole in my lung and I spent the next two weeks fighting for my life in the NICU. My mother was told I was born with a hole in my lung and that anecdote became a big part of my story growing up. I was the miracle baby. I fought to be on this earth and modern obstetrics saved my life. Unfortunately, the reality is that the cost of saving my life came with a price and perhaps I wouldn’t have been born so compromised if I was born outside of that system in my own time. I will never know, but I do know that those early days and weeks of separation from my mom had a huge impact on my life. The importance of that impact is at the root of my passion and inspiration to work with women, encouraging them to make choices so they can enter motherhood gently, inspired and empowered with their babies close to them.

 I was a birth doula for six years and all that I gained in knowledge and experience helped me to grow and heal my birth wounds, which I discovered to be very large and having a very real impact on my life. I continue to work on being a whole, integrated and healed adult (a constant process) since I started that work six years ago.

I grew up in BC and moved to Saskatchewan after graduation to attend University. I lived in Saskatoon for five years where I became a doula, graduated from university, met my husband and got married. My sister lived two hours away from me on her husband’s family farm and supported me during all that growth and change, providing a sanctuary for me many times.  We grew as birth workers together, attending similar workshops and trainings and my first birth I attended was the birth of her second daughter, Mariah. Three years ago, I moved to the Farm where my husband works as a grain farmer and we enjoy the benefits of living in community with my sister and her family.

Last year, I freebirthed my son, Ezra. His pregnancy and birth was a test in many ways of everything I had grown to know about birth. I had an ecstatic, decimating and ultimately healing freebirth and postpartum with him. His birth forever changed me and gave me a deeply settled confidence about birth and a burning desire to share with everyone what a first birth free and in your own power can really be like. I was very private about my pregnancy, birth and postpartum as that was what felt right to me at the time. I’m looking forward to sharing parts of my story with you in the future.

Christina and I live 100ft from each other on the same property where we raise our children and grow an enormous community garden. Our garden is a huge project starting in February with seeds and ending with canning in October. We produce and process and store enough food to feed three families throughout the year. It brings us much joy and happiness (also many days of struggle and frustration) but we absolutely love it. We are total food snobs, obnoxiously congratulating each other on the meals we cook for the realness and flavour they deliver. Our children know where their food comes from and I hope they will learn to love and value good quality food as we teach them the importance of nutrition and wellness. 

People often wonder why I’ve stayed in Saskatchewan after living in beautiful BC, and to be honest with you, I’ve fallen in love with this place. The dynamic constantly changing skies, the vastness of space around me, the friendly people here and yes, even the cold and long winters (although if they could be a few months shorter that would be ideal!) because they provide new meaning to the spring that follows. I’m grateful for this life I am living and for the people I share it with.  

Head over to our Instagram @thefreebirthsisters and ask me anything on our stories today!

Written by Sarah McCloskey