Community Highlights: Meet Sarah Buchan of Harmony Doula Services

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

Hi Sarah, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
In 2015, I was pregnant with my first daughter. For my prenatal care, I was going to my normal OB that I’d had since I was a teenager. A few of my friends around me were also pregnant and having their babies, and as they gave birth one by one, I took interest in their birth plans and stories. One of my friends had just given birth a couple of months prior, and upon talking more in depth with her, I learned that she had her baby at a birth center and had hired a doula. I had no idea what a doula was, so I asked her and she explained everything to me. She talked very highly of her experience, from her prenatal care to the birth of the baby. The conversation ended with her giving me a couple of books on natural childbirth and the business cards of her birth center and doula. After reading and researching like a mad woman, going down the rabbit hole and learning things about birth that I never knew before, I left my OB and switched my care to the birth center and hired the same doula my friend recommended.

Fast forward to when the time came for me to give birth. I’ll spare the details of the eventful 31 hour-long labor and just say that my doula was there the entire time, supporting me, encouraging me, assisting me, helping my husband and mom know how to help me, and just being amazing all around. In the midst of intense labor, I remember thinking, “I want to do what she’s doing.” Over the next few years, I had the opportunity to witness multiple births of friends and family as the photographer and general support person, as well as having a second daughter of my own. Each time I learned something new, every birth experience was drastically different, and I loved it more and more each time. In November 2020, my good friend had her baby via maternal assisted cesarean, the first recorded successful MAC in the United States. After watching the video of that birth, it was like all of the feelings from the last few years bubbled up and finally exploded and I thought, “I HAVE to do this.” I wanted to be someone who could help empower women to achieve the birth experience they desired, no matter what that looked like. So, I finally took the step that same month and enrolled in Birth Doula and Postpartum Doula courses with Childbirth International. I recently completed my Birth Doula certification and am almost finished with the process of completing my Postpartum certification as well. I have been a self-employed practicing doula for the past year and I could not be happier that I made the decision to, as one of my good friends said, “Just DO-ula it!”

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The process of becoming certified was not what I would consider to be a “smooth road”, or at least not as smooth as it could’ve gone. The courses themselves were wonderful, and I was blessed with an amazing instructor. My biggest bumps in the road were due to hospital policies created during COVID. A lot of area hospitals did not recognize doulas as “essential”, though any doula (or anyone who has ever used or worked with one for that matter) would tell you otherwise. Because of these policies, it was a tad difficult and took a bit longer than expected to get the births I needed to certify, but thanks to perseverance, a couple of amazing doctors and nurses that vouched for me, and an amazing home birth company, it got done regardless!

Then, of course, there is the challenge of birth itself. It’s called “labor” for a reason, and I wish I could express in words how inspiring and empowering it is to witness absolute warrior mothers roar their children into this world. Like I said before, every labor/birth is different, some “more challenging” than others, but it’s labor nonetheless. I sometimes think if I could take all the experiences I’ve gone through and circumstances I’ve witnessed with labor and birth and somehow just transfer it to everyone else’s brain… everyone would have an unfathomably deeper respect for the God-given strength that women possess. Not to mention the deep respect they would acquire for birth workers in general. I consider myself extremely lucky and blessed to be someone who gets to help women overcome and conquer what a lot of them describe as the hardest thing they’ve ever done.

We’ve been impressed with Harmony Doula Services, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I am a Certified Birth Doula and Postpartum Doula. My “official” job description would be that I provide physical and emotional support for women throughout pregnancy, labor & delivery, and postpartum. This includes empowering women prenatally to make decisions for their experiences to come, massage and position techniques during labor, coaching and encouraging, helping dads/other support persons, photographing the birth (as I have been a photographer for almost ten years now), providing immediate lactation assistance, helping around the house postpartum, just being a shoulder to cry on (sad or happy tears!) while decompressing after birth, and everything in between. I provide support for any type of birth, from home birth to hospital. As a mom myself who had an unplanned cesarean birth with her first baby and a medication-free birth center VBAC with her second, I feel confidently prepared to assist women in experiencing the birth they desire, no matter what that looks like to them.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I believe most things, if not all things, come with a varying degree of risk. Birth is definitely something that warrants risk in a lot of areas. A huge part of my job as a doula is to help parents weigh potential risk vs. benefit on anything and everything they have to make a decision on when it comes to pregnancy, birth and postpartum. I approach situations that involve risk with my clients the same way I approach them for myself, which is to plan. By that, I don’t mean to “plan for the worst and hope for the best”. Rather, I mean to plan for anything, but set goals and personal wants/needs as the highest priority. My mom instilled a love of learning and research in me. My dad is a former US Marine and instilled “be prepared” in me. I take both of those things with me everywhere I go, including my doula work. The thing is, when you’re well-equipped, knowledgeable and prepared, risk seems to automatically go down just a little. Doulas like to use the acronym for BRAIN: what are the Benefits, what are the Risks, what are the Alternatives, what does your Intuition say, what happens if you do Nothing. I believe that being prepared and confident in the face of risk will, in turn, lower risk.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harmonydoulaservices