My name is Sara Eiser and I’m currently studying to become a CPM (Certified Professional Midwife). My journey to midwifery began after my first child’s birth. Toby’s birth began a little “late,” and I had a birth filled with interventions that ultimately led to a cesarean for “failure to progress.” This experience taught me a lot about healthy pregnancy and birth and I was ravenous for more information. I became involved in ICAN, the International Cesarean Awareness Network, and learned about the benefits of homebirth, VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), and natural childbirth attended by midwives helping with VBAC success. Eventually, a local doula, Kerry Clements of Cher Bebe Birth, and I began the Lancaster chapter of ICAN.
When I conceived again, I was determined to have a vaginal birth and believed that my best chances of having such a birth were at home. I called over 14 health care providers in Central Pennsylvania and was told by all of them that they would not attend my low-risk birth out of the hospital. Though they did births at home, they were “not allowed” either by licensing or by professional malpractice fear, to attend my birth at home simply because I had had a previous cesarean. Many of them used scare tactics like “what if something went wrong?” or “your baby could die!” to try to deter me from attempting to birth at home, though when confronted with actual statistics of the safety of VBAC, many admitted that it was their fear and not science that was keeping them from attending my birth.
I became very disillusioned and hopeless at finding a care provider to help me birth my child safely when I miscarried that pregnancy. I planned on becoming pregnant again, so I continued my search and found a CPM in Maryland, Karen Webster of Woman Wise, who agreed that as long as I stayed low-risk and healthy, there was no reason why I couldn’t safely birth a child at home. I was overjoyed! A few weeks later, I conceived my daughter, Nomi, and went on to have a transformative 27 hour, no-intervention birth at home, attended by my husband, a doula, midwives Karen Webster of Woman Wise and Laura Cochran of Sunrise Midwifery, and Katie, Karen’s apprentice. I had such a long labor (and 3.5 hours of pushing) that I am convinced that if I had been in the hospital, I would have had another cesarean for “failure to progress.”
Currently, I am apprenticing with a CNM and CPM joint practice in Northern MD/South Central Pennsylvania and travel through Lancaster, York, and Adams Counties with the practice. I live in Conestoga, Pennsylvania with my husband, Keith, two children, Tobias and Naomi, one roommate, two cats, and a dog. I am also currently pregnant with my third child and will be having another birth at home with midwives.
