Liz began her journey to midwifery out of a deep desire to share the joy of birthing at home. She wanted all women to experience what it is like to feel the innate power within them to give birth. She began her studies following her first homebirth in 1982 by enrolling in Rahima Baldwin's birth assistant course, Informed Homebirth. Her passion for learning about normal birth continued through her next two homebirths and as she raised her six children.
Liz became certified as a doula with A.L.A.C.E and later with Birth Works International. As one of the co-writers of the Birth Works doula program she also facilitated doula workshops and taught childbirth education. After attending many births as a doula in hospital and home settings, she found the opportunity to apprentice with several wonderful homebirth midwives who shared their knowledge of traditional midwifery. She began an independent practice in 2000 and along with her daughter, Emily, formed the first Birth Circle of Frederick, MD. Encouraged by her mentors she applied for and obtained certification through North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) in 2007. Liz continues her education by attending numerous workshops and conferences and is currently enrolled in Aviva Rohm's school of Herbal Medicine for Women. She loves spending time with her family on the farm, tending her gardens and chickens and hiking in the mountains near her home.
Sarah first felt the pull towards birth & women's health in 2009 or what feels like a lifetime ago, while becoming a mother for the first time, in a small farming town on Lake Huron's beautiful (and cold) Bruce Peninsula. This season of firsts, which was full of goods and bads, was a pivotal time, and set her on the path of understanding the necessity of centering women in all of life. For her, this translated into birth work fairly easily.
Although she had midwifery on the back burner, Sarah started out as a doula, training first with DONA and later with The Matrona. She started to attend some births here and there, both in hospitals and homes, and studied lactation science and counseling through Lactation Education Resources.
She birthed her second daughter in 2012, in her bedroom in West Virginia, with the support of midwives and the herd of deer who watched from the backyard.
In 2015, she started assisting midwives at home births and began apprenticing in 2018. Around that time, she also began to broaden her focus not only to include birth but also holistic and physiologic postpartum and well woman care in general. In 2018 she took Rachelle Garcia Seliga's Innate Postpartum Care training, which to date has been one of the most important trainings for her. Over the years she has attended various classes pertaining to physiologic birth, postpartum, and women's wellness. She hopes to one day offer Womb Work or what is sometimes known as Mayo Abdominal Massage. For now, she is currently enrolled in Indie Birth Midwifery School.
After growing up in a small radius in the city, and then moving about the continent too much as a young adult, she has landed back accidentally, or perhaps synchronically, and made a home in the corner of the world -the same country road- where her mother's ancestors lived, farmed, birthed, and no doubt healed, for six or seven generations.
Sarah lives on a small spot of land outside Sharpsburg, MD, with her husband and two spicy girls, along with her chickens, goats, vegetable and herb gardens, and a beautiful outhouse. (She also boasts an indoor bathroom). She loves too many things to mention but some favorites, along with living, learning, and exploring with her girls, are learning and using plant medicine, contra dancing, long solo bike rides, good music, painting when she gets the time, cooking for folks she loves, and run on sentences.