No longer a student, not yet a midwife

So here I am - stuck in that place in between being a student and being a midwife. I have a job but I can't start until my pin comes through, my CRB check is complete and my references are done. Yet I am also no longer a student. 

It's an odd feeling to be truthful. Everything feels a little surreal - I am waiting for someone to tell me it's all a joke, of course I can't be a midwife, I don't know anywhere near enough yet. I know more than I think I do of course, and yet at the same time far less than I will need to know. I am aware that the coming months will be hard work...as hard as it was when I first started my training, if not harder. When I first commenced my training, I used to finish each day of placement with a horrendous headache because of the high level of concentration needed. As I will no longer have that safety net of a mentor, I will return to that high level of concentration, in an effort to ensure that I remember to do all that I need to do. I will probably check and check again, feel unsure and uncertain, unused to being able to make my own decisions despite the fact that I have been doing just that for months. I am predicting exhaustion, tears, headaches but at the same time I am expecting shifts where I come home and realise that I did a good job, that I got it right, that I was an advocate for women, that it's all starting to make sense. Gradually I hope that my confidence and experience will grow and the good shifts outweigh the bad. 

I am naturally nervous. Being a midwife isn't like starting a new job somewhere else. You really do hold lives in your hands. You want to provide a good service to the families in your care, and ensure that their experience is a positive one whether it is on the labour ward, in clinic or on the ward. What a midwife does matters, it really matters. It matters to me anyway and I have no doubt it matters to the women and families. 

I am now trying to enjoy this time out...spending time with family and friends; having a real break before the next step on my journey to truly becoming a midwife. I am almost able to say "I am a midwife"....and yet that still feels just round the corner.......

Thinking towards the future

Yesterday the group ahead of ours graduated. Wow! Well done to all of them. However it does bring it home, that soon it will be us. Our lecturers are beginning to talk about job applications and portfolios and other paperwork that will need to be completed before we can qualify. In just a few weeks we will begin our final placement and we'll be aiming to get as much experience as we can whilst we are still students. I know I definitely feel like I still have so much to learn, and that there is no way I have enough time to learn it all. However I do feel that it is a bit like driving and passing your test. At first you know enough to pass...you've got the basics but you need experience to become more confident. You certainly can't know what you've never faced. I don't worry about it because I think it's far more dangerous to think you know it all. We are life long learners and it's important to remember that.

At times I still feel completely overwhelmed. If I think about my dissertation and assignment still to be written, my portfolio to complete, my genetics workbook to complete and everything else, I feel slightly ill. Therefore I try really hard to concentrate on one thing at a time. And that's just the academic side of things. This placement we also have to get all of our required deliveries and ensure we've got all our hours. I only need three more deliveries thankfully but I know that there are some of my cohort that need far more and they'll be pushing hard to get them now, so that they can qualify together with the rest of us.


In between studying and researching for my dissertation, I am spending quite a lot of time with my daughters Twirling group http://distinctiontwirlersofmedway.blogspot.co.uk/. I do think it is vital to have some time out from being a student midwife and for me, spending time with my family is essential. My eldest daughter has been twirling for just over a year now and my youngest joined her just a few months ago. Over the time they have been going, I have made some fantastic new friends and they too offer me support as a student. My eldest daughter used to be quite shy but her confidence has increased tenfold, through this hobby. This weekend, they both attended a competition and were both were fortunate enough to come home with trophies. A year ago I would never have thought it could be possible.


Recently I also helped at an open evening at my University. I really enjoyed seeing the potential students and their enthusiasm for midwifery. It reminded me of when I first started my journey to become a midwife and how excited I was. I am still excited about becoming a midwife and I look forward to my career and supporting women at such an important time of their lives. So when the amount of work to be done is getting me down, and overwhelmed, I just remind myself of why I set out on this journey and I battle on another day!

Working in the community

Before Christmas I was working in Community which I do love. I particularly like it when I see women before and after the birth of their baby, or to see women on their first day home and then to see them when they are being discharged. In both situations, I have witnessed many changes in the women. I have witnessed the nervous woman become a confident mother, and I have witnessed the confident professional become very unsure and lost when faced with a tiny helpless baby. Babies are certainly unpredictable and it doesn't matter how many books you read before they are born, you simply can't be fully prepared.

One of the most common questions to be asked as a Midwife is "is this normal?" - this might be during pregnancy or after the birth but it gets asked a lot. 99% of the time (a guess, I haven't sat and worked out a statistic)  I would say yes, that it is perfectly normal. Babies are born with their own personalities and all we can do is respond to their needs to the best of our abilities. In the early days this often means trying to guess at what they need...mentally going through the checklist - hungry? nappy needs changing? too hot or too cold? tired? It's all guess work really until you can begin to learn your baby's cues.

Frequently new mothers ask about how to get their baby to sleep in the moses basket/crib/cot...anywhere rather than lying on Mum. Don't worry I did the same myself, in fact I think I spent the first 2 years of my eldest's life wondering and worrying about how to get her to sleep anywhere but near or on me - she had to be in contact in some way, whether lying on me or just having a hand on me. Generally I advise new mothers to cuddle their babies...shocking I know...but the baby has spent 9 months inside Mum, able to hear her heart beating as a constant sound, and never before having experienced hunger, temperature, gravity and yet we expect babies to suddenly sleep by themselves. Birth is a shock to them and they need reassurance and comfort. I also advise trying putting something that smells of Mum in the crib, warming the crib with a hot water bottle (ensuring to remove it before baby goes in) so it's not suddenly cold on their back, giving baby to Dad to settle for sleep, a slumber bear if they can afford one but what works for one baby won't work for another, and sometimes what works one night won't work the next, and sometimes it feels that nothing works at all. It can simply be a case of give it time...it certainly was the case with my eldest daughter. My younger daughter was far easier - she'd sleep anywhere! I certainly don't believe it was anything I did that made her more likely to sleep, just that she was born with that kind of personality. So give it time, cuddle your baby, try these things by all means but I promise that at some point, your baby will be able to go to sleep by themselves. I have been on the receiving end of such advice and at the time it felt like useless advice, the tiredness was relentless, and that even one more night was one night too many but I hope it brings comfort to know that yes this is normal for many babies.


I seem to have wandered into the realms of sleepless nights and generic advice but it is something that new mums ask about so often that I feel it's worth discussion. Certainly I feel that the lack of sleep I endured when my children were younger has prepared me well for night shifts as a midwife. As a breastfeeding mother helper, helping to run the group, the women that came along would frequently ask for help with sleep and their babies. We live in a society where "sleeping through the night" appears to be main focus, the ultimate goal, particularly in the early days and then with some desperation as time goes by. However if were simply to accept that babies wake in the night for an indefinite period of time, is it not easier to cope with? That actually the norm is not for babies to sleep through the night, but for them to wake regularly to feed and that at times they will sleep for longer and other times they will wake more frequently, such as during growth spurts which again are normal. I know that I found it far easier to deal with my second child's nightly wakings because I was prepared for it. I was still exhausted at times, and I still complained about it but I didn't waste energy trying to fight it or find an answer to it. I tried things to see if it helped but I didn't worry if it didn't, I just recognised that she wasn't ready yet. However I did have the advantage of not working at that time, I wasn't yet a student either. My eldest spent mornings at nursery so I used that time to catch up a bit and rest.  I think we have a tendancy in this country to try and push ourselves back to normal as soon as possible and actually we'd do well to stop and learn about our babies, spend time with them, allow time to recover from the birth properly...focus on what's important...not on having a show home, or getting out and about as quickly as possible, make use of friends and family to help out if you can. This is of course all very idealistic and I do realise that but I can dream, at least when I'm allowed to sleep that is. At the very least I think this is useful advice for those very early days....stop, rest, recover and cuddle your baby.

Photos courtesy of Marie Donn Photography

Self esteem and confidence

Following a conversation with a friend of mine today I have been pondering self-esteem and confidence. This particular friend is someone whom if you don't know very well comes across as a confident self-assured person, but once you get to know her, you discover that inside she has low self-esteem and hardly any self-confidence at all. This pondering led to me to wondering about other people that I know and judgements I have made about them and their confidence levels. Also at what point does it become vain to talk about what you are good at?

As a child I was very shy and I didn't have a lot of confidence in myself - I was bullied for my weight from a very young age and it certainly had an impact. As a young adult, I was still shy but I began the process of bullying myself out of it. Amongst friends I was completely confident but place in a new situation and I was a blushing mess. Friends, family and boyfriends could compliment me but I'd think they were only saying it to be nice, and I didn't really believe them. These days I'd imagine most people would be surprised to hear me describe myself as shy as I probably come across as quite confident. I guess the truth is I am far more confident than I have ever been before. I do have good days and bad days the same as anyone else but on the whole I am more confident in myself. 

It's not that I just woke up one day and discovered self-belief but gradually I came to realise that I was more confident in myself. In part I think it's down to my family and friends and the belief that they have in me - eventually it has to rub off right? However mainly I think it's because I finally found the one thing I believe I can be good at. I think I will be a good midwife....if I didn't think I could be good at it then I wouldn't be doing it. I also think I am a good Mum...I'm not a perfect Mum but who could be? I'm not afraid to say where I made my mistakes. I'm a good Mum because I learn from my mistakes. 

I'm not the best but I don't need to be. It took me a long time to find my niche and now that I have found it, I am determined to make it work the best way it can for me. It's made me feel a lot more comfortable in my own skin and a lot less worried about what others think of me. I know my weaknesses, so when they are knocking at the door, I can't always make them go away but I no longer invite them in for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Love me or loathe me, that's up to you. Loving myself makes me a stronger person, and a more confident person.

I also believe that confidence is going to be a vital component of being a good midwife. I need to confident in the decisions I make. I also need to be confident enough to be able to say when I don't know the answer to something. Confidence doesn't mean knowing all the answers...confidence means you know it's ok not to know the answer. 

So if you aren't confident, if you don't believe in yourself....then I just think it's a case of finding your niche....and sadly for some it takes longer to find.