I did it!

Last week I was given the classification for my degree and I am very proud to tell you that I achieved a 2:1. We're now into the final pieces of paperwork and sometime next month (hopefully) I'll get my pin and be a fully qualified midwife. This month I shall attend an interview for a job and I know I've got my fingers and toes crossed that I'll get it.

It's an odd feeling right now. I'm exhilarated and slightly scared. I am scared of no longer having that mentor looking over me and ensuring that I'm doing things correctly. Yet at the same time I am looking forward to working independently, taking all that I have learnt from my various mentors over the past three years and developing my own practice.

I am proud to be able to say that I've made it. I have managed the demands of academic life, placement and family life. Once a long time ago, I began a journey to be a teacher and over half way through the course, I failed a major assignment and dropped out. At that point I thought I had given up the chance of ever getting a degree. I had no idea what I'd do with my life and didn't really think I'd ever make anything of myself. However I feel that I have also never really given up. I have always forged forward with the belief that there is something better out there for me; that I could do more.

I am not the greatest student, I wouldn't consider myself particularly academic. When I was doing my teaching course, I averaged very low marks, scraping through each assignment. My assignments as a student midwife, have been varied....some I've got it right and others I've not done so well at. I have taken something from each experience. I have literally taken it one day at a time, one challenge at a time...never daring to think beyond being a student and simply doing my best. I also could not have done it without the amazing support of my husband who always believed in me and my family's never ending support.

At the moment I am making the most of a little time off.....spending time with my children, seeing friends that I've woefully neglected over the past three years, spending time with family, catching up on my knitting and spending time preparing for Twirling Nationals with my daughters' twirling group (if you are interested you can follow them here http://distinctiontwirlersofmedway.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/happy-easter.html ).

It's been a long journey and in so many ways, this is just the first step on the next part of the trip. I shall aim to continue to tell you all what it is like to be a newly qualified midwife. I am looking forward to taking that step but for now I shall enjoy spending time being me.

And so begins 2nd Year

We are no longer shiny and new. We've all had different experiences on placement, good and not so good. We've all already started to think about the kind of midwife we want to be - learning from those we've been working with. We've even already become a little cynical about the changes we thought we could make because we've seen how restrictive working for the NHS can be.

I've been back in Uni for two days and already I feel revitalised and hopeful about my future. During one of courses we will be looking at hypnobirthing and complementary therapies and I am so excited...this is exactly the kind of midwife I want to be. I want to embrace normality and encourage women to believe in their bodies to give them the best possible chance of a normal birth. Did you know that it is a well known phenomenon that women's labours halt or slow down when they enter a hospital? Did you know that it was only once the doctors got involved that babies began to be born in hospitals instead of at home?

Don't get me wrong, I 100% believe that hospitals have their place and women and babies lives have been saved as a result. However I do believe that for the majority of women, home would be a perfectly safe place to give birth. I may well be biased having had personal experience of a home birth and loved it but it is something I am passionate about. Sadly I also believe that we are a long way off turning things around again. Women have different expectations now - they expect pain relief, they expect doctors or midwives to tell them what will happen and when, and so on. It's not that women are wrong but perhaps we are wrong in how we guide women's expectations if that makes sense?

It's not often that I hear people say that they loved their antenatal classes...at least not once they've had the baby. The most common statement I hear is that the classes didn't prepare them in any way? So is this where we are going wrong? Is this where we can make a huge difference to how birth and labour is viewed? I do believe that no-one can be fully prepared for just how much parenthood changes your life but I also believe we could prepare women better for birth, and increase the chances of a normal delivery. I've been on the receiving end of wonderful, inspirational antenatal discussion that led me to my home birth. However I was also fully prepared for if things hadn't gone to plan, and I still had plans in place to maintain control of MY birth. Shouldn't all women be given that opportunity?

I would also like to make the disclaimer that I am not saying that anyone who hasn't had a normal delivery, had unrealistic expectations. There is many factors to consider and I am certainly not in a position to judge whether or not someone was given the opportunity to have a normal delivery. Do you think you were well prepared for the birth of your baby?

11 births and farewell MLU.

I've now finished my time on the MLU and next week I am off to the antenatal clinic where the experience will be extremely different. It's hard to believe that before this placement, I hadn't "caught" my first baby and now I've caught eleven. Eleven very different woman, who coped in very different ways with their labours. Eleven different birthing partners who supported their wives/girlfriends/daughters in a variety of ways. So many of the birth partners say how useless they feel whilst the woman is labouring. They simply don't have any idea of how valuable just being there can be.  And lets not forget the eleven very different babies. Six boys and five girls.

I'm not sure I can put into words just how much I feel I have learnt in such a short space of time. I've worked with different people and they all have their own ways of how to deliver and no doubt over time, I will choose my own preferred way. I like to think at the moment that I will work with whatever is appropriate at that time but ideally, maybe even idealistically, I'd like to be fairly hands off in my approach....allowing women to be in charge of their own bodies and deliveries. I think back to the births of my children and how I feel that my eldest was delivered by the midwife, and how my second was delivered by me....I know which experience I'd rather women have.

However one thing I have learnt is that no matter what I think, the woman has the right to make her own decisions. Whilst for me, being continuously monitored or unable to feel the contractions would be awful, for another woman, this is very important to them and part of being a midwife is taking a holistic approach and recognising what is important and why; ensuring that women have all the information they need to make an informed decision so that after the baby is born, they have felt a part of the decision making process and supported in their choices. What I would do is actually irrelevant in so many ways. So as well as all the clinical skills I am learning, I am also learning how to listen to women and support their choices.

Today I am feeling on top of the world, so pleased with all I have learnt and achieved. I'd love to bottle it - I could make a fortune! Or just have a little sip at those times when I am wondering if it is all still possible. For now I shall bathe in this happy feeling, enjoy a few days off and look forward to another new experience on Monday!

No more assignments!

For this academic year anyway. On Monday I submitted my final assignment for this year, providing I don't fail one anyway and have to re-do it. We only had three assignments to write this year and each one was harder than the last. I'd thought on reading the brief that the Values assignment would be quite enjoyable. However it was easily the assignment that challenged me the most. I work well with facts and being able to reference from research; but talking about my feelings about something was far harder. For those that know me well, this may come as a bit of a surprise. I wear my heart on my sleeve and don't generally have any problems talking about my feelings. However it's quite different when you have to reference your feelings somehow....once I was talking about theory I was far more comfortable. Anyway I am pleased it is finally submitted and shall now be obsessively checking for my results.


I've now got a few days off before returning to the MLU. My fingers are twitching to catch my first delivery. I've been watching One Born Every Minute and thoroughly enjoying it but it only serves to remind me what I want to be doing. I loved this weeks episode - no Caesarean's, just normal birth and not just that but a water birth! I felt quite emotional watching that one....and also quite lucky. In fact I feel lucky most days - midwifery is so competitive to get into, and getting to see new life enter the world - well that's special. I know it's not every one's cup of tea but I find it so amazing and special, and a privilege to be a witness to. It's not just the births though - it's the whole experience of caring for women at such an amazing time in their lives.

My most recent part of placement was spent on a postnatal ward. Unlike the MLU, on this ward can be all the high risk women, post-section women, post post-partum haemorrhage women, women with high blood pressures, diabetics, and the list goes on. Also on this ward are antenatal women, who are in for monitoring, are in early labour or have come in for induction of labour. It's a fast paced ward and a very high need ward. Some shifts I'd feel I was chasing my tail the whole time but I learnt so much.

One day I spent a long time helping a new Mum with breastfeeding amongst other things. She was quite an anxious new Mum so she had a lot of questions. She'd waited a long time for her baby and she was determined to get it right. As we weren't too busy that shift, I was able to spend quite a long time with her, providing one-to-one support and giving her confidence in herself. When she left to go home, she gave me a big hug and said thank you for my help. There aren't many jobs where you'd get that response from a client! I love my job!

What kind of midwife do I want to be?

All of the posts about breastfeeding, discussions with friends about breastfeeding and then listening to qualified midwives talk about breastfeeding got me to thinking about what kind of midwife I want to be. I don't have these grand illusions that I can get every woman breastfeeding their babies. I don't think I can change the world after all. So what can I do? What kind of difference can I make?

Well this is my dream....I want to support those women that do want to breastfeed. I want to help them have skin to skin with their babies, to breastfeed as soon as possible after the birth of their babies. I want to make sure that women know where and how to access support should they want and/or need it. I want to provide women with accurate information, without ramming it down their throats. Then following this, I hope that gradually more and more woman have a positive breastfeeding experience, and that this drip feeds to more and more women, that breastfeeding can be easy and enjoyable. That breastfeeding becomes commonplace to be seen everywhere and that women can learn by example, just like women used to do.

I also want to ensure women know about their choices for birth - whether that is where to give birth, what position to give birth in or whether it is how to still feel in control should they need a Caesarean delivery. I want to be able to support women in their choices without cynicism. Of course, I also want to be able to know what to do in the event of an emergency, or when things don't go to plan. And when things don't go to plan, I still want to be able to support women in their choices. I want to be able to help women know what their choices are. I want them to still be able to have a positive birth experience knowing everything possible was done.

I have no doubt that some people think my dreams are daft, that I am aiming too high. But if I can support one woman, help one woman to feel that I made a difference, then it's a start. I am writing this in the hope that I don't forget my dreams; that I remember what is in important to me and that I try and keep to it as much as I can. I'll aim for making a tiny difference and hope that I succeed.