learning curve

they said “get snow tires!”—- i said “nah, that’s ok. i might not need them….i’ll just wait it out and see what happens.”

well what ha’ happen wuh dis:

so today was the first day of spring semester.  i got up all nice and early, i took my time getting ready, and i walked out the door at 8:00, mind wholly fixated on that wonderful cup of dunkin’ doughnuts coffee that awaited me in bridgton.  i would get to school 30 minutes early so i could enjoy my cuppa and catch up with the gals as they arrived.

it was about ten degrees out, and the wind cut like a knife.  i would have hurried to my car, but the sidewalks and parking area were slick, undulating seas of solid ice. (the ice-walk is pretty comical—there’s no attractive way to do it, nor can it be done angrily or with attitude—hunched forward, butt stuck out, head down, knees bent, arms out, hands at the ready—extra slow and exaggerated if you’re from alabama).  so on i hobbled, my body washing over with adrenaline every time i started to fall.  i never did.

i knew that the drive would be slick, but i’d made it the day before with little problem, so on i soldiered in the little green snowplow (the lovingly ironic name for my kia rio with slightly balding standard tires).  i knew that the trick to the driveway would be to build up speed and not stop.  the speed i got, but the stopping was beyond my control.  the dirt and gravel road was coated in a smooth 2-inch layer of ice, and as soon as i hit the incline, i was all spinning wheels and no forward motion.  this was made worse by the fact that the road arches up a bit in the middle and has snow-filled ditches on either side.  the more i gassed it, the more i slid side to side, wheels ever threatening to stick down in the ditch.

the sound of tires spinning on ice is horrible.  something between a remote-controlled car and a handmixer the size of a large dog.

not to be defeated, i backed down the hill, pulled into the park, and gunned it again.  this time, i made it a little further, but i still got stuck.  i tried a third time, this time with sand shoveled under all four wheels—–nothin’.  i tried it a fourth and final time, hoping that a snarling face and profuse screaming profanity might be what the kia needed to make it over the worst part.   nope.  nothin’.  i wound up with two wheels in the middle of the drive and two dangerously close to the ditch.

utterly defeated and running late, i went in and woke stephen up.  he threw on some clothes, and then he and the crazy-but-helpful neighbor tried a few more times to move the car up the hill, but to no avail.  butts were busted, sand it was a’flyin, and the smell of burning rubber filled the air (until the inside of my nose started to freeze, anyway).  kia-kia-bang-bang just wasn’t going to make it.  finally, our other neighbor came outside and offered to let stephen drive me to school in her car.  snow tires….AAA….done!  sandra saved the day.

few things give me real anxiety, but tardiness is definitely one of those things.  despite the best of intentions for the morning, i rolled into class 15 minutes late on the first day back.  it’s like that nightmare you still have about being late for school in junior high (you know the one i mean), but hey, at least i didn’t show up naked.

a few things  i learned (or was reminded of) this morning:  i have an awesome husband who will, without complaint, freeze his balls off to get me to class; helpful neighbors are great to have in a pinch, even if they are a little wackadoo; and I NEED SNOW TIRES.  we have an appointment sunday morning, and my ll bean visa will thank me for the massive charge to v.i.p. auto.  looks like it’s gonna cost me $340 to make it up my driveway.

to be continued….

 

woods and lake (pics)

jumping in

i really feel like i should have posted when school was over–some sort of “i made it!” wrap up—but the truth is that  i started my clinical rotation the day after finals were over, and i really haven’t had good reflecting time until recently (amazing how hours and hours of driving can be good for that!).  so here’s that post.  better late than never!

besides possibly writing my master’s thesis, the first semester of midwifery school represents the hardest i’ve ever worked at something—it made graduate school look like a breeze.  i read until my eyeballs gave out, i studied hundreds of pages of notes, committing each tiny detail to memory, i gave and received tons of pelvic exams, i took relentlessly-paced tests, and through it all i somehow managed to teach an online english class for some cash.

i’m actually in a class of astoundingly hard workers–we’re the first class at birthwise to make it through semester one without anyone dropping out.  we’re still going strong at 17, and you can tell it’s unusual, because the classroom is almost uncomfortably packed.  they don’t expect everyone to stay.

although birthwise front-loads with academics, the majority of the semesters are spent either partially or almost entirely in hands-on training in clinical placements and preceptorships.  this coming semester will be our first time balancing clinicals with academic requirements.  we’re down to two days of class a week to compensate for our time in the field, but those two days are packed with even higher expectations than before.  balance becomes key as we learn to negotiate boundaries with our clinical midwives—you don’t want your school work to suffer because you’re overloading on clinical time, but you also don’t want to miss out on hands-on experience.

i received my clinical placement the week before finals— i would be with midwives brenda and lindsay, both of whom i already knew.  i was so psyched!  i met brenda when i was working on rippling waters farm this past august.  she heard that the fill-in farm apprentice was a student midwife, and she came down one day to visit.  judging by my placement with her, i suppose i made an ok impression despite being covered in tomato pollen, mud, and sweat.  later in the semester, i earned some of my volunteer hours by helping her input some statistical data—sounds boring, but it was a great opportunity to hear some amazing birth stories!  the other midwife, lindsay, co-taught my normal prenatal class, so i knew that i would enjoy working with her as well.

clinicals are going to be a great opportunity for me to learn hands-on skills, squirrel away bits of wisdom, and get a better impression of what life is like as a midwife.  brenda and lindsay are partners, so they both attend the prenatals, birth, and postnatals together whenever possible.  for each woman comfortable with having a student present, i will be in attendance as well.  for prenatal visits, this means that i either drive to the women’s houses for home visits (good), meet brenda and lindsay at brenda’s and share a ride (better), or meet at brenda’s for visits at her house (best!).  brenda is about 50 minutes away from me, and many of the clients are an additional hour away from her, so the only downside to clinicals is the insane amount of driving.  quiet time to think (or loud time to jam and sing) is great—the gas bill, not so much.

so far, i’ve attended 12 or so prenatal visits and 2 postnatal weight checks.  the appointments are so insanely different from a typical visit to a health care provider!  for one thing, there’s the option of being seen in your own home.  brenda and lindsay streamline this by booking several appointments in the same area at once.  the other big difference is that a large portion of the time is simply spent talking (imagine that—your healthcare provider really talking to you!).  this helps tease out what’s going on at home, how a woman is coping with stress, and what her day-to-day life is like.  you’re really able to get to know people this way, and you’re able to get to know their families.  i know husbands’ names, kids’ names, dogs’ names—you name it!

i thought that i would spend the first bit of clinicals just sitting and watching, but i’m really happy that brenda and lindsay have let me jump right in and get involved.  i help with charting, i take blood pressure, i palpate bellies, i measure fundal height, and i count fetal heart tones with a fetoscope.  so many of the clients that i’ve met have been wonderfully kind and engaging women, and they’ve been very gracious to let me help.  i was originally going to start attending births in march, but a few of the women i’ve met  have ok’ed my being there in january and february.  the first mom is due in a week or two, so right now i’m on call for that.

being on-call.  this is a new one for me.  i keep joking about putting a sign by my door that says “do you have your phone?  is it charged?  do you have your pager? is there gas in the car?  are you clean and dressed for a potential birth? do you have your birth bag?”  i’m pretty used to flying by the seat of my pants, but that abby is no more.  i have to be reachable at all times (crap service in the boonies, hence the pager), i can’t venture more than an hour away, and i let brenda know of my comings and goings in case she needs me.  it’s a new feeling to be on an electric leash, but my obgyn friend says i’ll get used to it.  i think it will just take time.  it helps though that this is something i love.  if i had to be on call to, say, teach english, i might want to put forks in my eyes.

and speaking of being on-call, if anyone tries to get a hold of me this may, know that you just shouldn’t bother.  we have six (possibly seven) women due, i have school, i have cumulative finals for all of my classes, and i have to give and grade finals for three online lit classes that i’m teaching.  any and all contact should consist of you baking me a cake laced with prozac and cocaine, leaving it on my doorstep, and backing slowly away.  (if this blog is ever audited by NARM, the cocaine bit was totally a joke….lol).  seriously though—may will be my trial by fire.

i will update later on clinicals as best i can—confidentiality is golden in midwifery, so i don’t know how much i can say.  that’s one of the many things i will learn in the coming year i am sure.

to be continued…

 

 

the girl scout motto

while driving the rural highways of maine on wednesday, i noticed a certain electric feeling in the air.  it was almost like the way it feels in alabama just before a hurricane hits.  the sun is still out, the weather is still nice, but you know that something is definitely coming.  people bustle around in preparation for the impending storm, gathering supplies, tying down things easily wind-borne, stocking up on booze, bread and batteries.  wednesday’s drive showed me how rural maine does that same dance.

so far, the winter has been very mild.  i’ve been thankful for the la-nina-style ease-in that we poor alabama folk have gotten to the great white world of ice-crusted snow, owl-shit-slick roads, and shoveling (and shoveling, and shoveling).  we got a few little snows in october, november, and december, but none of them had staying power.  the storm that was coming this week, though, seemed like it might provide the bottom layer of the ever-present winter ground cover.

the drive though several towns in southern maine showed me every single iteration of snow plow imaginable (there were more plows out on the roads than cars).  anyone with a big truck here seems to also own a plow attachment, and the day before a snow, they’re out in full force—why, i’m not really sure.  salt and sand trucks were also out and about, and people were turning their cars nose-to-the-road and pulling them further up the drive.  i guess the key there is finding the right distance up the driveway to park your car.  one the one hand, you’re cutting down on feet and feet of backbreaking snow-shoveling, but on the other hand, you don’t want to get a hood full of snurt (snow-dirt) when the highway plows come by.

we’re fairly screwed here at the cabin as far as any kind of driving preparedness goes.  the driveway is a quarter-mile-long dirt road, so parking at the head would mean snow-shoeing to the car.  since i’m on call 24/7, that’s something that i would have to be able to do in a hurry—sounds to me like a coronary waiting to happen.  i’m thinking a dog sled or snowmobile would be nice.  maybe a taun-taun.

so thursday morning came, and i had the option of joining brenda, one of the midwives in my clinical placement, for a morning of home visits.  with a storm coming, did i dare hit the backroads of main in the kia (now dubbed the little green snowplow)?  why yes—of course i did!  (perhaps more out of snowstorm ignorance than bravery). when i left at 6:40, there was little more than the smell of snow in the air.  not a flake in sight.  i decided to take the shorter route, comprised of winding woodsy highways.  brenda lives about 50 minutes from me, so i figured it couldn’t possibly snow tons before i got there.

i was mostly right–it started snowing pretty hard about halfway through my drive.  since i’m still getting used to how my non-winter-equipped car handles in the snow, i slowed my roll to just under the speed limit—and was passed and passed and passed by other mainers (always in a hurry on the road, these guys).  the drive was so beautiful—by half-frozen lakes, though blustery white-dusted evergreens.  i was hypnotized by the little swirls of snow dust playing across the road and by visible breezes as the wind whipped snow out of the trees.  when i was almost to brenda’s the swirls turned into a uniform white coating as the snow really started to fall.  it hadn’t gotten slushy at all though, so it still blew off my windshield without the help of wipers.

i was thankful to have brenda driving to appointments.  we met at her house, got in her tiny car (with four studded snow tires!) and took off.  i learned lots about snow driving during the day,  and i feel more confident that my little car can make it.  when i left later in the afternoon for the drive home (in 8 inches of newly-fallen snow), i knew that i could blast through snow banks left behind by plows, that intersections must be traversed VERY slowly, and that you can never, under any circumstance, trust the drivers around you to make good choices.  the 50 minute drive home took an hour and fifteen, but “arrive alive” and whatnot.  i made it, and i was even able to back my car into its ankle-deep parking spot. (naples didn’t get nearly as much snow as down-south, or it would have been a calf-deep parking spot.)

all in all, the day taught me a lot about snow preparedness.  the foot-long windshield scraper that i’d picked up weeks before at reny’s now seems obsolete.  brenda used what looked like a giant rubber swiffer to push the snow off of her car.  trying to push 8 inches of snow around with a scraper could only end in tragedy (or comedy?) and some frostbite.  and gloves!!  i forgot to bring gloves with me, so the first ten minutes of my drive home was spent regaining feeling in my hands.

i was reminded to steer clear of porches and overhangs—while at brenda’s doing some office work after appointments, i saw a roof’s worth of snow come crashing down onto her porch.  it sounded like an earthquake, and it rendered her front door unusable in an instant.   what a horribly embarrassing way to go that would be—killed by a roofalanche.

sitting here at my computer the day after the big snow, typing by the light of my new verliux full-spectrum please-don’t-let-me-get-cabin-fever-or-winter-blues desk lamp, i figure i’ve seen the last of grass for the next few months.  the forecast shows more snow, and below-zero temps for the coming week, so i can only imagine that this week’s snow will harden into a maine permafrost undercoating for subsequent snows.

i’m thankful we didn’t lose power, although after irene i made a point to stock a cabinet with non-perishable emergency foods, and we still have two huge coolers of water stacked in the kitchen for power-outage toilet  flushes.  lacking light at a time when the sun goes down at 4 would surely suck, but at least we’re prepared.

it’s really great to know for sure what i suspected while living in england—i love the cold!  long-gone are the months after months of sweltering heat and oppressive humidity, and here to say are glowing wood-fired stoves, crispy cold evenings, and the bright blue glow of a full moon on the snow-covered earth.  we’ve traded some convenience to be here for sure—hopping out to the car or going to do wash now call for a ten minute layer-fest with much zipping and lacing, and the idea of rolling right out of bed and into a car to go to class are gone.  there’s shoveling and thawing to think about before going anywhere, and a remote ignition button for the car is looking better and better.

still, i’ll trade more effort in preparedness to live in a climate that, for the first time ever, really feels like home.

to be continued…

fall to winter (pics)

tree in eastern promenade park, january 2

rosehips in eastern promenade park, january 2

ex seaweed, casco bay, january 2

boat ramp, eastern promenade park, january 2

ex pier, casco bay, january 2

silhouette texter, eastern promenade park, january 2

boat ramp, eastern promenade park, january 2

ex pier, casco bay, january 2

the beach, eastern promenade park, january 3

purple shells on the beach, january 2

long lake (the end of my driveway), november

long lake, november

long lake, november

thanksgiving snow-shoveling

the little green snowplow

first big snow, october

snowy yard, october

driveway post snowplow, october

a view down our driveway, october

the last of the leaves, october

the cabin, october

our own personal charlie brown christmas tree farm, october

puddles of sky, october

more sky, october

🙂 october