i honestly can’t remember a time when it felt THIS good to finish a semester of school. grad school schmad school—child’s play compared to this. but, i’ve officially finished my first year of midwifery school, and i get to do more than just study for the next two months (YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!)
we made it!!
so much to catch up on….
i took a&p, normal prenatal, normal labor and birth, physical assessment, and few other odds and ends in the fall, and for this past semester, it was postpartum, normal newborn, prenatal complications, therapeutic nutrition and supplementation, women’s mental health, and several other electives and one-day classes. the most challenging was definitely prenatal complications, both because of the scope of material covered and because of the shift from Q&A to case-study testing.
i’ve started a set of practice guidelines that will be added-to in subsequent classes–these basically describe a disorder, the cause, implications for pregnancy/labor/birth, diagnostic testing used, and management in both the medical and midwifery models of care. it’s really a fantastic tool, but the challenge was that, for the sake of the class, most of the 80+ pages of information needed to be committed to memory. we were then given cases and we had to outline out management strategies with the imaginary clients. even though my brain almost exploded trying to learn everything, the sleuthiness of the case study testing really appealed to me. every one was like a miniature mystery that needed to be cracked.
aside from school, the rest of my time this semester was spent in a clinical placement with two fantastic midwives. i’ve has so many amazing experiences with them, and i wish i could tell you all about it. i guess you can look for all of my fun birth stories in 40 years when i write my book, but until then, hipaa and the intimacy of the homebirth community here in maine mean mum’s the word. let’s just say i’ve experienced about every emotion capable of a human being and i’ve learned A LOT. plenty of laughter, plenty of tears, lots of adrenaline, lots of sleep deprivation.
happy family and midwives!
i guess the biggest lifestyle change that i’ve had to make as a result of my clinical placement is the transition to on-call life. currently, i’m enjoying a month off call, and man it feels great not to be tied to my phone! for each client that i work with, there’s a 5 week window of time (three weeks before and two weeks after their estimated due date) that i have to live, breathe, eat, and poop within earshot of my phone and pager. for someone who’d just rather leave these things at home, it was an adjustment for sure. unfortunately, t-mobile service is absolute crap in maine, and i got into more than a few scrapes with lack of cell service.
on-call life also means that you can’t travel far. there’s SO much of maine that i still have to see, but whenever i’m within an on-call time, i can’t really be more than an hour away from my house. so basically, this spring has been an introduction to (among other things!) the less glamorous part of life as a midwife. you’re tied to your phone, you’re tethered to your house, and you’d better damned well have phone service! these things i knew, but my experience has really showed me that i’m going to have to be careful to carve out off-call time for myself or i’ll never get away. i’m thinking a teacher’s schedule sounds good–9 months on, 3 months off 🙂
and this little guy named leonard moved with them 🙂
so much else to catch up on! finished year one, survived the snow, going broke because of the cars (alabama folks, please be thankful that you don’t have vehicle inspections, tolls, and excise tax!), and mom and randi moved to portland!!!!! this past march, mom and randi packed up their boston high-rise and rented a house in portland. it’s really an amazing thing to finally have family so close! they’re about 50 minutes away from us, and we’re able to come down and visit every weekend. we’ve got big exciting plans in the future that include an old duplex farmhouse with gardens, a blueberry patch, solar power, a root cellar full of canned harvest, a creek, and a menagerie of animals and babies. i know our house is out there—we’ve just got to find it. very excited to bring communal living back into style.
but that’s for after the preceptorship. the one thing that i have looming large in school is my preceptorship–a one year apprentice-type arrangement with a midwife or two that will happen outside of maine, away from my family. it’s quite nuts to think of spending a whole year away from stephen, but moving is just.so.hard (and expensive) and we’ve learned that jobs don’t grow on job trees here in the beautiful-but-economically-challenged state of maine, so picking up and moving the whole operation for a year, only to come back, is just not feasible. there are plans in the works (one involves india!!) but that’s for another post when plans are more set in stone.
lets see, what else…stephen got a job at schwans delivering frozen foods. looks like it’s going to be much better than the stressful nightmare that was poland springs bottling plant. happy husband=happy wife!
first parish unitarian universalist church
we joined a unitarian universalist chuch here in portland. fantastic place for people of all belief systems–christians, atheists, pagans, muslims, agnostics, you name it. all are welcome, and the only common agreements between parishioners include these seven principles: the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity and compassion in human relations; acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. imagine that! a church that recognizes worth in EVERY person, regardless of their spiritual path, and one that teaches us that we are responsible for taking care of our earth (rather than exploiting it as our god-given “dominion”). love it. the church has been there since the 1800’s and is really a beautiful place.
i’ve started seeing a naturopath for my infertility issues. finally got some blood work done (most of which was stunningly good!) and found out that i’m probably not producing enough progesterone to ovulate regularly. FINALLY! an answer!! 🙂 good news is that you can fix that issue, so i’ll be spending the next few months losing weight and boosting my body’s progesterone production so that hopefully things will get back into whack. i’ll post more on this later.
i’m leaving this coming tuesday to go to alabama for two weeks. so many people to see, and so many places to go! i’ll post more on that when i get back.
i’m sure there’s more that’s happened in the past 6 months–i’ll post as it comes to me 🙂
to be continued…
PLENTY OF PICS ON FACEBOOK!!
15 minutes of fame in maine magazine at the sauna
idylls of acadia 