three years of being a midwife - what I have learned
When we started our midwifery studies one of our teachers kept saying "Becoming a midwife is not taking on a new profession, it's not a speciality of Nursing, it's an identity.” I think I wasn't the only one who felt that this statement was a bit much.
But now, three years later I get it. It's been a gradual change, but I defiantly feel like a whole Midwife now. I never felt like a Nurse, and I defiantly didn't feel like it had become a part of who I am.
It's been three years since three of my co-students and I sat in from of a computer screen with a glass of bubbly celebrating our graduation in the middle of a global pandemic. It was nothing like we had expected, but we made it! Life, just life birth, throws you curve balls sometimes, you have to adapt. That makes life easier, that makes birth easier. As a midwife I have to adapt all the time, to the people I have in front of me, to my coworkers, to doctors, to vital signs, and so on. Some days it flows, it's easy, it's fun, other days it's hard, stressful, there's resistance. But if there's something I have learned theses three years it's to follow my gut.
Following my gut wasn't something I learned from my Midwifery studies or all the countless hours of practical placement during my studies. Following my gut was something Partera Angelina Martinez Miranda taught me during her three day workshop in September 2022. She is a fourth generation traditional Midwife from Mexico. She mixes her traditional knowledge with medical knowledge when she supports people through birth. I think of her often. She started our three day workshop by saying she would teach us about the simple things of life. As a new Midwife I felt that birth was anything but simple! But now, three years in I have seen it. I've attended births that are simple, that have absolutely nothing to do with me and I have only been an observer. They have shown me exactly what Partera Angelina spoke about the simplicity. Birth is a part of life. Sometimes we treat it as it is not, as if it's something alien and ungraspable, but it's not. It's the most natural thing in life, and one of the most beautiful.
I am grateful for all the births I have attended during my short time as a Midwife. I am grateful for all the families I've met and all the firsts I've been a part of. Sometimes I think that because I don't currently attened births that I am less of a Midwife. But then I remind myself that being a Midwife is not what you do, it is what you are.
