Living life and figuring it out, one little piece at a time

Friday 11 July 2014

Reflections from a one week old midwife

The day that I've waited over four years to begin came last week.  After over 3 months completely off call, I got an email saying that ministry funding had come through and I was a registered midwife last Wednesday afternoon, and bright and early the next morning I was in the clinic to start my first day working as a midwife. 

The last week has been a very big one in my life.  The drama of waiting for funding, and therefore not knowing my start date, was starting to become pretty stressful by the end.  We'd had plans in place for the kids to make sure I could work, but as time kept ticking by and I still wasn't working, we started cancelling some of those childcare plans.  The notice was very quick though once it all came through! 

I felt a lot of relief that the day had finally come, but also a lot of fear.  Three months is a long time to let your head play games with you.  Will I remember everything I've been taught?  Will I miss something really important?  How am I (and the family) going to cope with my being on call and all of the madness that sometimes brings to our schedule? 

I forgot, at that point, that once you're doing it, you just do it, and it all seems to work out.  And that is, indeed, the answers to those questions.  Yes, I had some things in my first week that I may not have remembered.  And the mad-crazy on call schedule and all of the logistical things that involves when you have kids has already come up (and there hasn't even been any births yet for me).  But in the moment, you just do it, and you keep doing it, and it all falls into place one way or another. 

I won't lie.  My first day of clinic was really hard.  I had no idea what to expect and it was a long and challenging day with very steep learning curves. So many things are done differently in this community and I'd forgotten how it felt to come into something so different.  Little things tripped me up all day long.  Ridiculous things like where's the light switch, how the chart opens is differently than how my old charts used to open, where the tape measure is, where's the bathroom, etc.  Meeting so many new people at once can be overwhelming - both the many midwives in my practice group and the many clients, some of whom have been waiting quite some time to meet me.   And being a week into it now, I definitely won't say Im over those learning curves but none of them feel nearly as steep as the ones I overcame in my senior year of school.  It didn't feel do-able on the first day, but only a week into it feels more than do-able.  My senior year preceptor gave me so many skills that I didn't even realize she gave me until I found myself using them to help me settle into this new environment and find my "place" and my "way" (or at least mostly "mine" - I'm sure it's at least a little bit preceptor-coloured). 

The great part about it is how much I already love this job.  I have fallen in love with midwifery all over again and it feels even better than when I had before.  I am looking forward to getting to know my clients and the other midwives in my group so much, and despite many of the newbie bumps along the road, I'm enjoying my days so much.  I know it won't feel like a dream come true every day, but today it does, and in reality - this WAS my dream, and it IS truth now!