A Midwife AND a Mother

Pippa's 1st Birthday was bitter sweet.  Although celebrating a year of this little girl,
I felt the time had gone too fast and it reminded me that I'm due to return to work

Pre motherhood, I was consumed in my career that I had dreamt my whole life of and worked so hard to get.  My role as a Midwife was the centre of me.  In pregnancy, my realisation for how my life was about to change quickly grew and then I then became a Mother, which naturally took over.  Having been so lucky to have a year’s maternity leave, I have been ‘just’ a Mummy 24/7 for all this time.  Now, I must wear 2 hats simultaneously and be good at both of them.  I now often dream of being a ‘stay at home Mum,’ but with financial and social pressures and a career that depends on keeping skills up to date through regular practice, I must head back to my previous role as a new woman and attempt to do both before my brain disintegrates and I’m unemployable.  

Walking (skipping) out of work on my last shift before maternity leave, I thought a year was a lifetime.  Having worked from 16 and being constantly in and out of education for the past 10 years, the most I’ve had off is 2 weeks.  So how did the last 12 months feel like 3?  

I used to hear parents saying ‘when you have kids, time goes even faster.’  And they couldn't be more right.  I just hope it doesn't go even faster from this point on.  

‘Ignorance is bliss’

A 4D scan of baby Pippa
@ 35 weeks gestation

I thought about this quote a lot in pregnancy, wondering if it would have been better to do 
motherhood before midwifery.  Insight isn't always a good thing.  As Midwives, we are aware of potential risks and dangers.  However, we have also seen the miracle of childbirth daily and we passionately believe in it.  I was really quite calm and collected in pregnancy and in fact, I felt my knowledge and experience made me more easy going as a new Mum.  I have spent years listening to and reading relevant advice and experience, arming me with a much smaller process of elimination when my time came (because lets face it, that's mostly what parenthood is- trial and error!).  

Family, friends and even women in my care would often ask ‘You’re having your baby where you work?’ with a horrified look on their face.  But I have to say, I didn't give it a second thought.  Although I had a wide choice of options and birthing units, it felt most natural to choose my own.  It’s what colleagues before me and around me had done and actually at a time of vulnerability, it was reassuring to see familiar, friendly faces watching over me.  I can't describe it, but it just cant be compared to those relationships in office jobs or other professions.  Not only was it handy just popping downstairs for an antenatal appointment and being familiar with the building, I also felt I owed it to the women that I look after there.  They would all ask me where I was having my baby and I felt that if I responded that I was going elsewhere, that they would doubt their choice or it would demean that maternity unit, an added worry that an already stressed, hormonal pregnant Mama does not need!

Boss Babies 

The very last picture of my
bump @ 37+5 weeks.
Pippa was born just
2 days later

Time can’t be planned well as a parent, I have quickly come to realise as both a Mother and a Midwife, that babies are unpredictable and the boss of us really (in pregnancy, birth and postnatally).  As a Midwife, I was under no false illusion about pregnancy and the journey ahead.  Fully aware that pregnancy can be tough, birth plans don't always stand, bodies take time to heal and that breastfeeding, although the most natural thing in the world, takes work to get established.  This didn't stop me from romantically imagining myself ‘blooming,’ signing up to pregnancy yoga, whilst browsing through the Mamas & Papas catalogue.  In reality, with Hyperemsis, I spent 9 months with my head in the bowl and a few hospital admissions on a drip, avoiding restaurants and coffee shops, or anywhere with a smell.  (I personally praise every mother who does it a second, third and so on time with children at home to look after also).  But that aside, I enjoyed every minute, super excited to meet our new little human.  I LOVED having a baby bump.  I loved how it looked, how it felt and also that feeling of never being lonely.  Possibly more so, as I never got to that ‘fed up, get the baby out’ stage that friends enlighten me of so well.  

My baby was due mid January.  So with my Midwife head on, expecting my first baby, I recalculated her due date to avoid being disappointed as the end of January, assuming I’d go overdue and be induced at term+10 days and be in labour for the guts of 2 days.  I planned to celebrate Christmas, then ‘nest’ my way through January (bliss), spending evenings on my gym ball after packing and repacking my hospital bag.  Little did I know I would end up in hospital halfway through a selection box and Gilmore Girls Netflix marathon the day after Boxing Day with not a shaved leg in site.  Resulting in her arrival just 3 days later/2 weeks early (which was actually a month sooner than I personally was expecting to meet her).

Breastfeeding was one of the
aspects of parenting that Midwifery
really did prepare me for

As daunting as it was to know that she was inevitably on her way, I was excited to be meeting our baby a little early and getting to spend an extra (unexpected) few weeks of my beloved maternity leave with her.  I took to painting my nails in the Induction Bay (for those first photos that everyone would notice this in of course) whilst I cried that I hadn't had time to clean my skirting boards in my nesting extravaganza (likely not a hormonal reaction at all).  I put all of the advice I'm used to giving to the test, walking the length and breadth of the Hospital, even taking the stairs sideways. Whilst every few hours, another one of my friends/colleagues excited faces would pop through the curtain to say hello.

Shock aside, we started the new year as a brand new family of 3 and brought our baby girl home on 2nd January.  At that point, I thought my 2 roles would combine, but honestly, it slipped my mind that I was ever a Midwife at all.  I would sense a little intimidation from my community Midwives and Health Visitors coming through the door as they began giving advice saying 'I'll not teach you how to suck eggs...' but my favourite line at that time was ‘treat me as a new Mummy, not a Midwife,’ as I gratefully took all help and advice offered and ran with it.  Those first few weeks can be a tiring rollercoaster of emotions among a haze of tea tree and nipple cream between mass visitors.  But they are ones which you will never forget and for all the loveliest of reasons.  Not to mention, the days and weeks in which you will do the most learning you've ever done in your life, despite degrees and careers.  

Our new normal

My own Husband's experience of birth
has given me great insight into how men
view birth and may be affected

Whilst my academic brain has taken a battering (hopefully recoverable), I have just experienced the biggest learning curve of my life to date following a year of life lessons and milestones.  I bring something else to my career now, the things that books couldn't teach me; personal experience, empathy and simply, an appreciation of how emotional and exciting that life changing experience really is.  I vow to hold more hands, take more photos and look out for those overwhelmed Daddies amongst the chaos.  I recently have to remind myself of my passion for midwifery and the opportunities it provides.  I used to romantically compare my job to that of a Wedding Officiant, present at one the most important events in a couple’s life (albeit, in a more stressful, stretched environment whilst likely being paid a lot mess money).  But it truly is an honour.  

I now must leave my most precious possession with strangers as I am needed to do my other job now and this babymoon can’t last forever.  I trust that my very carefully chosen child carers will do the same.  After all, that is what the women in my care will be doing that same day too.  My worries consist of ‘will Pippa think I’m never coming back?’ or ‘what if she takes her first steps with them instead of me?’  And as selfish and silly as they may sound (even to me), I haven't had to think like this in the last year.  The things I will miss as not only a working Mum, but a shift worker are bath times, weekends off together and the freedom of making plans without having to check offduty/make requests.  There will be days I wont see my daughter awake as I work long shifts, day and night, but I am told it will make the days off together even more valuable.  I count myself lucky that it is to do a job that I truly love! 

My little sidekick has been the ultimate
 'Mummy's girl' until now... here's hoping it lasts!

For nearly 2 years, I have rarely walked alone.  My little sidekick has been with me as we shared everything, from my body, to each meal, lie-ins, a bag and what feels like an identity.  As I walk into the unit on my own (hopefully with dry eyes) that was once just work to me, I now see things through different eyes and will probably spend my first month reminiscing in the place where I brought my daughter into the world and we spent our first few days together as a family.  

So bare with me colleagues.  Whilst you know me better than you ever have after spending some of my most vulnerable time alongside me and helping me give birth (-insert blushing emoji!), my brain resembles that of a fish and my chat may be less ‘latest Michael Kors and weekend plans,’ more ‘best teething remedies and Jo Jingles’ as I spend my tea breaks (who am I kidding- tea break) pumping whilst stalking ‘My Nursery Pal.’  

To be continued…

One over anxious, under stimulated , baby brained Mama

X

One of my many hospital mirror bump selfies
@ 25 weeks gestation

And on my transfer to Labour Ward to work
@ 31 weeks gestation

At 1 hour old in the same Labour Ward
(Note- those painted nails!)

9 months out of the womb:  It is truly amazing
how much babies grow in their first year of life