Breathe Easy, You've Found Me ((HUGS))

People will wonder why this blog is needed, why minority midwifery student? It's very simple actually; I was looking for this blog...but I couldn't find it...so I created it. We all have unique experiences, and every experience, every story, can help someone else. I am a black girl from the hood at an ivy league professional school. That, alone, is reason enough to write. Somebody was looking for this blog. Someone wanted proof that what I'm doing can be done - even when you come from where we come from.

To that person especially, WELCOME.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Time

passes by slowly at the hospital and clinic, fast on the weekends, and even faster in blogland. I have been gone a long time from my blog. I'm tired and overwhelmed with integration and my thesis. There's so much I could write if I didn't spend every free moment eating, writing on other people's blogs, logging onto facebook, or simply sleeping. Already Saturday night is here. That means tomorrow is Sunday, and the next day is Monday. Monday. Back to integration. One never really leaves though I guess. The first three weeks of integration were tough, but still I did it. I had every intention on writing about it often, but since I'm living it, I never want to spend any extra minutes talking about it. Honestly, I just want it to end. I'm tired. I don't think it's midwifery. I think I'm just smack dab in the middle of a severe case of senioritis that is compounded by the fact that I've been in school nonstop for the last... six years. OMG. I didn't realize that it's been six (goin on seven now) freakin years straight. No wonder I'm exhausted. Just plain burnt out. This is the explanation for why I have vivid, relentless daydreams about working as a temp answering phones, setting appointments, or typing documents. I just want to sit down. Rest. Work. Get a check. And go the hell home. Preferably before it gets dark. No one quizzing me. No panic at not knowing the answer. No extreme thinking necessary. No studying after work. No taking it home with you, to bed with you, in your dreams. Of course I want to sleep. I've been at this for 6 freaking years. The bureaucracy, the smiling, the bullshit. Ahh. Academia. Fill in this bubble, jump this hoop, pay this fee. No, no, no, leave who you were over... there. See, I'm trying to show you the way... this way, this is what you want, this is what we need.

But I'm sitting here wondering, how in the hell did I get here?

All as time passes me by.

I've been catching babies. It's harder than I ever, ever imagined it would be.  I didn't think it'd be easy, but I definitely didn't think it'd be this hard.  When I read the blogs of homebirthing midwives, there is such calm. It all seems so normal. So very different than what I'm learning. I try to tell myself to stop comparing, homebirth and hospital birth... apples to oranges, really.  Because I'm at a high volume hospital and midwifery practice, I often manage multiple patients at once. For example, on my first day, I caught as many babies as I did my whole first semester of midwifery school... and I caught them in a matter of hours. Yeah. Granted it really isn't that many, but I was shocked and scared and thinking, what the hell kind of midwifery is this? I know this is what it's like in high volume settings with low resources. But I had no idea that this was also the case for midwives here working regular hours at"regular ol' hospitals." I often find myself managing inductions, triage, and births simultaneously, then rounding on all the postpartum patients.  I find myself thinking, I couldn't do this for real, all day, all week. I can see the bright red burnout sign before I even start.  I am 10 times more interested in group prenatal care now then I was before I experienced what a true high volume clinic is like. I have never seen group prenatal care in action, but I know it must be better to get 12 women together in a room for 2 hours than to try to see the same twelve individually in the same amount of time- leaving you 10 whopping minutes per patient. 



2 comments:

Louisa said...

SO hear you. Can't believe how freakin' intense high volume hospital midwifery is.
It's an advertisement for a nice, steady homebirth practice! ;)
You can do it. Hang in there.
xx L

Anonymous said...

I'm praying for ya.

I know its crazy not to even have the space to breathe when you need to.

Don't know any special words other than we're all behind you.