Fall Term

School is beginning for me again! And on the same day as my kids go back to school as well. It'll be their first full school year. And it's the first term for me where I know the ropes, how to do protocols already, how the system works. I feel like I'll start already knowing how to do this thing this time and we don't have to take the time for all that introductory stuff. We can just get down into the nitty gritty of learnin' how to birth babies. I've already started in on my readings, and found some pretty hairy stuff.....we don't just focus on the plain-jane births, the births that are how births are supposed to be, but the areas that can present problems and how to head them off before they're problems, and deal with them when they are. And all the different variations on "normal" because, as all of you who have birthed a baby know, births don't go as you plan them. You can plan and plan and do all the things necessary to prevent certain things, and all the things necessary to keep things on track....but birth happens how it will happen, and no amount of planning will keep it from happening how it wants to. It's the knowledge of those things and the skills necessary PLUS the ability to watch and wait and let things play themselves out that make a midwife a midwife.

I've had a couple of births this summer, too, and a few more lined up. I've been working toward certification as a doula and I'm two births away! I've got those births lined up....so my certification is in sight! It's been kind of slow-going, getting the clients I need to certify, but now it seems momentum is rising (or could it be that freak snowstorm we had in December....?) and I hope to be able to build up a business of paying customers and do doula work to support myself. Because of all the work I can do right now to support myself, doula is the closest to my ultimate goal. I love the work of birth and being able to support each birthing mother in the work she needs to do.