Support Needed from other student Midwives on hold!! PLEASE!

[fourgrtkidos]

Hi all,

I just finished my second year, I am now taking a break. I felt really confident in my decision: I need to spend some time with my family, get some finances in order so I can get a reliable car- I hate driving to a home birth 2 hours away at 3 am in my old 110,000 + mile car , I was starting to have anxiety attacks at births where my preceptor was too interventive or gave cytotec.........

Yesterday, I had finals and really broke down. I need the break from school but I have forged a great big bond with my classmates. I love each of them!! It is hard to leave my kids but wonderful to spend the day in the company of sister midwives and friends and just be a woman and a friend!!! Now, I am not going to have that. And, when I do go back, my class will have graduated and I will be an outsider to the senior class that I roll into.......... Uggh... did I make the wrong decision? Should I just buck up and keep going??!!!
HELP!
~Michelle

[feminist~mama]

I don't know- you will be new to the senior class you go back into, but then, you'll have an even wider circle of midwife friends by the end of the year, no? Because surely you'll make friends in the new class too..

If you're actually having anxiety attacks and not just using that as a way of saying "it really bothered me" then taking some time off seems like it really is needed.

Good luck mama!

[Maggi315]

no, taking a break is never a mistake!!! I took 7 years to get my bachelors degree in nursing, took off a year or two from working to have babies, did an apprenticeship, took off another 18 months to be home, now working. I really want to go to frontier and get my cnm/fnp ASAP, but after taking one course, realized the reality of doing all that work and decided to wait until my youngest is school age. and it's downright hard!!! patience ismy worst virtue!!!

[fourgrtkidos]

No, I wasn't using the I'm having panic attacks as a description of how I felt- but I am literally having panic attacks everytime I get into the car for the long 3 hour drive to school or any long drive to a birth, during any birth with alot of intervention and even during birth circle discussion where the birth is long or difficult, it is REALLY WEIRD!
I am mostly attributing it to a "knowing" in my soul that my kids need me to be a SAHM right now. But, wondering if, it isn't a childhood abuse issue, even though I had NO PROBLEMS with my own births.?

Any one ever heard of any Midwives having like secondary trauma when their clients have difficult births or interventions....?
~Michelle