Why Did you become a Midwife?

[Rubyandwillsmom]

Please tell me why you became a midwife or OB.

[mwherbs]

recovering from traumatic birth experiences as well as some other life traumas - I learned and processed and learned and processed and learned even more hung out with midwives and midwifery students took classes , I was an activist trying to change hospital policies and was an educator all these things were energized from the trauma and freeing myself from it at some point I found I was being called by women I knew to help them at their births, although the mws I was around had asked me before to attend I didn't feel comfortable doing that, but when I found myself alone with a mom giving birth I thought it was about time I really worked with mws so basically in helping myself I learned how to assist others.

[nashvillemidwife]

I was called when I was very young. Don't know what else to say.

[Maggi315]

I too felt a strong calling. No traumatic births or anything, just felt the call as soon as I had my first daughter at 19. never really gave it a thought before, had thought up to that point i was going to be an engineer or linguist iwth the military. Then I got pregnant, I remember one of my first thoughts after my birth (besides, wow, that hurt much more than I would have thought possible!) was that I could do what that nurse and doc were doing.

over the years, i would pull away, go another direction, decide it was too hard, but midwifery always came back tome, I didn't have to go looking for it. Things like training, and even my apprenticeship came to me. yes, i worked hard, but it seemed like i couldn't get away from the calling, it has always been there.

When I went out on my own last year, I spend hours, days, worrying about getting clients, advertising, etc. and within just a few weeks, i had more work than i could handle with no advertising. I have had to learn to pace myself and take the time I need since I have gotten sick over the past few months, which has been extremely hard, here I am, doing what I have worked so hard to get to do, and now I have to slow down? take off a few months? that's hard! But I am learning that I don't really have a choice, my health is in charge, not me, and I need to pace myself to keep going at this for a long, long time.

My daughter, who will be 18,also seems to have been called, although she will deny that and tell you she is going to be a teacher. But she has been to 12 births this year,(including 2 transports, shoulder dystocia, and twins) has her own doula clients, drove down to get a friend who is having breastfeeding problems and a retained placenta yesterday so i could do a visit, called today to arrange a pregnancy test for a classmate, set up a program at the school for me to go talk to the classes about homebirth and midwifery and just before bed tonight, made sure I knew that if I was called to a birth ( I am actually on call for another midwife right now) that i better wake her up. If that's not called, i don't know what is?

[kaleidoscopeeyes]

Well I'm not a midwife (yet), but I've wanted to catch babies since I was a very young child. I don't know why or how it got into my head. I thought I might want to be an obstetrician, but that never felt quite right. I devoured books and tv shows dealing with birth. I didn't know midwives existed until I was in high school. As soon as I learned what they are, I knew I wanted to be one. It took me another 10 years to realize I actually COULD be one. And so the journey begins...

[CarolynnMarilynn]

I too felt called. I knew I wanted to do something involved with health and/or healing but didn't want to be a nurse or doctor. I actually investigated being a funeral home worker of some sort, but that wasn't right either.

When I found out about midwifery it appealed to me in so many ways: healthy women and babies (for the most part), helping offer women choices, working with women and their families, very diverse job description, no 9-5, being my own boss, living on the edge a bit, being outside of convention, decent money, an interest in science, life cycles and women's health, links to environmental issues, and strong female co-workers.

I knew that I wanted to work primarily with women, and this was also a big factor. My life has always been woman-centred and feminist-oriented.

I also like the service aspect. I like that in the same birth I can be humbly helping someone wash, getting them food, labour support, then titrating drugs and dosages. I like the huge spectrum of the care from physical to mental. I find it a very stimulating job with big peaks of activity and slow periods. It is never routine, never boring, never the same day twice.

I also like learning and keeping up with research. I like being outraged and doing something about it. I like challenging myself. I like being proud of my job and my contribution to the world. I like connecting one on one with people, incredibly diverse people, and learning from others.

[Peppamint]

I'm a student midwife, not all the way there. I considered CNM when deciding about college but it just didn't seem like quite the right time/path. I had a hospital birth and then two wonderful DEM attended homebirths. Now I'm a student DEM and the rest is history.

Originally Posted by kaleidoscopeeyes

And so the journey begins...

Okay, your barista siggie cracked me up! You go girl!

[momileigh]

After my extremely empowering hospital birth with my first dd, I was so in love with the birthing process I wanted to stay involved with the birth community and help other women to experience what I had. I became a doula... and just couldn't do it. I was up against so much. It was too frustrating for me. (I think women who can do doula work are AMAZING.) Plus, I felt that I didn't have the knowledge or experience to make the kind of difference I wanted to make, and I knew it would take me a really long time to get there at the pace I was going. After leaving birth work for a while, I missed it, and it dawned on me that maybe I *could* be a midwife. I guess I never considered it before that because midwives seemed so amazing to me, that thinking I could be one would almost be like thinking I could be a princess or a fairy. But once I accepted that it was a possibility, I pursued it singlemindedly, and I've never looked back.

[kaleidoscopeeyes]

Originally Posted by busybusymomma

Okay, your barista siggie cracked me up! You go girl!

Yeah that originally appeared on Postsecret, but it's so true! Lol, but I swear we only do it to really really rude people