Forty is just a number!

So the bridge has been crossed over and, if I'm truthful, it wasn't so very painful.

A few weeks ago, I'm embarrassed to say, I was stuck in a dark hole of not wanting to turn forty.  It's not forty per se, or ageing myself that bothers me, it's just that it does seem so final a number for all the good things that happen - getting married, setting up home, starting a family, watching and celebrating friends get married and have children. Forty just seemed to be the age of no more babies, seeing friends divorce (potentially - thanks guys for not doing this, very proud of all of you celebrating hugely high numbers of years wed from 7 right up to 43 as we speak!!), watching illnesses set into parents and older friends (luckily we aren't seeing this either).
Forty seemed to be the age of watching those crow's feet spread and the hips fill chairs. Ridiculous I know as there is still so much of life to celebrate, I suppose I just love life so much. I have loved becoming a wife and developing my role and style, and having my children that I didn't want to cross the bridge so start on the road to watching my own children grow up to have children...just yet...I suppose I didn't want to say my own personal journey in having children is actually over.

 However, now, I will just aim to become a wise, grey haired matriarch holding my family and children's children within my embrace. I will aspire to sit on the stoop in my rocking chair in my future years rocking my future grandbabies to sleep and watching my own children find their ways in the world.

So I have given myself a jolly good slap. Forty is just a halfway point in the good stuff. Forty is the time to watch the harvest of what has been sown before and it isn't an end point of anything, just think of the things that are achieved by the over forty club...and add to that the fact that forty makes you far more comfortable in your own skin, it means you don't particularly worry about what people think over what you wear, you can say what you like (within reason) and get away with it, you can complain about the temperature of a meal or price of a dress without raising too many eyebrows. Forty is the age when you can actually do anything because you're not "too young" or "too old".

So, how did we celebrate? Well, my terribly, wicked, wonderful, scheming, amazing, much loved friends and family were all in it together! Listening patiently to my whining about no one being able to make a date or find the time or cash to commiserate with me. I'm actually quite surprised anyone wanted to attend after all the self pity that reeled out over the past three months. It really was all seeming quite downhill.

However, the man I inflicted myself upon some 14 years ago, and thought I knew inside out, appears to have somewhat of a cunning and scheming side to him. I won't go into huge detail, but will just share some of the wonderful photos of my special day with so many of my special friends and family, some of whom travelled a very long way and others of whom I've not seen for over 10 years due to the travelling we've been doing.

Sis, Bro and my eldest's god mum and one of my oldest pals, Annabel.

Gorgeous Em and her handsome son, and a handsome son of my own in the foreground

Really! THIS lady should be celebrating today, it was thanks to her that I'm here...and Dad of course!

Love these ladies in their shadies xx

The cake! Such a wonderful montage of me and my life. Thank you x

What a wonderful weekend. Forty rocks!

This week is Easter holidays and I've brought the children up to Edinburgh for a
to meet with our friends up here.

We're chilling out, visiting some of the Science festival, drinking ridiculously sickly hot chocolates with marshmallows, doing some shopping...thank you Anthropologie for moving to Edinburgh... dodging the snow, eating Middle Eastern food and catching up with friends...oh and not forgetting a visit to the Bear Factory - of course to purchase an Easter Bunny!

Have a great Easter weekend xx

Spring(ing) chickens!

Can you smell it?
Can you hear it?
Isn't it wonderful?

I am such a mama bear! I hate the winter, I wish that I really could hibernate. I thrive in sunlight and blue skies and colour, not in grey, dull, dark days.

Driving out this morning with LMB, it really hit me that spring is finally coming. It's not just the new life poking through the surface of the earth, it's the whole aura that seems to come along with it, a cleansing feeling, like a new soap or like that new pencil case on the first day back at school in September. It symbolises new beginnings and it feels like everything is fresh.

The mowers start up again on weekends, the smell of cut grass fills the village. The birds begin to sing when we wake in the morning and the light creeps in through the smallest of gaps in the curtains. I feel a need to be outside, outside, outside and hate being cooped up when the weather gets warmer. I need my hands in the soil and my heart in the sky!

Today, however, I've been chasing chickens. My beautiful vegetable garden has been chickened! Which, isn't a bad thing through the autumn and winter months as they have done a wonderful job on the soil, it is so rich and fertile. However, now we're back to wanting to plant things, we are requiring damage control. We bought some electric fencing to put around the area under the apple trees thinking that we could move this around and alternate where they go, thus limiting the amount of devastation they cause.

This plan appeared to work fairly well, albeit I presumed they would follow me this morning as they do every morning, when I rattled the food box and we Pied Piper-ed it over to the 'new' pasture! Ha! Of course, what the foolish pretending farmer forgot to think about is that the minute the greedy buggers got where there was new food to forage they'd not be interested in the pellets and corn anymore...oh no! So, point one to the chickens as it took me a good hour and a half in my pjs to 'round them up' and get them all over the fence and turn it off.

The chickens also scored point two as well as they had me running back and forth from the house to their enclosure over and over as I was concerned that we'd find that one or other of them had barbecued themselves on the wiring. After all, if it's meant to keep a large fox out, what would it do to a small wiry chook?

Point three was won by the sheer fact of cunningness. Fox? Hmmm, hello fox, meet my chickens! After about an hour or so of back and forth ensuring they were still on this mortal coil with me, I took LMB out as we had to run a few errands. I figured they'd be fine now and I wouldn't be long.
They say that dogs and cats know when their owners cars pull up the driveway before even setting eyes on them, well, my chickens, it would seem, are the teenagers of the poultry world and know exactly when my car  LEAVES the driveway. One by one I am sure, lead by the crafty leader of the troupe, they managed - don't ask me how, to escape.








Their wings are clipped on one side and there is no gap in my fence thank you very much, so I figure there must have been some kind of chicken cannonball system going on in my absence!

On my return...well, I don't need to tell you...no chickens in the pen! Four chickens happily foraging under the trees in the garden, but no fifth! No feathers - which was my first reaction - Mr Foxy may have got lucky, but there was no evidence. As I donned my Inspector Clouseau mac and box of corn, I wandered off down the road calling her name and shaking my tackle box! My neighbours hadn't seen her in their garden, but we also live next to an allotment, so I decided she may have gone there to see if there was much in the way of anyone else veggie patches to annihilate! Twenty minutes later and still no sign or sound of her. It was quite a mystery. My girls are not pure breeds, and Molly, bless her, is the scrag end of the hybrid world too, so if anyone was going to pinch one, it wouldn't be her!

Eventually, however, she was found when I had a brainwave that she may have needed to lay and refusing my wonderful adaptation of a basket on its side filled with straw, she had decided to lay under the summer shed!
By now I am caked in dirt from scrubbing around on the floor and ...tut...one egg down today *sigh* cos there is no way I'll get that out from under there! She, on the otherhand, chose to come out when she was good and ready after having a laugh at me and my shaking stick on all fours crawling around in the mud!

The bonus point also has to go to the chickens today due to the fact that I then spent an hour earlier sweeping and digging over the veg patch, tidying it and repairing the damage, figuring that they'd be happy and safe in the new enclosure and I'd get my potatoes planted....they are currently back where they started having a wonderful time digging over this nice, clean and tidy garden! They better lay me some whoppers for breakfast tomorrow grrrrrr!

Still, tomorrow is back to the grindstone, with just over a month until the next set of exams I have to go back to the world of hard study as of tomorrow morning, so I'll leave you all with some Spring photos that I took earlier today. Enjoy x

Watch out for the wheelchair!

There are some days when you wish that the ground will open and swallow you up and today has been one of those days.
At a practice based study day today I was coming out of the maternity area with a friend when we saw a car parked on the chevrons with its owner doing some kind of frenetic river dance on the spot. Another employee also saw this and asked him if he was okay...not that we think that it's normal to do this kind of dance whilst parked where you shouldn't be and looking around you rather wildly, only that this kind of thing never happens around me. I have never been the antenatal teacher whose clients' waters break in class, I've never been on a plane with a woman who goes into labour (I know, this probably is a GOOD thing!) Yes, even when I work in a busy maternity suite, I still miss the drama (I am grateful of this...honestly and know that it will happen and I will probably rue the day I put this in black and white here on this page!).
However, we went over to check he was okay, only to find his wife contracting heavily on the front seat.

As if that wasn't enough for the poor fella, but they sent me to go to retrieve a wheelchair from A & E.

So, two problems with this:

1. I have no idea where A & E stash their chairs and I also have a rather embarassing habit of having a total memory block surrounding the names of things when I'm in a bit of a panic. It doesn't bode well does it? So,  running into the A & E department asking them if they have an 'ambulance', didn't get me much futher than  some very odd looks and about four people kicking into automatic pilot and rushing towards me. They all retreated hurriedly when I corrected myself and I was demoted from sexy doctor service to elderly porter service!

2. I am still donning a learner's license for pushing chairs, although in my defence, have you ever pushed a hospital wheel chair? The break is on the handle so you have to push the handle up and keep it up to keep it moving. Allow the handle some slack and you'll end up in the lap of your patient...head first!
Of course, you may not actually go over the top of the handlebars, you may, in fact hit the receptionist's desk..or a nurse's shins...or just go round in circles whilst dropping all the leaflets that you'd actually been to collect before the drama began in the first place...just saying of course ;-)

Fortunately, the one gift I do possess is that of not actually having eyes in the back of my head (don't tell my kids!) so I had no idea what faces they must have been pulling at me as I left.

I did get back to the poor woman before she had her baby and they did get her into labour ward, however, I did manage to complete my comedy of errors with one more faux pas. As the woman was aided into the seat of the chair, my colleague handed me back my leaflet on contraception that she was about to sit on...oops, I doubt she needed that reading material right now!!

I do suppose there is a reason as to why these things don't tend to happen around me often...

Silversmithing.

I have had a wonderful weekend.
Last July I was lucky enough to be asked to be birth partner for my friend Emma. She was kind enough to treat me to a wonderful present that truly touched my heart. The thought she had put into it means so much.

I have just spent a weekend silver jewellery making and what a brilliant weekend it was too.

We learned how to bend, twist, cut, pierce, punch, anneal, pickle. It's not a cheap hobby as it requres a plethora of tools and obviously, silver itself isn't cheap. However, the results you get are amazing. The freedom to design something that truly suits you and you can afford, is very rewarding.

There were obviously some very experienced silversmiths who attended who had designed pieces of incredibly intricacy and some who had the imagination and creativity of my friend Saskia, who always makes amazing, off the cuff stuff. My stuff was a little tame in comparison, but heck, I love it and I'll wear it and now I've got the bug for silversmithing too - so I'll try to look out for some more courses from time to time so that I get a bit more experience.

But I won't bore you, suffice to say...roll on retirement when I can get a little shed at the bottom of the garden and set up there.

I also made a ring and two pairs of earrings.

Note: The pictures are temporary until I get time tomorrow evening to re do them with my camera rather than my phone!

Slow Sunday

I've been going at it rather hell for leather since September and today I feel the need for a bit of a go slow. A day to connect with my children, to catch up with blog land, to catch up with some 'proper' housework ie. to bleach the floors rather than just give them a quick sweep and to take photos and cook - all the things that make me feel calm.
I've submitted my essay, the lit review is underway and my shifts are sorted for the next few weeks.

Whenever I feel that life is flying past me somewhat I actually visit some of my favourite blogs to make sure I slow down. Sometimes they don't use many words, it's just pictures, but it is like my private 'little book of calm'.

This is one of my favourites: Beauty that Moves Her home is always emitting peacefulness. I'm sure she'd tell you that at times it is as chaotic as mine, but she does inspire me to find solace in the corners of my own home and life.
Amanda teaches me practical things. I had lots of her books when the children were younger and loved her simplicity and rhythm in her life. She also has a beautiful home that radiates love and grace. Maybe there is a common theme  her in 'other people's homes' rather than 'finding peace' ;-)

So today I have cleaned (which isn't calming, but needed to be done) and now I can watch the rays of the late winter sun dancing on clean windowsills rather than getting stressed by the amount of dust I can see!

My lovely hubby helped me to fix my new 'dresser' corner yesterday evening, so I can look at all my old and shabby things that tickle me. I think I need to find a long kilim style runner for the top of the unit at some point just to give it the final touch!

I am now sitting with music in the background, a bowl of these yummy kale chips and a coffee, life is sweet!

until the treadmill starts again tomorrow morning at 7am! How are you spending your Sunday?

Parents of the 21st century unite!

An interesting conversation came up with my eldest the other day whilst we were driving. He wanted to know what my favourite car was that we'd had.
I'm always conscious with conversations like this that make me question my motives and behaviour and I'm grateful for his asking because it does make me reflect on our choices.

Being a family of six (that includes our au pair) and then two dogs, we are unable to get away with a 'small' car. A small car would mean we would need to take two everywhere,  one decent sized car means we all fit, we can put a roof box on the top and thus, hopefully reducing our emissions. However, a large car, means less miles to the gallon, more resistance and then I find myself being fussy too. Our 'perfect' car was the Ford explorer that we had in the US. It dealt with snow, dogs, children, clutter, shopping (that stayed upright in the boot) and my most favourite 'gadget' was the dual opening for the boot, which meant that after shopping or out with the dogs, we can 'lift the lid' and the lower section remains shut ensuring the dogs' safety and keeping my shopping from flying all over the driveway (which happens now!) I am so easily pleased in odd little ways ;-)

However, the Ford explorer is a 4 x 4 and did about 1/2 mile to the gallon *sigh*.
So, next year our car is up for a renewal on its lease, bear in mind that I travel sometimes up to 400 miles a week that simply cannot be done on public transport, carry a plethora of my kids and other people's children, barnyard paraphenalia and animals. I'd like something green but that I can count on to get me around country roads with all this in tow. Any ideas?

Staying on this green theme we have also had our current energy tariff come to the end of its fixed deal, so we are on the hunt for a new energy supplier. Bear in mind we do have the solar panels and we use wood burners as much as we can. Our heating is oil and we don't have piped gas, we are on the lookout for someone here too.

I do try to reduce our footprint as much as I possibly can, we don't own a tumble dryer, instead my kitchen becomes a chinese laundry at weekends and the wood burner, whilst heating the kitchen, also drys the clothes, we use cloth bags for as much shopping as possible - I also use a local veg box service to deliver locally farmed (relatively) seasonal fruit and veg. We use washable cleaning cloths for the kitchen and cleaning the bathrooms. The children's lunchboxes, which have always been a real bone of contention with me due to the wicked amounts of packaging that we are convinced we need: Is there really a need to buy a box of crackers or muffins that are all individually wrapped as they are sold as 'lunchbox'. We use stainless steel canteens, bento box style lunchboxes and reusable wrappers for sandwiches.

I actually enjoy challenging myself to think about how to reuse things or recycle, however, as the children get older and my hand knits take way too long for me to knit up or they won't wear what I sew for them, it is proving more challenging.

There was a time when they'd happily play with wooden blocks and beautifully carved sustainable wooden toys, they'd wear what I made them and sit in their cloth nappies making me feel very smug and happy with my ability to reduce. Then they started to grow, not only in size but in mind and opinion too! Barbie began to knock her disgustingly manicured plastic hand on my door and leave her bunion inducing five inch 1cm stilletos all over my floors. They wanted comics that came with plastic tat, then there was the DS...no, the DSi...no, the DS3d (I've not given in to that one!). The eldest needs a laptop for his school work, the middle one needs a new IPod, because despite me trying to get one second hand and  reuse...it died! The girl, oh, the girl, she needs plastic fantastic in every possible direction: hair clips, dolls, then there is the desire to put glitter on her face and nail polish on her nails.

I'm not going to deny everything, they have to live in the 21st century and know what is going on around them and we live in the age of technology where my 9 year old is more computer savvy than me and he does my power point presentations for me! BUT, there is still a desire to not keep buying new and give into commercial pressures.

I do feel sad for today's youngsters. They may be clear and happy in their own minds, but they are continually told by advertising that they are not. They saved up their money to buy a DSi, but within a week or two, they don't 'really want that', what they 'really want' is the 3D version! What message is this sending to our kids? It's not just about the materialistic, it's about telling our children that they don't know their own minds. It's not just telling our children that they won't be happy until they have the next of something, it's telling our children that they must rely on someone else to tell them when they are happy.
I feel it more now as my eldest is at secondary school. He's not content to muck about in the trees in our garden or play with his lego as much these days - although he will still spend several hours a week. He is being carried along on the tide of gadgets and sometimes really struggles to reason with his dad and my feelings towards some of it. He fails to see the problem in an iPhone for example when he has a great camera, a video camera,  a touch screen phone and an iPod. All on one iPhone means all lost in one go too....

I'm sure I was probably just as bad as a teenager, but I'm not sure I got quite so excited over Pong on our old Atari, but I bet I made as much of a fuss and my mother had palpitations when the walkmans came out rather than good old vinyl!! They'd 'ruin' our ears and turn us into delinquents!!

Ah well, I guess if he becomes too much of a delinquent I can always find a way to recycle him!!

Before I kid you all into thinking that the life of a midwife is all cutsie babies and wonderful births, there is a flip side to this coin. Sometimes births don't go as well as you want them to and sometimes there is nothing you can do to prevent this. It is hard to remember that although we are there to help women and we want to help women, we cannot control nature and nature has a cruel streak. Think about it: tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, these are all examples of times where nature reminds us that it has the upper hand.

Sometimes as a midwife you are put between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand you have the mama's wishes in the back of your mind and want to help her achieve these, on the other, you have reality and the knowledge of how quickly things can change and put both mama and baby at risk and you don't want to even cross remotely into this territory. Whatever you do, you are accountable for your actions, which makes you answerable to everyone.

As a first year student, you just observe it all unfold. There is nothing much you can do, other than observe and write things down as they occur. When it is all over, you reflect, you don't sleep, you eat crap, you spend your life picking your eye bags up from your chin, you don't wear make up, your hair is scraped back, you're vomited on, pooped on, shouted at, carry tea and toast, don't sit down, don't wee, you read up on what happened, what it all means and what the risks are and what you can watch out for in the future.

Learning points are spewing forth, essays are being written, literature reviews organised, meals cooked, sleep lost and I even forgot to take my son to his school bus on Thursday morning, missing it for him and his school friend, meaning that her mother ended up having to drive them all the way. For a whole six hours, I did wonder whether I would be better off working in a bookshop! No real responsibilities that involved life threatening decisions, no work to bring home, surrounded by lots of lovely books....Just for a while, I wondered; did I really want this responsibility? Wouldn't I be better just being a proper mum to the children, cooking them proper food rather than relying on tins of baked beans a few times more than I'd like to, giving them more of my attention rather than saying 'please go away because I need to study', taking my dog for long walks in the day rather than thinking all the while I'm walking - 'I shouldn't be here, this is wasting my day'.

But, you know what, then there was a PPH on my next shift. I wrote the notes, I made cups of tea for the dad and helped him dress his new baby as his wife was taken to theatre. I helped a few more babies into the world and watched the looks on the faces of the mothers, adoration, exhaustion, fear and elation and you know what...

For three years, the world will survive on baked beans!

The first catch is the sweetest

The birth:

At 00.01 one morning in January, the world welcomed another baby. He was born in water, into the waiting arms of his mother and the guiding hands of his midwife. He birthed himself whilst his mother laboured into the night. He was not delivered, he was not even caught really, he was just guided, shown the way to his mama.

They worked through her pain and helped her with her fear. They reassured her that she was strong and that she could do it, but they were there for her all the while. The husband never left her side and the midwife was just quietly present.

She eventually found that part of her inner self that realised she needed to get on and birth her son rather than fight against the waves of contractions. She knew that her husband was holding her hand and that the midwife was there, in the corner, watching and observing as she had learned to do.
The midwife would listen to the baby and reassure her that all was well. They would together rub her back and pour warm water from the pool over her shoulders. As the night moved on and people slept below, somewhere, in the quiet, in radiant beauty, a mother birthed her first born child.

As her son slipped from his warm home for the last nine months, she let out a gasp and the tears fell. "My son...My Thomas!" she called out his name and looked up at his husband with wonder and anticipation in her eyes. "Thomas? Right?" she questioned.
I don't think her husband would have denied her calling him anything at that point.
The midwife, however, smiled as her own firstborn son was Thomas too.
The mother then went on to birth her placenta without interruption or need for any intervention.
Whole, intact and undisturbed.


The midwife's tale

It is such an honourable job to be present at a birth, but more so when you are the carer of that woman throughout her labour and see her to the end. When your hands are poised to help the baby come to meet its parents and you are the first to touch that new life - what humility, what a small part we really play!

Any birth is special, but a birth where it is your very first 'catch' is ultra special. The feelings of pride and ecstasy when a wet, pink screaming baby is put onto his mothers chest is second to none and it brings tears to my eyes as I write.

I have been very lucky so far with the births I have been present at. 2 homebirths already, 2 water births already and another normal birth. Writing my current essay about ways to help a woman have a normal, physiological birth, always brings to the forefront of my mind the environment within which many students see birth. The fact that whilst I was doula-ing in the USA, 85% of the births I witnessed were on beds, had epidurals or intervention or were in lithotomy. It is quite easy to resign yourself to the feeling that "yes, you know that birth is a normal, physiological event, but we are products of our environment so therefore..." but, stop, NO!

Birth IS a normal, physiological event and we make ourselves products of our environment by not bathing ourselves in normality or stories of normality. A story about a lots of blood loss, or about a 'touch and go' scenario is draws the listener in far more, than one that just tells a normal tale of a normal birth in normal circumstances. Horror movies or tales that tell of fear, near death experiences and edge-of-your-seat excitement pump more adrenaline than a straighforward biographical documentary. It's car-crash society viewing!

If you create just a shadow of doubt  in your mind, then you lose faith in what will be.  Ina May once told me that in order for birth to become more normal again, in order for women not to fear birth, we need to tell these stories and let others know how it 'can' be if we just wait, watch and observe. These are the stories that needed to be shouted about. How it can be if we give the woman time, bathe her in love and make her feel secure.

So, this is Thomas' story and this is the mother's story and this is the midwife's story of the day she caught her first baby and this is the midwife, shouting!

Finding time

I shouldn't be here!

No, really! Read that as I really should. not. be. here.

I have an exam tomorrow and really should be revising, but...sometimes things go in more if they are soaked into an open soul rather than force fed, so, that is my philosophy right now. I am finding time to just soak in some of the things that I am loving right now in my home, some of the corners and objects that make me smile. Then I will go back to the uterus and the pelvis refreshed - promise - just let me spill my brain here first because in order to remain me, I need to remember I love to take photos and I love to write too -non-midwifery stuff is fun as well!

Three of my five girlies. They are all free ranging now and look so much better for it, alas, the garden doesn't so much, however, I think that we can organise it so that they can range all year and we can build up the sides of the raised beds and cover them.
The photo of Mrs Miggins is not exactly world class, but I just love how it shows her really curious expression. She always comes rushing to greet me, cocks her head to one side as if she's giving me a real once over! Now I need to teach them that they stay outside and the utility room is NOT their domain!






For Christmas my mum sewed this gorgeous little diary cover for LMB. I was so unbelievably in awe of it, I had to find one of my own. You have to love Folksy. Just look at this beautiful crotched version of the same. It covers my midwifery reflective diary. Now LMB and I can both write in our beautiful diaries.

I also found these beauties on  Folksy the other day too. Now I can enjoy my coffee upstairs in my leather armchair, sitting looking out at my girls in the garden in a beautiful pottery mug. I have a thing at the moment for stoneware.






Finally, in my lovely kitchen there is a huge vat of chestnut and celery soup simmering on the stove for dinner this evening, with fresh bread. Life is sweet - well, it will be at 4pm tomorrow!

*Louise

Nearly twelve years ago I was frightened and scared. There were lots of people, lots of noise and lots of lights.
On my left side was my equally frightened husband, and on my right was a young woman who I have never forgotten.
I will call her *Louise*.
Louise made me feel safe and reassured me that things were okay when I didn't know any better.
Louise held my hand, mopped my brow and cleared up my vomit.
Louise told me things would be okay when I thought it was the end of the world.
Louise smiled and laughed when I was happy on my epidural (finally) and got help for me over and over again, whilst I had my asthma attack and before it really was okay on the epidural and it finally worked.
Louise answered my banal, neurotic and quite simply repetitive questions with calmness and demure.
Louise stayed over her shift, above and beyond the call of duty when our son eventually made his way into the world some 15 hours after our entering that room.
I never forgot Louise.

In fact, two years later after giving birth to my second child, I was at home and the midwife came to visit. It was a part time midwife who had recently qualified and had since had a baby.
It was Louise!
Her baby was Rachel (no, that really WAS her name!!)
We cried again!

Yesterday I tried to be Louise for someone else.
I had the great honour of attending a new mama's birth, my third as a student (probably around my 33rd as me!)
She needed reassurance - that was all.
She needed to know she was safe and could do this.
The biggest thing I could do for her was tell her she was strong, she was amazing, she was powerful and she was birthing her baby beautifully.
Lucky for her, there was no epidural, instead a peaceful, calm, amazing waterbirth.
I stayed...a little longer ;-) I sat with her afterwards and chatted, showed her how to dress her new son, reassured her it was totally normal to fumble and feel nervous picking him up. I helped her feed him and brought her tea and toast. I told her she was an amazing mother who had done so much already for her son.

Sometimes, it's hard as a midwife, you feel you need to 'do' so much.
The text books say x, y and z, much like the parenting text books that both myself and my new mama yesterday were and will be drowning in, the manuals that tell you how to birth, how to parent, how to feed your baby.
Sometimes, all you really need to do for that woman, in fact, often, all you really need to do, is just 'be'. Just be with woman, not 'do-for' woman.

That is the true power of a midwife and that is the midwife that the mother will remember, despite the chaos, the drugs, the lights, the doctors with their tools, and the fear...oh yes, the fear!

It will be the midwife who was calm, who held her hand and mopped her brow and told her she was amazing!

I hope I was as good for her as Louise was for me.

2012

Happy New Year.

I do hope you've all had a lovely festive season.

We have had a lovely time, receiving plentiful gifts from the big red fella;
















Catching up with friends and family;

and godparents ;-)

and besties!

So now we move into 2012 with somewhat of a windy start, and it's time to begin looking to what's in store ahead again.

This year is my 'big' birthday and inspired and encouraged by some girl (and boy - thanks Chris!) friends, I've taken my friend Julie's idea to do a 'Fortieth year and Forty things' list. The only rule is that the list has to be achievable, so isn't meant to be full of expensive things or crazy ideas...those can go on the bucket list ;-)

1.

I am going to cycle 10 miles per week for 40/52 weeks

2.

Learn an appropriate poem and recite it - open to suggestions as long as it's not in a Pam Ayres accent!

3.

Raise 440 pounds for charity

5.

Sing...outloud...in front of people...preferably a musical! but NOT Gilbert and Sullivan - I will not be a little maid from school ever again

6.

Learn to make a Baked Alaska

7.

Make a successful Cheese souffle

8.

Go to a gig

9.

pull a cracker (yeah, don't go there!)

10.

go to a fireworks display and stay for the fireworks (I wouldn't go there either!)

11.

learn to row properly

12.

ride a camel

13.

smoke a shisha (that was Chris' idea!)

14.

drink tea in a Berber village

15.

bellydance (might have to leave that until after I've lost the half of 40lbs ;-) 

16.

walk amongst the wolves

17.

make myself a piece of silver jewellery

18.

grow a veg or fruit I've not grown before

19.

pass my first year exams

20.

I really ought to put 'catch 40 babies' but sadly that'll take me 3 years, so I think 10 is quite a good compromise!

21.

say 'yes' more to my kids

22.

say 'no' more to adults!

23.

use hubby's telescope to find three constellations and learn about them (if there's any space after the pelvis, uterus, heart and fetal circulation!)

24.

go to a festival

25.

Do one selfless thing per week

26.

Pay someone a compliment, every day!

27.

give my kids at least three hugs everyday

28.

learn to do more tricks with my hoop

29.

make time for yoga

30.

take one photo on the 25th of every month to record the year in photos

31.

learn to make wine using foraged food

32.

squish grapes with my feet

33.

have Em's t-shirt for meeeeeeeee!

34.

learn to make four things with origami

35.

Lose 1/2 of 40lbs by this time next year

36.

speak to my friends at least once a month on the phone!

37.

Donate blood

38. 

Keep a personal, fortieth year journal (inspired by Em - thank you!) in a beautiful journal book

So, as you can see I'm two short right now and with the revision for my exam, seem to be rather lacking in the imagination department. I'm hoping I'll be inspired over the next couple of weeks to add the remaining couple and keep you updated with how I get on.

Christmas

What does Christmas mean to you?

Today I needed to 'pop' to the shops for a couple of last minute bits (disorganised this year with all the exam stress!) and it was frightful. Every single space in car park was taken! People had their carts piled to the roof.
It was actually quite scary how much people had.
The woman in front of me was buying, amongst the more Christmassy things, perishables and delicacies; lard, self raising flour, juice, polishes, a frying pan. She, quite literally, was shopping for the end of the world, and she had many, many allies.
But why?
The shops in the UK shut for one day and one day only.
Why do you need polish two days before Christmas, are you planning on doing extra cleaning or really have you suddenly run out today? Bizarre.

This is Christmas to me:

Making mince pies

Lighting the fire and bunking down reading stories and playing games


The tree and pretty twinkling lights

Christmas is a time for being together with friends and families and quite honestly I don't think they'll really care if you have a little dust...well, mine better not or they know where I keep the polish.

Have a lovely Christmas x

A story of a cake.

Once upon a time in a cottage in a village somewhere on the edge of the Cotswolds, there lived a mama bear and her three little cubs. Every day, the mama bear would make porridge for her cubs, she would bake bread and hang the washing on the line. Whilst the washing swayed in the breeze she would gently rock her self back and forth, back and forth in her rocking chair by the fire whilst she lovingly knitted one of her cubs a new jumper for the coming winter.

Okay, so this is where the record scratches.

So, let me tell you a TRUE story about a harassed ex mama bear who decided that the time had come for her to embark on a three year midwifery degree course...whilst attempting to stay afloat with her cubs (who were at times acting more like wolf cubs than cute cuddly bears), put a meal on the table each day that contained a microgram of veg and didn't come out of a can, ensure the cubs were suitably dressed for the winter in clothes that were patched together (on occasions with sellotape - temporarily mind you!) and the porridge lingered in the pot so long that it was used for the youngest cub's model sculpture for homework - late of course!

One fine long day, she returned home from work to discover a request demand from the cubs' school for a cake for a bake sale, not 24 hours later. The mother bear smiled growled and put the cake plate aside vowing to bake the following afternoon. Of course, as in all good fairy tales, the story doesn't always go according to plan and, the mother bear, being a student midwife and dutiful at that a freakin' eager beaver, attended a homebirth with her mentor that following afternoon, returning to the den, sleepy and tired at 10pm that night.
On being greeted by the feckin' plate, she realised that she didn't have time to go out and buy one, taking the wrapping off and claiming a hand made job make one that night, so she decided she would get up the next morning as she had been rather uncharacteristically growly with her offspring, and bake a cake.

The following morning she arose at dawn and set to work. An hour later she had a perfect cake sitting on the counter top waiting for icing. A carrot cake with lemon icing - quite a work of art ;-) However, she had had to ice it later in the day due to it still being warm, so took it to the school at lunchtime.

The rest of this bit is mindnumbingly boring, so I'll skip a few chapters, your toddler doesn't know this story so won't work out that I missed out the middle to save time, thus repeating it to you word for word.

The mother bear went up to the school at the end of the day and bought some cupcakes from the bake sale so that she could contribute to the lives of her children, feel less guilty.

The next day her middle bear called her up on the phone to tell her that there had been some cakes leftover from the previous day and he had decided to buy one for us all to share for dinner that evening.
He excitedly explained that he had bought one with lemon icing as lemon icing is his very favourite type of icing.
He then explained that this cake was a carrot cake with lemon icing and he was very much looking forward to having some for tea.

I think it is fair to say at this point that the mother bear would have liked to have said something rather indiscreet containing many "bleeps" and not quite for the ears of a little cake loving bear. Instead she realised that if you decide to continue to be a mother bear when studying to become a midwife, the egg will indeed end up on your face!

Chasing placentas!

Popping in to say hi.

This week I feel rather like Pippin does when she chases her tail. The adventure and excitement is addictive, but the lack of achievement overwhelms.

(This is NOT Pippin btw, but did make me laugh!)

It has been the last week of our month long induction this week, next week we're out in the community!
We've had mandatory trust inductions, lectures, practical days etc.
It's been fun, but exhausting, overwhelming, amazing, incredible, exciting, terrifying, boring and wonderful all at once and right now my brain is ready to burst open at the seams.

I've got nearly a whole bloody notebook full of scribbles already so am trying to make some semblance of order this weekend - Oh, the sky is full of pigs tonights!
I've ordered several really great books and have a pile of library ones with a gazillion little post its poking out the sides telling me that when I go to that page I will forget what it is I put the post it note in there for in the first place *sigh*.


I also have to remember that people don't have the same fascination over placentas as I do and that, as I've seen quite a few with my doula work, some of the poor girls were just overcoming  their initial gut reactions this week. I don't think they appreciated me diving in, rubbing my hands all over the placenta and saying rather loudly "Oh my god, it's beautiful, look at the blood on it, it'd make a lovely print". I think I may have blotted my copy book (particularly with the poor 18 year olds fresh from school) and I'm now marked as a social nutter!
I also have to make a note to myself that tea time is not the best time to relate the story to my family or continue talking about the one that had some missing lobes and felt grainy.
It's NOT normal !
Still, best I get this out of the way now, rather than gush over some poor new mum's placenta in a few weeks time.

Tonight I'm having a night off from opening a text book. Mr Beehive and myself are taking ourselves to our local as it's the "cheese club" night. Mr Beehive is always wanting to share his smoked cheese with anyone that is stupid enough to listen (tasting is fine - it tastes lovely, it's just the blow by blow account of his smoker and the method that is enough to cause you to go mouldy not least the cheese!)

And so it begins...

I have been chastised, for being slack. However, once you know where I've been, you'll be a little more gentle with me.
I've been at uni!
Two weeks ago I started my journey as a student midwife.
It's been a tumble of emotions to get to this point.
Will we have childcare, or won't we?
Will the children fare okay without me or will I be consumed by guilt?
Will the academic work steam ahead of me or will I keep up?
Will I cope with the many hats I wear as NHS employee, NCT teacher and doula?

The list is endless and ever changing too, however, as one of my lecturers said, we need to take one day at a time.
I have the first four weeks sorted, then I'll work on the next.

I'm still a few weeks away from going out into the community and have to do all the basic training first, so these few weeks are a bit of a headrush of necessary nursing and other requirements and not so much midwifery, but before I know it, it'll be time to be out there...

We are keeping reflective diaries in order to help ourselves as practitioners, the NCT has prepared me well for this little gem ;-)
I can see that the diary will become more related to cases and my individual days than a wider picture, so I hope to keep this blog for that purpose and there will not be any inference to anyone or any case I may run up against.
What I hope to do with this blog is use it for a way to find some kind of restorative calm and peace. A way of reminding myself about the other things in my life and the world.

The next three years are going to change me (or so I've been told). However, I don't want to change too much, or at least, I'd rather mould for the good of midwifery than become hardened or brittle. I may need to remind myself from time to time who I am or why I'm doing this or how to do this with a smile or a peaceful heart. I may need a place to seek solitude that reminds me that there is a wider reason to this, that by doing the small things, I will, slowly help to change bigger things.

So, I'm going to leave you today with a picture of my new sanctuary...the bathroom, it's finally finished!
and a quote from Gandhi that will, hopefully, ensure I remember why.

" A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history"

Je Retourne!

Only one more week until school starts back. It's incredible how fast time has gone.

So much has happened since I last wrote, so, firstly "hello, I hope you all had a good summer and that you didn't receive too much rain. I hope my friends on the East coast of the US are relatively unscathed after their run in with Hurricane Irene."

So what has been happening here in the Beehive. Well, the girls have arrived, which has been big news.

Friday we became the proud owners of six hybrids:

Bluebelle - the...er...Bluebelle. She is already the dominant chook and bosses the others around.

Diamond (the coral) and Ginger (the Goldie) hiding under the house. Her sister, Molly is hiding in the house!

Mrs Miggins (hmmm, too much Blackadder! the copper black)

Speckled Jim - the Speckled, not male, too much Baldrick, hen.

And then  less than 24 hours later, they gave us these! So, so far, they are paying for their keep!

We also had a week in France after my delicious friend, Em, finally had her even more delicious (sorry!) baby:

Delicious Baby!
















So France, that was great! We spent a week in the Dordogne and had a lovely time, bar the weather, the borrowed teen and the broken car window!

We visited Grottes and Chateaux, drank copious amounts of red wine and ate cheese with everything and played far too many games of scrabble, but it was a great week to reconnect and not feel part of the world. In fact, we pushed our heads so far into the sand we didn't even hear about the riots in the UK until I caught sight of the headlines on our penultimate day.

Now we are back to reality, the reality of still not having a bathroom completed, still not having a shower that works upstairs, still having many, so many weeds in the wild garden that the garden is less wild than dead, back to the reality that in less than eight days my eldest will be a secondary school child, that in less than 15 I will be a student midwife. Life is a changing...fun times ahead!