My Path to Midwifery

Hey friends, welcome back to the blog! With this being my first solo post on the blog, I thought I’d share the beginning- how I got into midwifery. It’s not a super crazy story but that just goes to show that midwifery is for normal people, living somewhat regular lives, in a regular town in the good old, regular world. 🙂 Midwifery changed me and my perspective on the world, though and that’s just one of the beautiful things about it!

I have always been interested in working in the medical field, but I was raised, and live, in a fairly holistic environment that doesn’t have much desire or need for Western medicine. I was drawn to midwifery because as a midwife, I would have the ability to be a competent care provider while doing so in a natural way (to a certain point, anyway). I am thankful for modern medicine when it comes to emergencies, but I see pregnancy and birth- in a healthy, low-risk mother- as natural processes of life that do not require medical intervention (in most cases). 

When I was 16, I was interested in the world of midwifery and that interest grew when my mom was expecting my baby sister around the same time. At the time, I was only thinking about it as a profession and didn’t really have a ‘why’ behind my interest. When one of my mom’s midwives asked me why I wanted to be a midwife, I struggled to find the words: “I just want to help moms and babies and help them feel better.” Oh, I had no idea what to say and I was so embarrassed with that answer! My interest faded away for a while and I thought about approximately 1 million other professions and jobs that I might want to go to college for. The problem was that I didn’t feel a strong urge to go to college when I reached the end of my senior year of high school. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t just go and figure it out from there, maybe changing majors a few times, but at least getting somewhere. However, I didn’t go because I felt like college wasn’t ‘it’ for me at the time and that I was going to find my passion outside of college. So, I decided to take a year off to save for whatever was coming next. I worked hard and kept seeking out what I wanted to do with my life. In the fall of that gap year, I decided to look into the idea of midwifery again. After a few months, I ultimately found a midwifery school that I liked. I was drawn to their aesthetic, the type of training they provided… and the fact that it was an in-person school in Hawai’i! I applied to the school as soon as applications were open and a few days later, I was accepted. I worked up until I left in order to afford school and living for 6 months.

About 7 months after being accepted, I took a one-way flight to Hawai’i, 2 weeks before orientation and the beginning of my classes. I was so excited to start school, but I still didn’t have a reason, a ‘why’, for my interest in midwifery yet. During school, I was unsure if I wanted to continue in midwifery after the fact because of my lack of reason behind the decision. My frustration and disappointment with not having a solid reason behind wanting to be a midwife was partly because I wanted to know that what I was planning on doing with my life was going to serve others (I already knew that I wanted to use my profession as a humanitarian aid worker). How could I not have a motive for becoming a midwife? Ultimately, this question was answered during school, in one of the last classes of the quarter. I now know that I want to be a midwife because I want to be able to serve women in developing countries, where they have little to no health care, let alone maternal-child health care. I want to assist them and hopefully be a part of decreasing the devastating number of women and babies that die daily (which is over 800/day for women and 27.3 per 1,000 for infants, globally) from birth-related issues. Worldwide, an increase in midwives equals a decrease in these numbers. I now know that my why is them. They deserve care and they deserve to live- this should be seen as a basic human right. 

Though I may still have doubts and hard days, I know that there is a reason behind my pursuing this certification. I also know that every student reading this has (or will) experience a time during school and apprenticeship where they question their reason behind being in midwifery, or where they just feel tired and don’t want to continue. It is totally normal, friends- every student midwife that I have known has had at least one moment where they questioned everything that they were doing. That’s why I believe that midwifery has to be more than a profession, you have to have a passion for it, or the women you serve, in order to persevere. So, my friends, you are unique, capable people because it takes crazy passion to pursue this profession (wow… lots of P words here haha). 

This doesn’t mean that midwifery has to be my, or your, ultimate life’s work or that we have to prioritize it over our personal lives, which was a hesitation of mine because that was the way that midwifery seemed to be portrayed to me. Midwifery doesn’t have to become our personality or be the only thing we ever think about, but it is a service more than it is a profession. It takes more of you than the typical job does. You have to be able to be on call, go without sleep for longer periods of time, and keep your mind strong.

Finally, as we say here at ISMC all the time- We are passionate about creating positive environments for students and midwives in order for them to be able to be and practice sustainably and healthily.

 By the end of my life, I hope to see drastic improvements in these numbers and can’t wait to be a part of the change that we so desire to see for these women and children both here in America and around the world.