I know that blogging in this style makes me 12 years behind the times. I'm well aware that the Birds (us) are no longer in Alberta. But once in a blue moon the urge to write hits, and this little spot has proved a safe and reliable spot to store my musings.
It's done. Today, on International Day of the Midwife I wrote the Canadian Midwifery Registration Exam, meaning that all official exams are now finished and all that's left is a convocation ceremony. It's exciting and good and a big relief. But none of it feels the way I thought that it would. And on this eve of what feels like completion, I feel the need to lay the pieces to paper/internet before the rhythm of regular life takes over and this thing starts to shrink in the rearview mirror.
These last four years I've always believed that the end would feel like having summited one of the world's larger mountains. Only those who have had to do the work know the sacrifices made. I had believed that the sum of all of those sacrifices would have felt like a victory at the end. And instead, it feels like a swamp that was difficult to wade through and will still be difficult, just with stronger muscles and more skill. I'm good with words. I keep trying to find the right ones to properly memorialize this experience. But I can't. It's been an unholy mess and the words to go along with it aren't any different.
No one could have foreseen what the last few years have brought us. In so many ways I don't recognize the person ending this degree from the person who began. My sphere is smaller, because we didn't have an ounce of capacity to dedicate to anything other than the swamp we were required to tread. My body is bigger, lumpier, and more wrinkled thanks to many sleepless nights and many strings of days where it had to make do with little to no sustenance and with no consistency in when I could throw food at it. My brain feels full and tired, but organized and prepared. And my people who watched and pushed me have changed and been marked by this no less than I have. We are bigger/taller, tighter with each other, and I think a little braver too.
Hard? It's been so hard. The normal hard of the unpredictable nature of on call life, spending strings of nights awake. But hard in ways I couldn't have predicted either. Isolation, both due to COVID and support networks. Knowing that there was no way to readily unload the burden of learning because your partner is already carrying the load of solo parenting, making your "hards" siloed. Honouring the hard each of you must carry to keep the stack of cards standing. Hard because people in power keep them hard. I used to think hard made me stronger. Now I think its often a useless expenditure of energy.
Worth it? I don't know yet. So much hard makes it difficult to say and I'm exhausted. Learning to be a primary care provider in a pandemic while parenting with no community and social supports, and the erasure of your program...I feel depleted. Hopeful for better. Anxious for more stability to come. Grateful for all I've seen and been a part of. Ready for some time to put or pieces back together before they break open again in a new city and new practice.
The first week of on campus learning I left my two year old at home with my husband, exchanging my diaper bag for a backpack and I felt so...uncomfortable. Like an imposter, yearning for the consistency and predictability of our old life. I felt like a mom with a huge and very demanding hobby. It took some time to step into the role of primary care provider. And now that it's over...it feels like a long lasting bad dream. The rhythms of daily life will take over and, for the next few months, I'll belong only to my people with no pager in sight. I'll step fully into the role of mom again, temporarily, before putting a new hat of midwife on again.
Midwives are essential obstetrical care providers who are highly skilled and sought after by pregnant people. The demand in every jurisdiction in Canada outpaces supply. But they are chronically underfunded and are burning out at alarming rates. Patriarchal, capitalist societies have a bad habit of undervaluing women's work. Were I a family physician providing obstetrical care I could move to many non urban locations in Canada and have a large portion of my student loans forgiven. As a midwife with a nearly identical scope of practice as a family physician providing obstetrical care, no such incentives are available to me. At the outset of this I was frustrated that others I knew didn't seem to understand how huge this undertaking, this job was. At the other side, I'm sad that many still don't. There's so much work to be done.
I was putting the kids to bed a few nights ago. Ben is my most sensitive and affectionate kid. As he was climbing into bed he stopped, ran over and gave me a bear hug. I asked what I did to deserve it. He smiled, looked me in the eye and said "one thing: midwife".
It's done. And no one else might ever really understand. But we'll never be the same. We know. The people in the trenches know. And just for tonight, while the world is burning and a war on women has been declared but the summit of this thing has been reached, tonight it's enough.
