Go, read...
I exist in a world where much of what I think about and do as a midwife is shaped by doctors (to whatever extent, wanted and unwanted). Most of the research upon which we base our "evidence-based practice" is shaped by physicians and hospitals. Here in the States we are beholden to them in our campaigns to offer midwifery care regardless of site of birth. Here in Washington there is no state law which says LM's cannot attend women in hospitals. Often it's not even the hospitals, it's the doctors who have effectively vetoed LM's practicing in Washington State hospitals.
If I'm really honest I can admit that I'm intimidated by Docs generally, personally and professionally. Why? Well let's starts with the fact that these folks are generally very smart and enjoy the benefits of belonging to a powerful clique... While I'm good with the smart thing, I've never been a part of the "cool" group. This stuff brings up some very highschool feelings for me occasionally and besides, it's somewhat understandable that stepping into a profession which has struggled in the medical world's shadow for a coupla hundred years that a person might be a bit intimidated, but that's maybe a little beside the point for the moment. In the interim though, and for the record, I know I have to overcome these feelings.
I don't think I've ever personally had a doctor (GP, specialist, even my own OB's, or my kid's pediatrician) who cared for me the way I wanted to be cared for, who understood who I was as a person, or even made an effort to approximate this. Perhaps this seems important to me because that's what I strive for in each and every contact I have with the clients I see in my clinical placements. I recognize what hard work this is, and so I seek it from my own care providers. I also understand that the current system is not set up to provide the care which patients/clients deserve and which provider's often want to give... but that's for another post some other day.
I'm still a baby midwife, but I hope to one day reach a point where I can comfortably work alongside and with mutual love and respect for the obstetricians in my future.
My friend B. is a doctor (not an OB, but still a doctor, and married to a scary smart MD, PhD, Endocrinologist - they are perhaps the most intellectually gifted people I know) . I want to get to a place where I can sit down to dinner with B's husband (who sits on the admissions board for my Alma Mater's medicine program, and also teaches there) and not feel like I should aspire to applying to med school. I want to really feel that being a midwife is enough, rather than simply paying lip service to it. That it is worthy of the respect afforded to the most highly regarded physicians. I'm not yet there, but I'm at least aware of my insecurities. So part of this post is about my own insecurity and part of it is about my friend B.
B. and I met almost 10 years ago. She was an American, living in Australia, married to an Australian. She had just had her first child, and she hired me as her nanny. I was oblivious to her postpartum depression, and cavalierly hijacked her breastfeeding relationship in favor of the bottles of formula which were so much easier for me to warm than the carefully frozen bags of her own precious milk in the freezer. I've since apologized profusely for this, though I think I will always be sorry for this piece of my 20 year old, childless ignorance. My life shortly thereafter shifted and in many ways became the transpacific reverse of hers: I became an Australian living in America, married to an American. I had my own baby, and endured my own postpartum nightmare and breastfeeding loss. B. was one of the very few people in my life who, even at great distance understood my expat. reality. She understood my pagan leanings, and encouraged them gently in her "heart wide open" Quaker way. She sent me the recipe of the Date Nut Bread we used to eat over coffee together n her kitchen and later, she fought tears as she read a prayer at my wedding.
We are very different she and I. She's more than 10 years older than me. Aside from her whip-smart brain, she's startlingly emotionally intelligent and thinks about things in ways much deeper and more richly than I think I do. I think that we share a level of emotion, but while I'm very free with mine (I'm something of an open book - if you hadn't noticed by now), she's much more internal. She's what many would call complex. A bit of a puzzle, but beautiful and loving and perhaps the person in my life blessed (and perhaps, in some ways cursed) with the ability to feel more deeply and more strongly than anyone I have ever met. Her awareness is remarkable. It is no surprise to me that her medical specialty is chronic pain, and the metaphysical line at which emotional and psychological pain is manifest in physiological damage and very physical pain. She digs narrative medicine (which I think may be one of the most revolutionary shifts in modern medicine) and Jungian theory. She is passionately non-violent in the truest Quaker tradition.
B. wrote my recommendation for school and she is my doctor touchstone. She's the one I hold in my thoughts, the Good Witch who I look to, who I imagine in the heart of all the docs, the archetype, in there somewhere. While her specialty is far removed from obstetrics, she's the good I imagine in the medical community on the days when all I see is the 30% cesarean section rate and vast mediolateral episiotomies and the circumcisions.
I aspire to be like her, as a person and a mother and a care provider. She's a big sister of sorts. A soul sister. She's the one doctor I would love to have in my living room when I birth my next baby. Not because she's a doctor though, simply because she's my friend.
She is, among her many talents a gifted poet and author. She has written a novel and has posted the first 8 chapters for reader feedback.
Go and read her story. I hear my friend speaking when I read it.
Womb of the Moon. By Barbara True
If I'm really honest I can admit that I'm intimidated by Docs generally, personally and professionally. Why? Well let's starts with the fact that these folks are generally very smart and enjoy the benefits of belonging to a powerful clique... While I'm good with the smart thing, I've never been a part of the "cool" group. This stuff brings up some very highschool feelings for me occasionally and besides, it's somewhat understandable that stepping into a profession which has struggled in the medical world's shadow for a coupla hundred years that a person might be a bit intimidated, but that's maybe a little beside the point for the moment. In the interim though, and for the record, I know I have to overcome these feelings.
I don't think I've ever personally had a doctor (GP, specialist, even my own OB's, or my kid's pediatrician) who cared for me the way I wanted to be cared for, who understood who I was as a person, or even made an effort to approximate this. Perhaps this seems important to me because that's what I strive for in each and every contact I have with the clients I see in my clinical placements. I recognize what hard work this is, and so I seek it from my own care providers. I also understand that the current system is not set up to provide the care which patients/clients deserve and which provider's often want to give... but that's for another post some other day.
********
I'm still a baby midwife, but I hope to one day reach a point where I can comfortably work alongside and with mutual love and respect for the obstetricians in my future.
My friend B. is a doctor (not an OB, but still a doctor, and married to a scary smart MD, PhD, Endocrinologist - they are perhaps the most intellectually gifted people I know) . I want to get to a place where I can sit down to dinner with B's husband (who sits on the admissions board for my Alma Mater's medicine program, and also teaches there) and not feel like I should aspire to applying to med school. I want to really feel that being a midwife is enough, rather than simply paying lip service to it. That it is worthy of the respect afforded to the most highly regarded physicians. I'm not yet there, but I'm at least aware of my insecurities. So part of this post is about my own insecurity and part of it is about my friend B.
B. and I met almost 10 years ago. She was an American, living in Australia, married to an Australian. She had just had her first child, and she hired me as her nanny. I was oblivious to her postpartum depression, and cavalierly hijacked her breastfeeding relationship in favor of the bottles of formula which were so much easier for me to warm than the carefully frozen bags of her own precious milk in the freezer. I've since apologized profusely for this, though I think I will always be sorry for this piece of my 20 year old, childless ignorance. My life shortly thereafter shifted and in many ways became the transpacific reverse of hers: I became an Australian living in America, married to an American. I had my own baby, and endured my own postpartum nightmare and breastfeeding loss. B. was one of the very few people in my life who, even at great distance understood my expat. reality. She understood my pagan leanings, and encouraged them gently in her "heart wide open" Quaker way. She sent me the recipe of the Date Nut Bread we used to eat over coffee together n her kitchen and later, she fought tears as she read a prayer at my wedding.
We are very different she and I. She's more than 10 years older than me. Aside from her whip-smart brain, she's startlingly emotionally intelligent and thinks about things in ways much deeper and more richly than I think I do. I think that we share a level of emotion, but while I'm very free with mine (I'm something of an open book - if you hadn't noticed by now), she's much more internal. She's what many would call complex. A bit of a puzzle, but beautiful and loving and perhaps the person in my life blessed (and perhaps, in some ways cursed) with the ability to feel more deeply and more strongly than anyone I have ever met. Her awareness is remarkable. It is no surprise to me that her medical specialty is chronic pain, and the metaphysical line at which emotional and psychological pain is manifest in physiological damage and very physical pain. She digs narrative medicine (which I think may be one of the most revolutionary shifts in modern medicine) and Jungian theory. She is passionately non-violent in the truest Quaker tradition.
B. wrote my recommendation for school and she is my doctor touchstone. She's the one I hold in my thoughts, the Good Witch who I look to, who I imagine in the heart of all the docs, the archetype, in there somewhere. While her specialty is far removed from obstetrics, she's the good I imagine in the medical community on the days when all I see is the 30% cesarean section rate and vast mediolateral episiotomies and the circumcisions.
I aspire to be like her, as a person and a mother and a care provider. She's a big sister of sorts. A soul sister. She's the one doctor I would love to have in my living room when I birth my next baby. Not because she's a doctor though, simply because she's my friend.
She is, among her many talents a gifted poet and author. She has written a novel and has posted the first 8 chapters for reader feedback.
Go and read her story. I hear my friend speaking when I read it.
Womb of the Moon. By Barbara True
posted by Louisa at 12:54 PM
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