Last Sunday I went to the Portland Harbor Light (a lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth) and walked around in the beautiful rainy cold for an hour. Dinner was sausage stew and quinoa, followed by a few hours' of A&P homework (genetics).
After class on Monday, I went for a walk with K and B in the snow, and we stood looking out over Highland Lake, which is starting to freeze over.
Last Wednesday, I went to the Bridgton Town Office to register my car and get license plates. Finally - I have wheels! I went for a little joy-ride in the Subaru, then came home and made myself an omelette with spinach salad. I should've been studying for my Normal Labour and Birth test, but I did that early on Thursday morning (before class) instead.
On Friday, we had another Labour & Birth class (two in a row...) - our official Placenta Day. :) Fellow student midwives will understand precisely why Placenta Day might be so incredibly exciting. We walked into the classroom and were greeted with a dozen placentas of various shapes and sizes, all laid out on the tables atop blue chux pads for our gleeful fascination. We inspected them, touched them (learning how grainy calcifications and nubbly infarcts feel under our fingers), smelled them (ah, the earthy smell of birth...), stretched them open (to inspect membranes), palpated them (checking if any cotyledons were missing, or for any areas of accreta, etc), and generally fussed over them in the way that midwives do. Placentas are important. Without them, none of us would be here... and they give midwives lots of interesting clinical information too. :)
After the placenta festival, we watched a Belgian waterbirth video. After lunch, I started out on Route 302, headed for Portland, where dinner and a movie awaited me. On Sunday, I spent the day in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which boasts an amazing diner called The Friendly Toast. Its psychedelic, cluttered, retro decor compliments its quirky (and plentiful) menu options. I spent a good twenty minutes scanning the menu before deciding on scrambled eggs with goat cheese, asparagus and caramelised onions, with cornmeal-molasses toast and hash browns. I guess I'm just a sucker for good eggs...
Monday, December 8, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
midwife mobile
I cuddled with my friend H last Tuesday over tea and the DVD of What Babies Want, which I've had for ages and watched several times, but which she'd never seen. She also showed me the new naturopathic practice she's just set up on the east end of Portland (now that she is finally getting her licence to practise as an N.D. in the state of Maine), which is situated in a natural medicine clinic that also has an acupuncturist, massage therapist and (I think) yoga instructor working there. H's office is beautiful and is imbued with wonderful healing energy. It smells of wood and fleshy houseplants, and her bookshelves are crammed with familiar titles on subjects like herbal medicine, obstetrics, paediatrics, home birth, gynaecology and breastfeeding. She's going to have great success as a practitioner... I can feel it.
The next day, Wednesday, I found my car. A green Subaru Forester with manual transmission (joy!) and in excellent shape, sold by a young (cute) and very upstanding mechanic who seemed to know the car inside-and-out, not the way a salesman might pretend to know it, but the way someone-who-loves-Subarus-and-is-regularly-to-be-found-greased-up-underneath-one would know it. I trusted him right away... so I hope time proves my intuition correct. (And no, it's not because he's handsome in a ruffled-up, stubbly-jawed kind of way that makes him so eminently trustworthy... okay?)
Thursday was Thanksgiving day, which I spent in Hope, Maine, with loving people all around me and a plateful (or two) of delicious traditional food in front of me. It was a treat to be included in this special American holiday celebration.
On Friday, I got a bank cheque to pay for my Subaru. After heading to Westbrook to pick it up, I drove through my first snowfall ever in Maine, in the first car I've ever bought in Maine. I was mesmerised as snowflakes glided toward my windshield like the Windows "Starfield" screensaver, one after the other. It was so beautiful I almost forgot to look at the road. Almost.
The next day, Wednesday, I found my car. A green Subaru Forester with manual transmission (joy!) and in excellent shape, sold by a young (cute) and very upstanding mechanic who seemed to know the car inside-and-out, not the way a salesman might pretend to know it, but the way someone-who-loves-Subarus-and-is-regularly-to-be-found-greased-up-underneath-one would know it. I trusted him right away... so I hope time proves my intuition correct. (And no, it's not because he's handsome in a ruffled-up, stubbly-jawed kind of way that makes him so eminently trustworthy... okay?)
Thursday was Thanksgiving day, which I spent in Hope, Maine, with loving people all around me and a plateful (or two) of delicious traditional food in front of me. It was a treat to be included in this special American holiday celebration.
On Friday, I got a bank cheque to pay for my Subaru. After heading to Westbrook to pick it up, I drove through my first snowfall ever in Maine, in the first car I've ever bought in Maine. I was mesmerised as snowflakes glided toward my windshield like the Windows "Starfield" screensaver, one after the other. It was so beautiful I almost forgot to look at the road. Almost.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
practise, practise...
Having a Thoroughly Weekend kind of Saturday today, which has involved (so far) eating brunch at Marcy's Diner (this is America), mucking around on the Internet, shopping for groceries at Whole Foods, and taking a brisk run and lifting some weights at the gym. No plans to do homework as yet...
On Thursday last week, in Normal Labour and Birth class, we learned how to do intramuscular injections (using oranges and bacteriostatic saline to practice with at first, then progressing onto injecting each other's glutes). We practised counting the foetal heart rate accurately (our teacher uses a metronome to simulate the ticking beat of a tiny heart), and then used dolls and plastic life-size pelves to practise the cardinal movements made by a foetus on its journey through the pelvis and out into the world.
I wrote another Anatomy and Physiology exam on Friday, this time on the Respiratory and Digestive systems. It was uneventful, and when I was done writing, I took the chance to practise venipuncture on K. (Can you tell, how much of midwifery school is just about practising our skills on hapless classmates so that we don't fumble like idiots when we have to use them on actual pregnant clients...?)
On Thursday last week, in Normal Labour and Birth class, we learned how to do intramuscular injections (using oranges and bacteriostatic saline to practice with at first, then progressing onto injecting each other's glutes). We practised counting the foetal heart rate accurately (our teacher uses a metronome to simulate the ticking beat of a tiny heart), and then used dolls and plastic life-size pelves to practise the cardinal movements made by a foetus on its journey through the pelvis and out into the world.
I wrote another Anatomy and Physiology exam on Friday, this time on the Respiratory and Digestive systems. It was uneventful, and when I was done writing, I took the chance to practise venipuncture on K. (Can you tell, how much of midwifery school is just about practising our skills on hapless classmates so that we don't fumble like idiots when we have to use them on actual pregnant clients...?)
Thursday, November 20, 2008
a first
During last Friday's Normal Prenatal class, I had the special privilege of feeling an actual pregnant woman's actual pregnant belly, for the first time in the role of student midwife rather than simply a curious observer. And, for the first time, I heard an actual foetal heartbeat through my foetoscope. A real pregnant belly with a real baby inside, with a real beating heart!
I performed Leopold's manoeuvres to figure out the position of the baby (LOA at 22 weeks), auscultated heart tones (I forget now what they were precisely, but they were perfectly normal!), and chatted merrily with S, the cheerful, blooming, gracious mama-to-be (who is a farmer and kundalini yoga instructor).
I felt two more pregnant bellies after that, a transverse lie and a breech (what variety!), and then we students all had a potluck lunch with the five pregnant mamas who'd come to offer up their bodies and babies for the betterment of our education. Thank you to all of them.
I spent the weekend researching hypothyroidism in pregnancy for a paper and presentation I had to give the following Monday in Physical Assessment class. I took my skills exam with my friend C that Monday morning at 11, which went incredibly smoothly. (The purpose was to test our proficiency at the complete well-woman physical exam with Pap smear and breast exam.) That night, H, C, and I went to Duck Fat on Fore Street to eat fries (cooked in duck fat, served with garlic aioli, truffle ketchup, and sweet chili mayo) and drink lots of red wine to celebrate the completion of our skills exam and the wrapping up of Physical Assessment class. We walked along the Eastern Prom in the freezing cold, arms interlinked, then sat on the rocks overlooking the starry water in a state of utter giggly bliss, before walking back to our cars and heading home.
I performed Leopold's manoeuvres to figure out the position of the baby (LOA at 22 weeks), auscultated heart tones (I forget now what they were precisely, but they were perfectly normal!), and chatted merrily with S, the cheerful, blooming, gracious mama-to-be (who is a farmer and kundalini yoga instructor).
I felt two more pregnant bellies after that, a transverse lie and a breech (what variety!), and then we students all had a potluck lunch with the five pregnant mamas who'd come to offer up their bodies and babies for the betterment of our education. Thank you to all of them.
I spent the weekend researching hypothyroidism in pregnancy for a paper and presentation I had to give the following Monday in Physical Assessment class. I took my skills exam with my friend C that Monday morning at 11, which went incredibly smoothly. (The purpose was to test our proficiency at the complete well-woman physical exam with Pap smear and breast exam.) That night, H, C, and I went to Duck Fat on Fore Street to eat fries (cooked in duck fat, served with garlic aioli, truffle ketchup, and sweet chili mayo) and drink lots of red wine to celebrate the completion of our skills exam and the wrapping up of Physical Assessment class. We walked along the Eastern Prom in the freezing cold, arms interlinked, then sat on the rocks overlooking the starry water in a state of utter giggly bliss, before walking back to our cars and heading home.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
colour and light
So... I've been slack with blogging, which is no wonder, given that the Oct-Nov avalanche of work unleashed its mighty fury on me. Happily, things have calmed down immeasurably, particularly since yesterday, and I have been in a state of relief and exhaling with regard to work, at least.
Back to the log of adventures for the last two weeks then...
Two weeks ago, on Saturday night, I walked across town to join a huge group of friends, who were all cooking and talking and drinking beer in A's tiny apartment, lining their stomachs in preparation for the Maine Brewer's Festival later that night at the Portland Expo Center. Now, I know I'm a German girl, but I'm more of a wine drinker than a beer drinker (always have been) -- so I set them all the challenge of convincing me that there indeed existed a beer that I could not only drink, but also love to drink. Two Maine breweries, one fairly large without being overly commercialised, and another a dinky microbrewery, rose to the challenge. I discovered a passion Allagash Curieux (aged in Bourbon barrels) and The Sea Dog Microbrewery's Wild Raspberry Ale. Colour me surprised...
On Sunday, the extraordinary Good Egg was due for a revisit, for brunch (an idea shared by many a Portlander: there was a long wait for a table). The following day brought me back into Bridgton for a Physical Assessment class, during which we practised breast and pelvic exams again (in preparation for our skills exam, which we took yesterday).
The rest of that week was pretty uneventful until Thursday morning, on which I woke up with an all-over body ache that could not only be attributed to the fact that I'd been lifting weights in the gym the day before. It was of an entirely different sort, this ache; I was also sweaty and feverish, and my throat hurt enormously. So I called the school and told them I'd miss Normal Prenatal class that day, and I spent the day in bed, sweating out my fever, waking up sporadically to drink a strong decoction of ginger root and take another dose of zinc and vitamin C. I thought (naively...) that I'd kicked it by Friday morning, when I hauled myself out of bed to get to my Normal Labour and Birth class. I made it through fine until lunch, but I still had a three-hour class on Fertility Awareness (which was incredibly interesting, despite my fuzzy-headedness and reduced ability to concentrate) that afternoon. It was all just too much for my body, which responded with a pounding headache by Friday evening. I rested as much as I could that night.
I had a massage class all day that Saturday, and was well enough by then to get the most out of it (among other things, we learnt how to do a proper Pelvic Press, or Double Hip Squeeze, to aid proper positioning of the baby during labour and also to relieve the ache from 'back labour' -- when the baby is posterior). Later, I took a walk through the eerily misty treescapes of Pondicherry Park, and had broccoli-chicken pasta for dinner (pure perfection!). I drank some garnet-red South African Syrah (Neil Ellis) with the meal, for nostalgia's sake.
On Monday, I had a long and intense A&P exam, on whose difficulty everybody concurred as we debriefed ourselves over lunch. (I have since found out that I passed the exam, and surprisingly well at that, despite my initial dread of having to do a re-take. To me, it simply means that I must really love the subject, because I've been quietly digesting more of the material than I thought, without necessarily having to shove it into memory.)
I had a very productive Tuesday and Wednesday, which partly involved painting a set of baby pictures (copied onto cardstock) with watercolours to submit as a Foetal Growth Visual Aid project for my Normal Prenatal class. We students each got the same set of seven actual-size images of foetuses at various stages of development in utero, to colour in and decorate as we chose, and then to laminate and keep for our own use in midwifery practice. They're beautiful to have on hand, to show a client roughly how big her baby is this week/month, and to give her an idea of what other developmental milestones her baby is reaching, like being able to suck its thumb, or opening its eyes and being able to see in the womb, or other wondrous things like that.
Thursday meant Normal Labour and Birth class, in which we learnt how to perform amniotomy (breaking the amniotic sac) with various implements, like an amniohook or an amnicot (the latter is really a sharp hook-tipped 'condom' which fits over a midwife's index finger). Please note: this is NOT something we home-birth midwives take lightly, and we hardly (if ever) find cause to rupture the bag of waters artificially. In many hospitals, AROM (artificial rupture of membranes) is still done routinely, and the procedure tends to initiate a cascade of further interventions. One can conclude that AROM often does far more harm than good, like so many other common procedures used during medically-managed births in the hospital. I could elaborate here, but this post is getting way too unwieldy in its length as it is. (Perhaps I'll save the AROM-'vent' for another day, then.)
Last Friday (November 14) was a very special day, and brought me into an entirely new realm of sheer delight in being a student midwife. It was a milestone day, an extraordinary day.
However -- right now, lovely friends and readers, this weary woman must get some food in her belly, and take a bath. I apologise for the Festival of Stringing The Readers Along, but I'll continue my update as soon as is humanly possible...
Back to the log of adventures for the last two weeks then...
Two weeks ago, on Saturday night, I walked across town to join a huge group of friends, who were all cooking and talking and drinking beer in A's tiny apartment, lining their stomachs in preparation for the Maine Brewer's Festival later that night at the Portland Expo Center. Now, I know I'm a German girl, but I'm more of a wine drinker than a beer drinker (always have been) -- so I set them all the challenge of convincing me that there indeed existed a beer that I could not only drink, but also love to drink. Two Maine breweries, one fairly large without being overly commercialised, and another a dinky microbrewery, rose to the challenge. I discovered a passion Allagash Curieux (aged in Bourbon barrels) and The Sea Dog Microbrewery's Wild Raspberry Ale. Colour me surprised...
On Sunday, the extraordinary Good Egg was due for a revisit, for brunch (an idea shared by many a Portlander: there was a long wait for a table). The following day brought me back into Bridgton for a Physical Assessment class, during which we practised breast and pelvic exams again (in preparation for our skills exam, which we took yesterday).
The rest of that week was pretty uneventful until Thursday morning, on which I woke up with an all-over body ache that could not only be attributed to the fact that I'd been lifting weights in the gym the day before. It was of an entirely different sort, this ache; I was also sweaty and feverish, and my throat hurt enormously. So I called the school and told them I'd miss Normal Prenatal class that day, and I spent the day in bed, sweating out my fever, waking up sporadically to drink a strong decoction of ginger root and take another dose of zinc and vitamin C. I thought (naively...) that I'd kicked it by Friday morning, when I hauled myself out of bed to get to my Normal Labour and Birth class. I made it through fine until lunch, but I still had a three-hour class on Fertility Awareness (which was incredibly interesting, despite my fuzzy-headedness and reduced ability to concentrate) that afternoon. It was all just too much for my body, which responded with a pounding headache by Friday evening. I rested as much as I could that night.
I had a massage class all day that Saturday, and was well enough by then to get the most out of it (among other things, we learnt how to do a proper Pelvic Press, or Double Hip Squeeze, to aid proper positioning of the baby during labour and also to relieve the ache from 'back labour' -- when the baby is posterior). Later, I took a walk through the eerily misty treescapes of Pondicherry Park, and had broccoli-chicken pasta for dinner (pure perfection!). I drank some garnet-red South African Syrah (Neil Ellis) with the meal, for nostalgia's sake.
On Monday, I had a long and intense A&P exam, on whose difficulty everybody concurred as we debriefed ourselves over lunch. (I have since found out that I passed the exam, and surprisingly well at that, despite my initial dread of having to do a re-take. To me, it simply means that I must really love the subject, because I've been quietly digesting more of the material than I thought, without necessarily having to shove it into memory.)
I had a very productive Tuesday and Wednesday, which partly involved painting a set of baby pictures (copied onto cardstock) with watercolours to submit as a Foetal Growth Visual Aid project for my Normal Prenatal class. We students each got the same set of seven actual-size images of foetuses at various stages of development in utero, to colour in and decorate as we chose, and then to laminate and keep for our own use in midwifery practice. They're beautiful to have on hand, to show a client roughly how big her baby is this week/month, and to give her an idea of what other developmental milestones her baby is reaching, like being able to suck its thumb, or opening its eyes and being able to see in the womb, or other wondrous things like that.
Thursday meant Normal Labour and Birth class, in which we learnt how to perform amniotomy (breaking the amniotic sac) with various implements, like an amniohook or an amnicot (the latter is really a sharp hook-tipped 'condom' which fits over a midwife's index finger). Please note: this is NOT something we home-birth midwives take lightly, and we hardly (if ever) find cause to rupture the bag of waters artificially. In many hospitals, AROM (artificial rupture of membranes) is still done routinely, and the procedure tends to initiate a cascade of further interventions. One can conclude that AROM often does far more harm than good, like so many other common procedures used during medically-managed births in the hospital. I could elaborate here, but this post is getting way too unwieldy in its length as it is. (Perhaps I'll save the AROM-'vent' for another day, then.)
Last Friday (November 14) was a very special day, and brought me into an entirely new realm of sheer delight in being a student midwife. It was a milestone day, an extraordinary day.
However -- right now, lovely friends and readers, this weary woman must get some food in her belly, and take a bath. I apologise for the Festival of Stringing The Readers Along, but I'll continue my update as soon as is humanly possible...
Thursday, November 6, 2008
the absence of womb-warmth
Last Saturday, I was back in Portland and was awakened that morning by a highly unexpected phonecall on my mobile from P, who said he had a sudden urge to call to check if I was okay, because he'd had a funny feeling that something had happened to me. The week before, we hadn't been able to 'catch' each other on internet chat, so P hadn't heard directly from me in a while, and also my mother had spoken to him at some point and had concocted a lie that I had put down the phone on her the week before. Anyway, we chatted very briefly and I assured him that all was well on my side.
Later on Saturday morning, I called P to have a longer chat with him. We had a fluid, honest, open conversation in which neither of us shied away from our vulnerability. We talked about my midwifery workload, about his business, his plans to move out of SA sometime soon, and about the state of his emotions; he said he missed me desperately sometimes but that he trusts that I am doing the best thing for myself and my future by being in the US, by following my dreams, and listening to my heart -- wherever that leads me. It was wonderful to talk to him so openly, and we both felt lighter.
Also, I got to 'vent' out loud to P about my mother, who cannot find it in her heart to be happy for me, and who told me a few weeks ago, in no uncertain terms, that she thought midwifery school was 'beneath' me and that I should've been an obstetrician by now. It was one of the most hurtful things she could ever have said, and yet I didn't end the conversation abruptly -- tempting thought it was. I simply feel sad for both of us -- for her, because she does not know what it truly means to be a mother, and to experience the joy of that bond with her daughter. And for me, because I long for a mother, who loves me and trusts me and shares in my elation, who does not expect to be respected automatically, regardless of the hurt she causes me and the people I love. A mother who comforts me and cries for me when I have fallen down, and who does not compete with me for what she perceives as the title of most-cherished woman in my father's life, but who instead allows me the space to have the wonderful relationship I have with my Papa, and who herself can truly be my ally and confidante and friend. I have struggled for so long to make myself whole in spite of that huge void in my life. I have never been happier in my life than I have since I came to midwifery school, and the fact that my mother would even try to diminish this for me is a tragedy of desperate proportions.
To be continued...
Later on Saturday morning, I called P to have a longer chat with him. We had a fluid, honest, open conversation in which neither of us shied away from our vulnerability. We talked about my midwifery workload, about his business, his plans to move out of SA sometime soon, and about the state of his emotions; he said he missed me desperately sometimes but that he trusts that I am doing the best thing for myself and my future by being in the US, by following my dreams, and listening to my heart -- wherever that leads me. It was wonderful to talk to him so openly, and we both felt lighter.
Also, I got to 'vent' out loud to P about my mother, who cannot find it in her heart to be happy for me, and who told me a few weeks ago, in no uncertain terms, that she thought midwifery school was 'beneath' me and that I should've been an obstetrician by now. It was one of the most hurtful things she could ever have said, and yet I didn't end the conversation abruptly -- tempting thought it was. I simply feel sad for both of us -- for her, because she does not know what it truly means to be a mother, and to experience the joy of that bond with her daughter. And for me, because I long for a mother, who loves me and trusts me and shares in my elation, who does not expect to be respected automatically, regardless of the hurt she causes me and the people I love. A mother who comforts me and cries for me when I have fallen down, and who does not compete with me for what she perceives as the title of most-cherished woman in my father's life, but who instead allows me the space to have the wonderful relationship I have with my Papa, and who herself can truly be my ally and confidante and friend. I have struggled for so long to make myself whole in spite of that huge void in my life. I have never been happier in my life than I have since I came to midwifery school, and the fact that my mother would even try to diminish this for me is a tragedy of desperate proportions.
To be continued...
Thursday, October 30, 2008
love and sugar
The highlight of last Friday's Normal Labour and Birth class was the pelvimetry practice session in the afternoon, in which H and I learned the curves and projections and ligaments and musculature of each other's pelvises (technically, pelves), screeching with laughter all the way as she manipulated my coccyx with her gloved finger and all I could feel was a bizarre, enormously ticklish jiggling around in my bottom...
I am pleased to say that I have a "beautiful pelvis for childbirth", according to H's thorough evaluations, even though we all know that the best pelvimeter is actually the baby's head. In other words, there is no way of knowing how 'roomy' a woman's 'outlet' is until she actually gives birth (mostly because of the influence of relaxin, a delightful hormone that softens ligaments in pregnancy and renders the pelvic bones considerably more moveable than they would otherwise be). That is why you will probably never hear a midwife tell a pregnant woman that she looks 'too small' to give birth naturally. A travesty!
On Saturday, I watched W., an Oliver Stone film (peppered with Stone's extraordinary trademark dream sequences) about the life and presidency of George junior, and then headed out at night with some friends to dance and hang out at the White Heart in Portland. On Sunday, I ate otherworldly fries, cooked in duck fat, at the appropriately named Duck Fat restaurant on Middle Street. They were beyond words; defied description. In the evening, I tried to concentrate on my A&P homework (on the immune system). Eventually, I prevailed, and with schoolwork tidily completed, it was time to go home to make tomato-mozzarella pasta and chickpea salad.
Monday brought an interminably long day of A&P class, which had us yawning, dozing, and silently begging for mercy by 4pm. We'd much rather have been in Prenatal class, or Labour and Birth, where things are far juicier and closer to the bone. Having said that, I did make an impassioned speech to the class during tea break on Monday, that we could all perhaps enjoy A&P more if we approached it from the perspective of total awe for the incredible human body that we are studying, whose workings are unfathomable even when they are patently described for us on the page. Of course, they rolled their eyes at me... bloody nerd!
On Tuesday morning, I hung out at a coffee shop with H and C, researching hypothyroidism in pregnancy on the 'net while they did their readings for the next installment of Labour and Birth. We figured we'd motivate each other by studying 'together' (i.e. pursuing our own individual ends, but at the same table). It worked.
By Tuesday evening, the soreness from a heavy session of lifting weights on Monday night had set in, and I had to wuss out of a planned 5-mile run around the Back Cove. Instead? Indiana Jones on DVD. (Don't look at me like that.)
Three of my 'sisters' and I practised pelvic exams on each other yesterday morning at C's place, simply because we need as much practice as we can get, and because we feel so at ease with each other that the whole experience is actually enjoyable, rather than just something that needs to get done. In the afternoon, I was introduced to an amazing little deli by my friend B, who bought me a cappuccino and gave me a tour of the store's remarkable organic chocolate section. We had a much-needed, sweet and intimate catch-up talk, in the true spirit of holding the space for each other through difficult times (hers rather than mine, yesterday at least).
This morning I faced Skills Practice Day with buckwheat-maple pancakes in my belly. We went over counting foetal heart tones, Leopold's manoeuvres, assessing oedema, taking vitals, charting, and the like. Tomorrow heralds a Normal Labour and Birth class.
I went for a scenic run to the lake with K and proceeded to polish off more than a handful of homemade muesli cookies when we returned home (for I am not made of stone...), so with a brain made entirely fuzzy by sugar, I must now attempt to read a couple of chapters of Anne Frye's legendary purple tome, Holistic Midwifery Volume II. Sweet life, no?
I am pleased to say that I have a "beautiful pelvis for childbirth", according to H's thorough evaluations, even though we all know that the best pelvimeter is actually the baby's head. In other words, there is no way of knowing how 'roomy' a woman's 'outlet' is until she actually gives birth (mostly because of the influence of relaxin, a delightful hormone that softens ligaments in pregnancy and renders the pelvic bones considerably more moveable than they would otherwise be). That is why you will probably never hear a midwife tell a pregnant woman that she looks 'too small' to give birth naturally. A travesty!
On Saturday, I watched W., an Oliver Stone film (peppered with Stone's extraordinary trademark dream sequences) about the life and presidency of George junior, and then headed out at night with some friends to dance and hang out at the White Heart in Portland. On Sunday, I ate otherworldly fries, cooked in duck fat, at the appropriately named Duck Fat restaurant on Middle Street. They were beyond words; defied description. In the evening, I tried to concentrate on my A&P homework (on the immune system). Eventually, I prevailed, and with schoolwork tidily completed, it was time to go home to make tomato-mozzarella pasta and chickpea salad.
Monday brought an interminably long day of A&P class, which had us yawning, dozing, and silently begging for mercy by 4pm. We'd much rather have been in Prenatal class, or Labour and Birth, where things are far juicier and closer to the bone. Having said that, I did make an impassioned speech to the class during tea break on Monday, that we could all perhaps enjoy A&P more if we approached it from the perspective of total awe for the incredible human body that we are studying, whose workings are unfathomable even when they are patently described for us on the page. Of course, they rolled their eyes at me... bloody nerd!
On Tuesday morning, I hung out at a coffee shop with H and C, researching hypothyroidism in pregnancy on the 'net while they did their readings for the next installment of Labour and Birth. We figured we'd motivate each other by studying 'together' (i.e. pursuing our own individual ends, but at the same table). It worked.
By Tuesday evening, the soreness from a heavy session of lifting weights on Monday night had set in, and I had to wuss out of a planned 5-mile run around the Back Cove. Instead? Indiana Jones on DVD. (Don't look at me like that.)
Three of my 'sisters' and I practised pelvic exams on each other yesterday morning at C's place, simply because we need as much practice as we can get, and because we feel so at ease with each other that the whole experience is actually enjoyable, rather than just something that needs to get done. In the afternoon, I was introduced to an amazing little deli by my friend B, who bought me a cappuccino and gave me a tour of the store's remarkable organic chocolate section. We had a much-needed, sweet and intimate catch-up talk, in the true spirit of holding the space for each other through difficult times (hers rather than mine, yesterday at least).
This morning I faced Skills Practice Day with buckwheat-maple pancakes in my belly. We went over counting foetal heart tones, Leopold's manoeuvres, assessing oedema, taking vitals, charting, and the like. Tomorrow heralds a Normal Labour and Birth class.
I went for a scenic run to the lake with K and proceeded to polish off more than a handful of homemade muesli cookies when we returned home (for I am not made of stone...), so with a brain made entirely fuzzy by sugar, I must now attempt to read a couple of chapters of Anne Frye's legendary purple tome, Holistic Midwifery Volume II. Sweet life, no?
Thursday, October 23, 2008
meat and taters
Last Friday, I wrote another A&P exam in the morning (which went smoothly) and then spent my lunch-hour writing a short book report on Janet Balaskas' Active Birth manifesto (which has been in print for a quarter-century now) for book club that afternoon. After class, I hitched a pleasant ride with J and her dog to Portland. On Saturday morning, I hit the Back Cove for a hard run (only 4 miles, but a chest-wheezingly fast 4 miles). In the afternoon, I saw Brunswick for the first time, and hung out at a cute coffee shop called The Little Dog. I enlisted the help of a friend who is an expert at seeking out good used-car deals, and she helped me dig through Uncle Henry's guide in search of a decent Subaru. We eventually pulled out the notebook PC and surfed Craigslist to broaden our search, and came up with a few good leads. I still haven't actually bought a car, but I am much wiser for having had that brief-but-thorough education on the perils and pitfalls of used-car buying in the United States.
Later that afternoon, I slipped an enormous batch of lasagne into the oven. I'd been scheming to cook something hearty for C and W's potluck dinner that evening. The six blocks to their place were traversed that evening with a dish of steaming lasagne in one hand and a large bottle of Californian organic shiraz in the other. My various student-midwife friends brought their 'bits of fluff' (C's word for 'boyfriends', which she employed when urging us to bring our menfolk along on her potluck invite), and we all had a cracking good time.
On Sunday, I was on the far outskirts of Brunswick, walking through a friend's vine-tangled orchard surrounded by woods. I was mesmerised by the golden-yellow splotches clinging to the trees in the dappled sunlight, and the crunch of drying Fall leaves and pine needles underfoot. I spent the afternoon in Litchfield with a friend's family. They have a simple life in the country with a menagerie of animals and a glistening vegetable garden. I was shown how to wield an axe properly and to split a few logs, and then fed the horses while a heart-achingly cute miniature goat called Easter looked on. We all feasted on Maine lobster, melted butter, wholegrain bread from the Black Crow Bakery down the lane, and Shipyard Pumpkin Ale.
On Monday, it was time for our Physical Assessment class to get started. We discussed breast exams and pelvic exams in the morning, then practised them on each other in the afternoon. I and my friend H paired up for the pelvic exam, which we conducted respectfully and sweetly on each other. That evening, she drove me back to Portland so I could spend Tuesday and Wednesday hanging out in the 'big city' and trying to get some studying done for our Normal Prenatal exam this morning (i.e. Thursday). H and C and I spent time together at C's place early on Tuesday morning, creating a womb-like space of womanliness in which we could continue to practise Pap smears and bimanual examinations of the uterus and ovaries on each other at our own pace, with plenty of feedback and also room for making 'mistakes' and then correcting them in partnership with each other. I came away from that morning's session feeling enormously better about my practical skills, and about my capacity to interact with women in a sensitive way as a midwife, while honouring their autonomy and their right to know things (and be curious about) their own bodies and what healthcare providers are doing to them. I was supposed to finish two assignments on Wednesday, which only got done during the lunch break today because I was too preoccupied with wondering around Portland, hanging out in its wonderful bookstores, eating a leisurely lunch at an organic café, talking to my darling friend N on the phone for an hour and a half in the afternoon (which was glorious, and ridiculously overdue), and surfing midwifery sites on the internet afterward. I got my best work done in the evening, when I earnestly stuck my nose in my books for an extended period before bedtime.
Today, we learnt the art of palpating a bellyful of baby (Leopold's Manoeuvres of abdominal palpation, for those who care to know), and measuring fundal height. In two weeks' time, we shall have real (yes, real!) bellies to feel and learn from.
Tomorrow heralds the start of Normal Labour and Birth, yet another juicy course on offer at Birthwise, with the irresistible promise -- to all those participating -- of challenging homework, accompanied by a rapidly growing practical-skills base, and a long-awaited chance to chew on the meat-and-potatoes of midwifery work. Not long now before I'm a-catching babies, y'all...
Later that afternoon, I slipped an enormous batch of lasagne into the oven. I'd been scheming to cook something hearty for C and W's potluck dinner that evening. The six blocks to their place were traversed that evening with a dish of steaming lasagne in one hand and a large bottle of Californian organic shiraz in the other. My various student-midwife friends brought their 'bits of fluff' (C's word for 'boyfriends', which she employed when urging us to bring our menfolk along on her potluck invite), and we all had a cracking good time.
On Sunday, I was on the far outskirts of Brunswick, walking through a friend's vine-tangled orchard surrounded by woods. I was mesmerised by the golden-yellow splotches clinging to the trees in the dappled sunlight, and the crunch of drying Fall leaves and pine needles underfoot. I spent the afternoon in Litchfield with a friend's family. They have a simple life in the country with a menagerie of animals and a glistening vegetable garden. I was shown how to wield an axe properly and to split a few logs, and then fed the horses while a heart-achingly cute miniature goat called Easter looked on. We all feasted on Maine lobster, melted butter, wholegrain bread from the Black Crow Bakery down the lane, and Shipyard Pumpkin Ale.
On Monday, it was time for our Physical Assessment class to get started. We discussed breast exams and pelvic exams in the morning, then practised them on each other in the afternoon. I and my friend H paired up for the pelvic exam, which we conducted respectfully and sweetly on each other. That evening, she drove me back to Portland so I could spend Tuesday and Wednesday hanging out in the 'big city' and trying to get some studying done for our Normal Prenatal exam this morning (i.e. Thursday). H and C and I spent time together at C's place early on Tuesday morning, creating a womb-like space of womanliness in which we could continue to practise Pap smears and bimanual examinations of the uterus and ovaries on each other at our own pace, with plenty of feedback and also room for making 'mistakes' and then correcting them in partnership with each other. I came away from that morning's session feeling enormously better about my practical skills, and about my capacity to interact with women in a sensitive way as a midwife, while honouring their autonomy and their right to know things (and be curious about) their own bodies and what healthcare providers are doing to them. I was supposed to finish two assignments on Wednesday, which only got done during the lunch break today because I was too preoccupied with wondering around Portland, hanging out in its wonderful bookstores, eating a leisurely lunch at an organic café, talking to my darling friend N on the phone for an hour and a half in the afternoon (which was glorious, and ridiculously overdue), and surfing midwifery sites on the internet afterward. I got my best work done in the evening, when I earnestly stuck my nose in my books for an extended period before bedtime.
Today, we learnt the art of palpating a bellyful of baby (Leopold's Manoeuvres of abdominal palpation, for those who care to know), and measuring fundal height. In two weeks' time, we shall have real (yes, real!) bellies to feel and learn from.
Tomorrow heralds the start of Normal Labour and Birth, yet another juicy course on offer at Birthwise, with the irresistible promise -- to all those participating -- of challenging homework, accompanied by a rapidly growing practical-skills base, and a long-awaited chance to chew on the meat-and-potatoes of midwifery work. Not long now before I'm a-catching babies, y'all...
Thursday, October 16, 2008
wingspread
Last Thursday, I had a day of Normal Prenatal (including an exam), and the following is a rough outline of what we covered: informed choice for midwifery care and home birth; confidentiality and legal issues; charting/documentation; medical abbreviations used in midwifery; creating prenatal testing checklists for our own practices; medical/surgical/gynaecological history-taking; and how to conduct the first visit with a midwifery client (a.k.a. the consult visit). Of course, we cover all these topics in various other contexts, i.e. other classes, or in general discussion, or just in the business of practising our skills or doing our homework assignments, so it's not as though we spend just one class during our entire midwifery education discussing 'legal issues', or 'charting', and never grapple with those topics again. This is, after all, what we do -- we are becoming midwives, and if there's something a midwife needs to know, she needs to know it all the time (in other words, she needs to have that knowledge accessible all of time), not just for the purposes of passing an exam (only to lose her hold on that knowledge shortly thereafter). And in that respect alone, never mind all the others, this process of acquiring the skills and knowledge of a midwife is already completely distinct from any other formal education I've had in my life.
My hands are learning what it means to be a midwife; my toes are beginning to tap to the rhythm of foetal heart tones; my brain is making neural networks that will help me make solid clinical decisions when I need to; my heart is opening to the nature of the relationship between midwife and motherbaby.
On Friday, I had an A&P class in the morning, during which I delivered my research presentation on the physiology of blood clotting (how it works and why it fails sometimes). It went smoothly; and we spent the rest of the morning reviewing meiosis, spermatogenesis, haematopoiesis, and other things ending in "sis", as it would appear...
Three hours of Normal Prenatal stretched before me on Friday afternoon, which passed quickly and painlessly (indeed, happily) in discussion about routine initial prenatal testing, performing urinalysis, antibody screening, and various other aspects of diagnostic testing during pregnancy. All the while, I feel my grasp on things becoming more secure, my ease with the jargon (and better still -- my ease with that jargon's real application to real situations) growing slowly and steadily. It's a wonderful feeling, and keeps back whatever doubts fleetingly appear about how I'm ever going to cope as an actual, bona fide midwife.
Later on Friday afternoon, we practised venipuncture on each other for a half-hour and I was hurt by a sister-student with admirable determination but hands made shaky by adrenaline. I shrugged it off, because that's part of the dance, and we're learning the steps. Nonetheless, the structural integrity of my median vein was compromised, and I tenderly nursed a blue-black puncture wound for the weekend that followed.
Shortly after the Needle Incident, I grabbed my weekend bag and my guitar and hitched an hour-long ride to Portland, made far shorter by sweet chatting and hearty guffawing with my friend C. In the evening, I had a delightful walk through the city in the crisp air (who needs a car, anyway?) and, having worked up an appetite, I ate pork confit and Tuscan beans with kale and pancetta for dinner. The only thing that could conceivably accompany such a fantastic meal was a woody, violet Sicilian merlot. Yikes, so damn bourgeois...
Saturday - finally, Indian Summer! There was a rare and breathtaking wave of warmth over chilly southern Maine. Breakfast was buckwheat pancakes with raspberries and maple syrup, after which I rustily strummed my guitar for a bit. In the afternoon, a trip to Bradbury Mountain State Park, near Freeport, was in order. Once there, I ascended the incline at a leisurely pace through damp and mushroomy woods to a flattened rock balcony, from which I could see all the way back to Portland through an almost uninterrupted forest of extraordinary Fall foliage.
Sunday brought more exquisite, short-sleeved weather and a glorious breakfast at Portland's legendary Good Egg café, and yes -- they do make good eggs. And good oatmeal-molasses toast. In the afternoon, all I wanted to do was run and make merry and pet other people's dogs and smile at babies and walk and play along the shore at Old Orchard Beach. On Monday morning, the sea smell lingered on my skin.
On Monday, our classes for Physical Assessment began, and we launched right into taking blood pressure readings, and listening to heart/lung sounds, and palpating each other's abdomens, and asking our teacher (a naturopathic physician) a million questions about why we couldn't get the opthalmoscope to light up properly, or whether this 'lump' we felt on a friend's back was normal, or why the thyroid gland took the shape of a butterfly under our fingers. Can you tell how thrilled I am to be doing hands-on stuff at last?! I'm grinning.
Tuesday and yesterday were spent getting through my rather ridiculously overwhelming load of homework. I took a long run through the Back Cove yesterday evening (although the irrational but crime-hardened South African girl in me was shrieking inwardly, "How can I be outside, in the dark, running through thick trees, at this hour?"). Dinner (Thai red curry) was cooked on a runner's high. Sweet.
Today brought more Normal Prenatal, with a lesson on how to find and count foetal heart tones, among many other wonderful things. It's a quiet evening in Bridgton, and I'm about to settle down to study for an A&P exam tomorrow morning. Feeling good.
My hands are learning what it means to be a midwife; my toes are beginning to tap to the rhythm of foetal heart tones; my brain is making neural networks that will help me make solid clinical decisions when I need to; my heart is opening to the nature of the relationship between midwife and motherbaby.
On Friday, I had an A&P class in the morning, during which I delivered my research presentation on the physiology of blood clotting (how it works and why it fails sometimes). It went smoothly; and we spent the rest of the morning reviewing meiosis, spermatogenesis, haematopoiesis, and other things ending in "sis", as it would appear...
Three hours of Normal Prenatal stretched before me on Friday afternoon, which passed quickly and painlessly (indeed, happily) in discussion about routine initial prenatal testing, performing urinalysis, antibody screening, and various other aspects of diagnostic testing during pregnancy. All the while, I feel my grasp on things becoming more secure, my ease with the jargon (and better still -- my ease with that jargon's real application to real situations) growing slowly and steadily. It's a wonderful feeling, and keeps back whatever doubts fleetingly appear about how I'm ever going to cope as an actual, bona fide midwife.
Later on Friday afternoon, we practised venipuncture on each other for a half-hour and I was hurt by a sister-student with admirable determination but hands made shaky by adrenaline. I shrugged it off, because that's part of the dance, and we're learning the steps. Nonetheless, the structural integrity of my median vein was compromised, and I tenderly nursed a blue-black puncture wound for the weekend that followed.
Shortly after the Needle Incident, I grabbed my weekend bag and my guitar and hitched an hour-long ride to Portland, made far shorter by sweet chatting and hearty guffawing with my friend C. In the evening, I had a delightful walk through the city in the crisp air (who needs a car, anyway?) and, having worked up an appetite, I ate pork confit and Tuscan beans with kale and pancetta for dinner. The only thing that could conceivably accompany such a fantastic meal was a woody, violet Sicilian merlot. Yikes, so damn bourgeois...
Saturday - finally, Indian Summer! There was a rare and breathtaking wave of warmth over chilly southern Maine. Breakfast was buckwheat pancakes with raspberries and maple syrup, after which I rustily strummed my guitar for a bit. In the afternoon, a trip to Bradbury Mountain State Park, near Freeport, was in order. Once there, I ascended the incline at a leisurely pace through damp and mushroomy woods to a flattened rock balcony, from which I could see all the way back to Portland through an almost uninterrupted forest of extraordinary Fall foliage.
Sunday brought more exquisite, short-sleeved weather and a glorious breakfast at Portland's legendary Good Egg café, and yes -- they do make good eggs. And good oatmeal-molasses toast. In the afternoon, all I wanted to do was run and make merry and pet other people's dogs and smile at babies and walk and play along the shore at Old Orchard Beach. On Monday morning, the sea smell lingered on my skin.
On Monday, our classes for Physical Assessment began, and we launched right into taking blood pressure readings, and listening to heart/lung sounds, and palpating each other's abdomens, and asking our teacher (a naturopathic physician) a million questions about why we couldn't get the opthalmoscope to light up properly, or whether this 'lump' we felt on a friend's back was normal, or why the thyroid gland took the shape of a butterfly under our fingers. Can you tell how thrilled I am to be doing hands-on stuff at last?! I'm grinning.
Tuesday and yesterday were spent getting through my rather ridiculously overwhelming load of homework. I took a long run through the Back Cove yesterday evening (although the irrational but crime-hardened South African girl in me was shrieking inwardly, "How can I be outside, in the dark, running through thick trees, at this hour?"). Dinner (Thai red curry) was cooked on a runner's high. Sweet.
Today brought more Normal Prenatal, with a lesson on how to find and count foetal heart tones, among many other wonderful things. It's a quiet evening in Bridgton, and I'm about to settle down to study for an A&P exam tomorrow morning. Feeling good.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
chrysalis
To keep things fairly simple, since I have an exam coming up for Normal Postnatal tomorrow -- behold the neat brevity (or rather, the failed attempt at brevity) that is my numbered list below.
The Week (in Brief) Since Last Thursday's Post:
1) Friday: I had Group Process with my sister-students in the morning. This time together is intended to help us explore our inter-personal and group dynamics outside of the normal, structured class hours. In the afternoon, I took an elective course on how to write reviews of midwifery-related literature for the purposes of publication.
2) Friday early evening: I settled down for two hours to study haemotology (= blood) and finish up the relevant pages of my A&P workbook so that I wouldn't have to worry about that over the weekend.
3) Friday late evening: Ah, the cacophony of 6 chuckling student midwives, all crammed into a tiny kitchen scented with the steam of cinnamon-spice tea and turkey chili on the stovetop.
4) Saturday: Hung out in Portland, finally getting a chance to explore the city (having only been through there twice before, either coming out of the airport or travelling via Portland into New Hampshire with K). Brunch was an omelette and blueberry pancakes at the water's edge, and then a walk along part of Casco Bay in the afternoon. It was worth stopping to watch the boats on the water from the Eastern Promenade, its hilltop punctuated with majestic old sea-captains' homes. That evening, friends kept my glass topped up with organic merlot and my belly full of Thai red curry and vanilla/dark chocolate brownies. We spent a toe-chilling hour outside at a bar after dinner, discussing politics and film and my friend A's job (she is an elementary-school teacher who works with developmentally delayed children).
5) Sunday: I woke up ridiculously early to be chauffeured back to Bridgton (an hour away from Portland) by 7am since the kind person giving me a ride needed to make it to a family outing to climb Mt Washington (the highest peak in the northeastern United States). I immediately went to bed and slept for two more hours. After I woke up, it was time to launch myself into researching the mechanism of blood clotting, which is way more complicated than I thought it'd be, to prepare for a class presentation this week. I finished an informed choice document for my future clients about Hepatitis C screening during pregnancy, and also took care of a large section of my A&P workbook on the reproductive system. I was more than exhausted by day's end.
6) Monday: Spent the day in an A&P class, which concluded with an exam on the nervous system, and all the muscles and bones of the body (particularly those of the pelvis, for obvious reasons). I felt very comfortable throughout the test, although my grade will be the final telling of how comfortable that really was...
7) Tuesday: On the one hand, I needed a mental rest; on the other, I needed physical activity. So -- I headed to B's apartment for our usual tea-date on Tuesday mornings, and she guided us both through some energising yoga postures. In the afternoon, I organised my room (needed to get to grips with a heap of school papers and a growing pile of 'homeless' clothes on the floor) and cooked myself a nourishing lunch before heading out to the gym to face a loaded Olympic bar for my half-hour series of squats and deadlifts. The so-called runner's high doesn't even come close to a powerlifter's elation -- apologies to my tarmac-pounding friends.
8) Wednesday: I discovered early this morning, via a note from P, that my beautiful friend N had given birth to her son in Johannesburg on October 6th (at around the same time as I was finishing off my anatomy exam, I later calculated). I'd last heard from N on Monday via another of her characteristically wonderful emails, in which she'd said she thought her boy would be making his way into our earthly dimension fairly soon. But in the frenzy of my week, I'd been lax about checking Facebook for updates, and understandably hadn't heard anything else by phone or email while she'd been labouring, so I figure I was one of the last in her circle to hear the incredible news that E had been born. I, of course, am ecstatic for her.
It does make me feel all the more disconnected from everything back home, knowing how far away I am in terms of actual distance but also that I've unintentionally isolated myself from some of my best friends in Jo'burg over the past two weeks, particularly. It's nobody's fault, it just is. I have thrown myself with fire and energy and abandon into my life here in New England -- and the connections I made in South Africa have hardly been severed, of course, but they are stretched more than usual and it's a struggle for me to pick up the slack sometimes.
But that is all blah, blah, blah -- because there is something more important to say! There is a new person in the world! A delicious, demanding, tiny human, a dewy young changeling who is opening his eyes on a loving family every time he wakes up. This is another victory for woman-centric childbirth, for the precious institution of the family, for the profession of midwifery, and no doubt a personal triumph for the magnificent birthing mama, whom I love with all my heart. Congratulations to you!
The Week (in Brief) Since Last Thursday's Post:
1) Friday: I had Group Process with my sister-students in the morning. This time together is intended to help us explore our inter-personal and group dynamics outside of the normal, structured class hours. In the afternoon, I took an elective course on how to write reviews of midwifery-related literature for the purposes of publication.
2) Friday early evening: I settled down for two hours to study haemotology (= blood) and finish up the relevant pages of my A&P workbook so that I wouldn't have to worry about that over the weekend.
3) Friday late evening: Ah, the cacophony of 6 chuckling student midwives, all crammed into a tiny kitchen scented with the steam of cinnamon-spice tea and turkey chili on the stovetop.
4) Saturday: Hung out in Portland, finally getting a chance to explore the city (having only been through there twice before, either coming out of the airport or travelling via Portland into New Hampshire with K). Brunch was an omelette and blueberry pancakes at the water's edge, and then a walk along part of Casco Bay in the afternoon. It was worth stopping to watch the boats on the water from the Eastern Promenade, its hilltop punctuated with majestic old sea-captains' homes. That evening, friends kept my glass topped up with organic merlot and my belly full of Thai red curry and vanilla/dark chocolate brownies. We spent a toe-chilling hour outside at a bar after dinner, discussing politics and film and my friend A's job (she is an elementary-school teacher who works with developmentally delayed children).
5) Sunday: I woke up ridiculously early to be chauffeured back to Bridgton (an hour away from Portland) by 7am since the kind person giving me a ride needed to make it to a family outing to climb Mt Washington (the highest peak in the northeastern United States). I immediately went to bed and slept for two more hours. After I woke up, it was time to launch myself into researching the mechanism of blood clotting, which is way more complicated than I thought it'd be, to prepare for a class presentation this week. I finished an informed choice document for my future clients about Hepatitis C screening during pregnancy, and also took care of a large section of my A&P workbook on the reproductive system. I was more than exhausted by day's end.
6) Monday: Spent the day in an A&P class, which concluded with an exam on the nervous system, and all the muscles and bones of the body (particularly those of the pelvis, for obvious reasons). I felt very comfortable throughout the test, although my grade will be the final telling of how comfortable that really was...
7) Tuesday: On the one hand, I needed a mental rest; on the other, I needed physical activity. So -- I headed to B's apartment for our usual tea-date on Tuesday mornings, and she guided us both through some energising yoga postures. In the afternoon, I organised my room (needed to get to grips with a heap of school papers and a growing pile of 'homeless' clothes on the floor) and cooked myself a nourishing lunch before heading out to the gym to face a loaded Olympic bar for my half-hour series of squats and deadlifts. The so-called runner's high doesn't even come close to a powerlifter's elation -- apologies to my tarmac-pounding friends.
8) Wednesday: I discovered early this morning, via a note from P, that my beautiful friend N had given birth to her son in Johannesburg on October 6th (at around the same time as I was finishing off my anatomy exam, I later calculated). I'd last heard from N on Monday via another of her characteristically wonderful emails, in which she'd said she thought her boy would be making his way into our earthly dimension fairly soon. But in the frenzy of my week, I'd been lax about checking Facebook for updates, and understandably hadn't heard anything else by phone or email while she'd been labouring, so I figure I was one of the last in her circle to hear the incredible news that E had been born. I, of course, am ecstatic for her.
It does make me feel all the more disconnected from everything back home, knowing how far away I am in terms of actual distance but also that I've unintentionally isolated myself from some of my best friends in Jo'burg over the past two weeks, particularly. It's nobody's fault, it just is. I have thrown myself with fire and energy and abandon into my life here in New England -- and the connections I made in South Africa have hardly been severed, of course, but they are stretched more than usual and it's a struggle for me to pick up the slack sometimes.
But that is all blah, blah, blah -- because there is something more important to say! There is a new person in the world! A delicious, demanding, tiny human, a dewy young changeling who is opening his eyes on a loving family every time he wakes up. This is another victory for woman-centric childbirth, for the precious institution of the family, for the profession of midwifery, and no doubt a personal triumph for the magnificent birthing mama, whom I love with all my heart. Congratulations to you!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
days of awe*
All is well here in Bridgton, the land of falling leaves. I performed a phlebotomy (otherwise known as venipuncture) for the first time in my life this afternoon, and it went remarkably well. We had a full day of class, Normal Prenatal, concentrating on embryology, and then spent a couple of hours in the afternoon learning how to draw blood. We practised on dummy arms (complete with plastic veins) using vacutainer tubes and ridiculously scary-looking needles -- and keep in mind that I am most defiantly NOT afraid of needles or anything of the sort -- before we had built up sufficient courage to practise on each other. A delightful friend and classmate, to whom I am humbly grateful, offered up her antecubital fossa (the somewhat vulnerable part of the inner arm opposite to the elbow) for the betterment of my education. I explained to her what I was going to do, as though she were a pregnant client of mine, then told her she'd feel a "pinch" but that I'd try not to break her heart. And indeed, I got the vein, first time, and when I clicked the vacutainer tube into place, I watched in astonishment as blood quickly began to flow into it. Deep crimson vein-blood... and the flushed cheeks of success!
I spent Monday evening laughing and feasting with my girlfriends in celebration of Rosh Hashanah (and only one of us is actually Jewish). We ate veggie soup and stoneground bread and kale salad and apple cake, with yet more apples afterward (dipped in honey), as we passed a bowl around and each took a moment to share with our friends the highlights from the past year, and our intentions and wishes for the year to come. As I dipped my toothsome apple slice into the bowl of runny orange-blossom honey, I expressed gratitude for the amazing women I call my friends here, for all my friends back home, and for the friends I've yet to meet. For me, many things have happened over the past year that first seemed like disasters, like things I wasn't fully prepared for, or happenings that -- in my view -- really shouldn't have happened. But as I ate my sweet tidbit (for a sweet new year), I shared out loud that so many 'disasters' have turned out to be extraordinary chances for growth, for getting real, for finding new ways to open up to honesty -- in the sense of living an honest life, in an open-hearted relationship with oneself and other people too. And by that, I also mean, not pretending my way into creating a totally different reality than the one that exists. And so -- my intention for the year is to remember this sweet realisation when I'm going about my daily activities and interactions.
My life really is full of these juicy moments of human connection. And so far, those moments have revolved almost exclusively around women! Lately, there's been a dearth of in-person interactions with the Masculine, although I get plenty of exposure to healthy male energy in my communications with P and with other friends (like I and S) back home. I am coming to terms with the fact that what I have with P, painfully, is a friendship; a treasured, precious, crystalline thing that we tend gently and tentatively, and dust off occasionally, and leave out in the sun to catch the light from time to time.
These days, I'm just in total awe of the quirkiness and bounty of the universe. The days of folding inward are morphing, like the New England trees bursting into fire-streaked Fall colours outside my window, into days of unfurling and leaping and living.
Days of awe indeed.
* Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim ("Days of Awe"), which are days specifically set aside to focus on repentance that conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah is the start of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar. It is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts. Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man whereas five days earlier, on 25 of Elul, marks the first day of creation.
I spent Monday evening laughing and feasting with my girlfriends in celebration of Rosh Hashanah (and only one of us is actually Jewish). We ate veggie soup and stoneground bread and kale salad and apple cake, with yet more apples afterward (dipped in honey), as we passed a bowl around and each took a moment to share with our friends the highlights from the past year, and our intentions and wishes for the year to come. As I dipped my toothsome apple slice into the bowl of runny orange-blossom honey, I expressed gratitude for the amazing women I call my friends here, for all my friends back home, and for the friends I've yet to meet. For me, many things have happened over the past year that first seemed like disasters, like things I wasn't fully prepared for, or happenings that -- in my view -- really shouldn't have happened. But as I ate my sweet tidbit (for a sweet new year), I shared out loud that so many 'disasters' have turned out to be extraordinary chances for growth, for getting real, for finding new ways to open up to honesty -- in the sense of living an honest life, in an open-hearted relationship with oneself and other people too. And by that, I also mean, not pretending my way into creating a totally different reality than the one that exists. And so -- my intention for the year is to remember this sweet realisation when I'm going about my daily activities and interactions.
My life really is full of these juicy moments of human connection. And so far, those moments have revolved almost exclusively around women! Lately, there's been a dearth of in-person interactions with the Masculine, although I get plenty of exposure to healthy male energy in my communications with P and with other friends (like I and S) back home. I am coming to terms with the fact that what I have with P, painfully, is a friendship; a treasured, precious, crystalline thing that we tend gently and tentatively, and dust off occasionally, and leave out in the sun to catch the light from time to time.
These days, I'm just in total awe of the quirkiness and bounty of the universe. The days of folding inward are morphing, like the New England trees bursting into fire-streaked Fall colours outside my window, into days of unfurling and leaping and living.
Days of awe indeed.
* Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim ("Days of Awe"), which are days specifically set aside to focus on repentance that conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah is the start of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar. It is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts. Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man whereas five days earlier, on 25 of Elul, marks the first day of creation.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
light
Photo courtesy of my friend Ingeborg Sonnichsen, who is a doula and a photographer. (www.photographybyingeborg.co.za)
Friday, September 26, 2008
bellatrix
I've been chatting to P more often over the past few days. I've said it before; there is So Much Love here. And we're both suffering from empty-bed syndrome... Missing the closeness and warmth and juicy deliciousness that is sharing your life and your personal space with someone you love and trust. But we also know that it doesn't help to keep thinking about what you long for, what you lack; to keep chewing it over until it's a flavourless blob of bubblegum and your stomach is churning for something more substantial. But there's a sweetness about being alone, too, much like cold weather can sometimes envigorate and expand the senses, just as much as it can sometimes deplete the nerves and fold everything in, towards itself. And so goes the rhythm of my days right now; sometimes the folding-inward, sometimes the branching-out. Sometimes the painful curling up and wound-licking, sometimes the slow stretching and unfurling.
In other news, my legs hurt, and my glutes hurt. Sweet Mary and Joseph, I'm freakin' sore. Those among my readers who know what DOMS is will know what I am talking about. If you take a relatively long break between workouts and jump straight into lifting heavy again, you will hurt. Sitting down on a chair will hurt, getting up from a chair will hurt, walking will even hurt. And all I can do is laugh at myself, because I felt like a mighty bellatrix in the gym the other day and now I simply feel like the village idiot.
Easy does it.
Normal Prenatal yesterday was wonderful, and put many of our minds at ease about the intensity of the syllabus. Our teacher, M, just told us to "take a lot of deep breaths" as we tackle all the studying, and that we'd get through it. To give you an idea -- in eight weeks of classes, we're learning how to perform routine physical examinations, including the ongoing assessment of maternal psycho-social and emotional health, and the physical health and well-being of the motherbaby. We're learning how to order, interpret and even perform some diagnostic tests to establish things like haemoglobin, glucose level, urinary protein levels, and the like. We're learning how to measure fundal height; estimate the due date; assess foetal activity and response to stimulation; auscultate foetal heart tones and measure foetal heart rate; assess foetal presentation, position and weight; evaluate signs of developing pathology in the pregnancy (and refer to other care-providers where necessary); and also assess for signs of abuse (and get help for the mother if necessary). By the end, we'll be able to use a foetoscope, lancets, urinalysis strips, a glucometer, and a haemoglobinometer. We'll also have the skills to chart our findings appropriately, and -- the most thrilling part right now, because we're learning this next week -- we'll be able to perform venipuncture and draw blood for tests. Ooh! The dizzying adventure of it all!
And in spite of all this, all the reading, all the studying, all the frenzied acquisition of skills, all the prying into the womb, all the counselling and questioning and prodding of women and babies, birth continues regardless. Right now, in this instant, on the planet, thousands of women have just become pregnant. And their bodies know just what to do to grow those babies in the safety of their wombs without any help from the outside world, thank you very much. And today, 350 000 women will give birth. Most of those women will not be giving birth in a hospital, and yet, in the overwhelming majority of cases, those births will go perfectly fine (whether there is a doctor or a midwife in the room, or not). And that's why midwives love and embrace birth, and trust women's bodies so completely. There is nothing surer to put your trust in than nature.
In other news, my legs hurt, and my glutes hurt. Sweet Mary and Joseph, I'm freakin' sore. Those among my readers who know what DOMS is will know what I am talking about. If you take a relatively long break between workouts and jump straight into lifting heavy again, you will hurt. Sitting down on a chair will hurt, getting up from a chair will hurt, walking will even hurt. And all I can do is laugh at myself, because I felt like a mighty bellatrix in the gym the other day and now I simply feel like the village idiot.
Easy does it.
Normal Prenatal yesterday was wonderful, and put many of our minds at ease about the intensity of the syllabus. Our teacher, M, just told us to "take a lot of deep breaths" as we tackle all the studying, and that we'd get through it. To give you an idea -- in eight weeks of classes, we're learning how to perform routine physical examinations, including the ongoing assessment of maternal psycho-social and emotional health, and the physical health and well-being of the motherbaby. We're learning how to order, interpret and even perform some diagnostic tests to establish things like haemoglobin, glucose level, urinary protein levels, and the like. We're learning how to measure fundal height; estimate the due date; assess foetal activity and response to stimulation; auscultate foetal heart tones and measure foetal heart rate; assess foetal presentation, position and weight; evaluate signs of developing pathology in the pregnancy (and refer to other care-providers where necessary); and also assess for signs of abuse (and get help for the mother if necessary). By the end, we'll be able to use a foetoscope, lancets, urinalysis strips, a glucometer, and a haemoglobinometer. We'll also have the skills to chart our findings appropriately, and -- the most thrilling part right now, because we're learning this next week -- we'll be able to perform venipuncture and draw blood for tests. Ooh! The dizzying adventure of it all!
And in spite of all this, all the reading, all the studying, all the frenzied acquisition of skills, all the prying into the womb, all the counselling and questioning and prodding of women and babies, birth continues regardless. Right now, in this instant, on the planet, thousands of women have just become pregnant. And their bodies know just what to do to grow those babies in the safety of their wombs without any help from the outside world, thank you very much. And today, 350 000 women will give birth. Most of those women will not be giving birth in a hospital, and yet, in the overwhelming majority of cases, those births will go perfectly fine (whether there is a doctor or a midwife in the room, or not). And that's why midwives love and embrace birth, and trust women's bodies so completely. There is nothing surer to put your trust in than nature.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
burn, baby, burn
I'm feelin' good.
I've had two welcome days' rest from class (today and yesterday), during which I cooked some amazing meals, had long chats with friends and introduced them to proper South African music, sorted out my budget (which looks better than I thought, although it is still very much a "student" budget), sent a long-overdue email to my paranoid mother, and borrowed K's car to go for a drive on my own (on the RIGHT side of the road, no less). Also, I got most of my anatomy homework done for Friday, and have studied Blackburn's Maternal, Fetal and Neonatal Physiology forwards and backwards, upside-down and inside-out, for tomorrow's Prenatal class.
Returned from gym this afternoon on a high, having totally kicked my butt in the weights room. I'm nowhere near my personal best for squats or deadlift after a long break from lifting this year, but I'm back in the game. I so badly needed this outlet, and had all but forgotten how good it feels to have to call on all my courage and strength and determination while standing underneath a loaded bar.
I'd been in a funk for the past few days, not really feeling anything -- not sad, not happy, just numb. And I know the best cure when I'm like that is either to exercise (like a crazy person), or find someone I trust to talk to, or both. Right now, I'm all talked out, and I can't feel my quads and glutes any more. It's a delicious feeling.
Moral of the story? Shut up and lift.
I've had two welcome days' rest from class (today and yesterday), during which I cooked some amazing meals, had long chats with friends and introduced them to proper South African music, sorted out my budget (which looks better than I thought, although it is still very much a "student" budget), sent a long-overdue email to my paranoid mother, and borrowed K's car to go for a drive on my own (on the RIGHT side of the road, no less). Also, I got most of my anatomy homework done for Friday, and have studied Blackburn's Maternal, Fetal and Neonatal Physiology forwards and backwards, upside-down and inside-out, for tomorrow's Prenatal class.
Returned from gym this afternoon on a high, having totally kicked my butt in the weights room. I'm nowhere near my personal best for squats or deadlift after a long break from lifting this year, but I'm back in the game. I so badly needed this outlet, and had all but forgotten how good it feels to have to call on all my courage and strength and determination while standing underneath a loaded bar.
I'd been in a funk for the past few days, not really feeling anything -- not sad, not happy, just numb. And I know the best cure when I'm like that is either to exercise (like a crazy person), or find someone I trust to talk to, or both. Right now, I'm all talked out, and I can't feel my quads and glutes any more. It's a delicious feeling.
Moral of the story? Shut up and lift.
Monday, September 22, 2008
strange days
On Saturday, I went to the Common Ground Country Fair in a town called Unity, Maine. The Fair is organised annually by MOFGA (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association), and its intention is to help visitors to make connections with organic farmers in the state of Maine. People can learn about sustainable living; eat amazing, locally-produced organic food; buy Maine crafts and agricultural products; and participate in all kinds of activities (like folk dancing, manure-slinging, jumping off hay bales, horse-riding, and such). Sadly, it transpires that I neither rode a horse nor jumped off a hay bale nor slung any manure around, but I had a mighty fine time nonetheless. I laughed and cavorted with friends, surrounded by stroller-moms in Gap t-shirts and crunchy-granola moms with hipslung babes alike. I ate a moist and spicy hummus and eggplant sandwich, followed by a slice of luxurious-but-tart cranberry cheesecake, both of which were exhorbitantly expensive, organic, made with love, and completely worth it. [And, come to think of it, I have been looking rather thin since I arrived here (due, most likely, to my aforementioned unintentional lacto-ovo vegetarianism, and being sans automobile for a month)... so bring on the cream cheese!]
I spent time at the MOM (Midwives of Maine) tent, hanging out with my sister-students (who were volunteering, handing out leaflets and answering questions about water birth, etc). I also learnt more about the legal status of midwifery in Maine during a talk by a local CPM who is particularly involved in pushing for the legalisation of home-birth midwifery in this state (currently, CPMs are practising alegally, i.e. it's neither legal nor illegal, which is basically worse than being illegal, at least according to some).
On Sunday, I discovered that South Africa's president had tendered his resignation, to the great surprise and alarm of the various internet news sites that I scanned, and I felt rather indifferent, to my own surprise and alarm. The rest of the day was spent foolishly trying to concentrate on my readings for the Informed Choice one-day course today. I instead read parts of Monique and the Mango Rains and thereby reminded myself of the ecstasy of a midwife's work, and indeed why I am here. (Doesn't take much to fuel the fire, really.) I called my Papa in Berlin in the afternoon, and found out that my uncle has indeed sacrificed his hair to chemo, but not his spirit. He is fighting hard, with every spark of life he retains.
Laughing and speaking in unbroken German to my father for an hour rewired and revived my brain sufficiently that I could do my homework last night -- a not-unremarkable feat in these strange times of sporadic numbness and disbelief. At least I can still recognise my own face in the mirror -- that is progress.
P and I have, in curtly pleasant and somewhat heart-wrenching blips, ended our brief mutual silence. After all, where there was (and is) so much shared love, there is also great concern for the other's well-being, which tends to intensify when the two parties no longer communicate. And that doesn't serve either of us well at all.
Turning to the more hum-drum, ordinary matters, I am still without a car, and have finally (yes, finally!) abandoned the occasionally-entertained pipe dream of buying something as ridiculously girlish, dazzlingly cute and yet outlandishly impractical as a VW New Beetle. After much deliberation, and with the dramatic sigh and gnashing of teeth and flailing of limbs that can be expected from a little girl who wanted a new Barbie doll for Christmas and instead got a trashily generic Sandi doll, I have narrowed my search down to Subarus, exclusively.
With a whimper, I now head toward my desk to see if I can manage an evening's Physiology study. If indeed.
I spent time at the MOM (Midwives of Maine) tent, hanging out with my sister-students (who were volunteering, handing out leaflets and answering questions about water birth, etc). I also learnt more about the legal status of midwifery in Maine during a talk by a local CPM who is particularly involved in pushing for the legalisation of home-birth midwifery in this state (currently, CPMs are practising alegally, i.e. it's neither legal nor illegal, which is basically worse than being illegal, at least according to some).
On Sunday, I discovered that South Africa's president had tendered his resignation, to the great surprise and alarm of the various internet news sites that I scanned, and I felt rather indifferent, to my own surprise and alarm. The rest of the day was spent foolishly trying to concentrate on my readings for the Informed Choice one-day course today. I instead read parts of Monique and the Mango Rains and thereby reminded myself of the ecstasy of a midwife's work, and indeed why I am here. (Doesn't take much to fuel the fire, really.) I called my Papa in Berlin in the afternoon, and found out that my uncle has indeed sacrificed his hair to chemo, but not his spirit. He is fighting hard, with every spark of life he retains.
Laughing and speaking in unbroken German to my father for an hour rewired and revived my brain sufficiently that I could do my homework last night -- a not-unremarkable feat in these strange times of sporadic numbness and disbelief. At least I can still recognise my own face in the mirror -- that is progress.
P and I have, in curtly pleasant and somewhat heart-wrenching blips, ended our brief mutual silence. After all, where there was (and is) so much shared love, there is also great concern for the other's well-being, which tends to intensify when the two parties no longer communicate. And that doesn't serve either of us well at all.
Turning to the more hum-drum, ordinary matters, I am still without a car, and have finally (yes, finally!) abandoned the occasionally-entertained pipe dream of buying something as ridiculously girlish, dazzlingly cute and yet outlandishly impractical as a VW New Beetle. After much deliberation, and with the dramatic sigh and gnashing of teeth and flailing of limbs that can be expected from a little girl who wanted a new Barbie doll for Christmas and instead got a trashily generic Sandi doll, I have narrowed my search down to Subarus, exclusively.
With a whimper, I now head toward my desk to see if I can manage an evening's Physiology study. If indeed.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
frost
So, some housekeeping... what's happened this week?
I got a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful new acoustic guitar today with an enormous bellyful of sound that makes me burst with ecstasy on strumming it.
My muscles-and-bones A&P class was happily interrupted this morning for 3 hours by another birth (our teachers are pretty much all midwives, and yes, they are on call most of the time). Think (late afternoon): diagrams on the overhead projector explaining the Sliding Filament Theory of muscle contraction, interspersed with anecdotes about today's newborn, the precipitous labour, and his mother's platelet count. (The latter had been cause for concern throughout the pregnancy, apparently, but all concern evaporated when mother did not, in fact, haemorrhage after the birth. All is well in the World of Being Born.)
After class, I took a quick car-trip to High View Farm in the neighbouring town of Harrison with K to pick up some more eggs and raw organic milk. We drove home as the sun was throwing off a shock of gold-orange-pink streaks behind the forested hills of North Bridgton. Then, the other K took me to see a free movie (she works at the Magic Lantern) -- the first film I've seen in a cinema in the US. It was a dramatically un-different experience from seeing a film in a cinema in South Africa.
On Tuesday night, I found a seat on a flight to Johannesburg just before Christmas that I can actually afford. I booked it.
The frost has set in this evening, and I have discovered that Maine's early autumn weather is as cold as the Highveld mid-winter back home.
I got an absurd email from my Mom today, full of conspiracy theories and platitudes and prattle. But she has knitted me a beautiful purple scarf and that makes me feel so guilty about constantly judging her.
My Papa is in Berlin and I keep finding myself unable to call him because I'm in class and the time-zones get all conflated and I lose my chance. It frustrates me to be disconnected from him.
...
I am properly single again, cut loose, pained, angry, nostalgic, resignatory, drifting. And now incommunicado (of my own requesting).
I have the first real headache I've ever had in my life. And it hurts like a motherfucker.
I have renewed my belief in the healing power of friendship.
(Who am I again? Anybody care to remind me what my name is?)
I got a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful new acoustic guitar today with an enormous bellyful of sound that makes me burst with ecstasy on strumming it.
My muscles-and-bones A&P class was happily interrupted this morning for 3 hours by another birth (our teachers are pretty much all midwives, and yes, they are on call most of the time). Think (late afternoon): diagrams on the overhead projector explaining the Sliding Filament Theory of muscle contraction, interspersed with anecdotes about today's newborn, the precipitous labour, and his mother's platelet count. (The latter had been cause for concern throughout the pregnancy, apparently, but all concern evaporated when mother did not, in fact, haemorrhage after the birth. All is well in the World of Being Born.)
After class, I took a quick car-trip to High View Farm in the neighbouring town of Harrison with K to pick up some more eggs and raw organic milk. We drove home as the sun was throwing off a shock of gold-orange-pink streaks behind the forested hills of North Bridgton. Then, the other K took me to see a free movie (she works at the Magic Lantern) -- the first film I've seen in a cinema in the US. It was a dramatically un-different experience from seeing a film in a cinema in South Africa.
On Tuesday night, I found a seat on a flight to Johannesburg just before Christmas that I can actually afford. I booked it.
The frost has set in this evening, and I have discovered that Maine's early autumn weather is as cold as the Highveld mid-winter back home.
I got an absurd email from my Mom today, full of conspiracy theories and platitudes and prattle. But she has knitted me a beautiful purple scarf and that makes me feel so guilty about constantly judging her.
My Papa is in Berlin and I keep finding myself unable to call him because I'm in class and the time-zones get all conflated and I lose my chance. It frustrates me to be disconnected from him.
...
I am properly single again, cut loose, pained, angry, nostalgic, resignatory, drifting. And now incommunicado (of my own requesting).
I have the first real headache I've ever had in my life. And it hurts like a motherfucker.
I have renewed my belief in the healing power of friendship.
(Who am I again? Anybody care to remind me what my name is?)
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
undiscoverable guess
(to p)
here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain
and here's to silent certainly mountains;and to
a disappearing poet of always,snow
and to morning;and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and
let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)
here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon
-- e.e. cummings
here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain
and here's to silent certainly mountains;and to
a disappearing poet of always,snow
and to morning;and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and
let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)
here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon
-- e.e. cummings
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
peculiar
After all that build-up, all that anticipation, all that nail-biting, yesterday's first Normal Prenatal class was cancelled. Our lecturer, a midwife, was at a birth all day. Go figure.
So it's been postponed, and the day-long class will be split between this Friday afternoon and the following one. We all felt like we'd been given a holiday yesterday, and what did we do with it? We worked! We read and studied and made flashcards and buried ourselves in Taber's Medical Dictionary ("Now in Full Colour").
And today, we were done studying (or at least, I was). After lunch, we three girls (K, S, and I) piled into S's car for a road trip to Freeport, singing (loudly) along to Regina Spektor and Joni Mitchell and Ani DiFranco all the way. Freeport is home to the "flagship store" of L.L. Bean, a glove-and-parka mecca for snow-virgins like me (well, not quite a virgin... but let's just say I'm a stranger to that peculiar beast that is the Maine Winter, with its relentless snowstorms and rural backroads glassed-over with black ice).
[Can you tell already that I'm planning to buy a Subaru? Those who love them nod knowingly and declare: "These cars simply EAT ice". And who can blame them for their ardour, when indeed every second car around these parts is a freakin' Subaru?]
So, I got geared up, right down to my silk thermal long undies and "smartwool" socks. Cold times are comin'...
So it's been postponed, and the day-long class will be split between this Friday afternoon and the following one. We all felt like we'd been given a holiday yesterday, and what did we do with it? We worked! We read and studied and made flashcards and buried ourselves in Taber's Medical Dictionary ("Now in Full Colour").
And today, we were done studying (or at least, I was). After lunch, we three girls (K, S, and I) piled into S's car for a road trip to Freeport, singing (loudly) along to Regina Spektor and Joni Mitchell and Ani DiFranco all the way. Freeport is home to the "flagship store" of L.L. Bean, a glove-and-parka mecca for snow-virgins like me (well, not quite a virgin... but let's just say I'm a stranger to that peculiar beast that is the Maine Winter, with its relentless snowstorms and rural backroads glassed-over with black ice).
[Can you tell already that I'm planning to buy a Subaru? Those who love them nod knowingly and declare: "These cars simply EAT ice". And who can blame them for their ardour, when indeed every second car around these parts is a freakin' Subaru?]
So, I got geared up, right down to my silk thermal long undies and "smartwool" socks. Cold times are comin'...
Sunday, September 14, 2008
life is for the living
I feel as though the last week's flown by, undocumented. (Well, partially undocumented...)
Last Monday, we had another installment of Anatomy and Physiology (hereinafter referred to as A&P), to discuss organic chemistry, cells and tissues (including all that high-school biology, like mitosis, DNA, phospholipid-membrane permeability, and such), and finally the integumentary system (more affectionately known as skin). It was a long day in class (9am to 4pm), but it was interactive and stimulating nonetheless.
On Thursday, Alice Sammon came to teach us for our final lesson in the History of Midwifery. Alice was part of the original group of apprenticeship-trained midwives in the US in the 1970s, which includes Ina May Gaskin, who came together to establish the Midwives Alliance of North America. These were exciting times for American midwifery and its development as a profession, and of course Alice had all the juicy stories to tell about the dynamics of this group of women, and how MANA achieved what it did. It is nothing short of a revolution, how this kind of organisation could spring up out of the ashes of "granny" midwives in the American South, out of the American Medical Association's political slaughter of midwifery's respectability, and be reborn as a professional body that not only supports and promotes direct-entry midwifery (and home birth by extension), but also accredits midwifery education institutions (including Birthwise) across the country. NARM (North American Registry of Midwives) is an offshoot of MANA, and it is the NARM exam that I will take in 2011 to confirm my competence as a practitioner. Alice and Ina May and the other amazing, dynamic, unstoppable women of that period in midwifery history were highly politicised and determined, and because of that determination, I and my classmates are able to become certified as CPMs, which is not something that could happen here in the US just a decade ago. And there are even more exciting times ahead for us midwives... I'm just glad to be around while it's all swirling around.
On Friday, we had a seminar on Internet research, specifically medical research, and then we trotted off home to begin our reading and preparation for the start of Normal Prenatal (promptly 9am this Monday). Terrifically exciting, even though that excitement is only a partial buffer for the bad news that it will cost me $2500 to fly back to Johannesburg this Christmas to spend three weeks with my friends, and P, and my family. Just no room in the budget for that... so I will indeed have to wait until May (as originally planned) to make my first trip back home. The realisation knocked the wind out of my sails on Friday evening, which was spent cuddling Julian-dog under the duvet while sniffling my way through a half-box of tissues.
On Saturday afternoon, after a morning of attempting (and failing) to concentrate on my textbooks long enough to get some work done, I and some of my sister-students attended a wedding at Narramissic Historic Farm on the outskirts of town. A lovely Birthwise graduate, who is now practising as an independent midwife, married her sweetheart in a pleasantly brief and beautiful ceremony enhanced by Gibran and Rilke and the Sufi poets, not to mention beautiful music (some by the groom himself, who is a singer/songwriter in his spare time) and abundantly joyful human connection. It was glorious, and the party afterward was a wonderful complement to that. A 1770s farmhouse restored to its original condition, haddock with goat's cheese and artichokes, a smiling bearded farmer-friend of the bride who baked great bread for the meal, mesclun greens with maple-dijon vinaigrette, organic wine, pumpkin-spice wedding cake, dancing in the barn under paper lanterns and fairy lights, children playing on a swing, unrestrained laughter, the bride a goddess in a simple ivory sheath and flower-wreath, a warm Fall evening and a sky full of stars... ah, wedding bliss got into my veins and my heart's still circulating that love around my body today.
I'm sending that love out as my Papa steps on a plane tomorrow to be with his ailing brother in Germany.
Last Monday, we had another installment of Anatomy and Physiology (hereinafter referred to as A&P), to discuss organic chemistry, cells and tissues (including all that high-school biology, like mitosis, DNA, phospholipid-membrane permeability, and such), and finally the integumentary system (more affectionately known as skin). It was a long day in class (9am to 4pm), but it was interactive and stimulating nonetheless.
On Thursday, Alice Sammon came to teach us for our final lesson in the History of Midwifery. Alice was part of the original group of apprenticeship-trained midwives in the US in the 1970s, which includes Ina May Gaskin, who came together to establish the Midwives Alliance of North America. These were exciting times for American midwifery and its development as a profession, and of course Alice had all the juicy stories to tell about the dynamics of this group of women, and how MANA achieved what it did. It is nothing short of a revolution, how this kind of organisation could spring up out of the ashes of "granny" midwives in the American South, out of the American Medical Association's political slaughter of midwifery's respectability, and be reborn as a professional body that not only supports and promotes direct-entry midwifery (and home birth by extension), but also accredits midwifery education institutions (including Birthwise) across the country. NARM (North American Registry of Midwives) is an offshoot of MANA, and it is the NARM exam that I will take in 2011 to confirm my competence as a practitioner. Alice and Ina May and the other amazing, dynamic, unstoppable women of that period in midwifery history were highly politicised and determined, and because of that determination, I and my classmates are able to become certified as CPMs, which is not something that could happen here in the US just a decade ago. And there are even more exciting times ahead for us midwives... I'm just glad to be around while it's all swirling around.
On Friday, we had a seminar on Internet research, specifically medical research, and then we trotted off home to begin our reading and preparation for the start of Normal Prenatal (promptly 9am this Monday). Terrifically exciting, even though that excitement is only a partial buffer for the bad news that it will cost me $2500 to fly back to Johannesburg this Christmas to spend three weeks with my friends, and P, and my family. Just no room in the budget for that... so I will indeed have to wait until May (as originally planned) to make my first trip back home. The realisation knocked the wind out of my sails on Friday evening, which was spent cuddling Julian-dog under the duvet while sniffling my way through a half-box of tissues.
On Saturday afternoon, after a morning of attempting (and failing) to concentrate on my textbooks long enough to get some work done, I and some of my sister-students attended a wedding at Narramissic Historic Farm on the outskirts of town. A lovely Birthwise graduate, who is now practising as an independent midwife, married her sweetheart in a pleasantly brief and beautiful ceremony enhanced by Gibran and Rilke and the Sufi poets, not to mention beautiful music (some by the groom himself, who is a singer/songwriter in his spare time) and abundantly joyful human connection. It was glorious, and the party afterward was a wonderful complement to that. A 1770s farmhouse restored to its original condition, haddock with goat's cheese and artichokes, a smiling bearded farmer-friend of the bride who baked great bread for the meal, mesclun greens with maple-dijon vinaigrette, organic wine, pumpkin-spice wedding cake, dancing in the barn under paper lanterns and fairy lights, children playing on a swing, unrestrained laughter, the bride a goddess in a simple ivory sheath and flower-wreath, a warm Fall evening and a sky full of stars... ah, wedding bliss got into my veins and my heart's still circulating that love around my body today.
I'm sending that love out as my Papa steps on a plane tomorrow to be with his ailing brother in Germany.
Friday, September 12, 2008
mahayana
With gratitude to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, I reproduce his words here:
I would like to explain the meaning of compassion, which is often misunderstood. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop a genuine concern for his or her problems. This is genuine compassion.
Usually when we are concerned about a close friend, we call this compassion. This is not compassion; it is attachment. Marriages that last only a short time do so because of a lack of compassion; there is only emotional attachment based on projection and expectation. When the only bond between close friends is attachment, then even a minor issue may cause one's projections to change. As soon as our projections change, the attachment disappears, because that attachment was based solely on projection and expectation.
It is possible to have compassion without attachment, and similarly, to have anger without hatred. Therefore, we need to clarify the distinctions between compassion and attachment, and between anger and hatred. Such clarity is useful in our daily life and in our efforts toward world peace. I consider these to be basic spiritual values for the happiness of all human beings, regardless of whether one is a believer or a nonbeliever.
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.
We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
politics of heart
I've been reading Hilary Schlinger's Circle of Midwives, which concerns the history and formation of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), which is the professional organisation that oversees my own education in this country, and through which I will become credentialled as a direct-entry midwife (or, to use MANA's term, as a CPM -- Certified Professional Midwife). Reading the book has reminded me to say 'out loud' on my own blog that, despite appearances, I don't want to be a midwife only because I get to be around cute babies and determined women.
I want to be a midwife because I see the 'personal' as 'political'. Maybe one day I will have the wherewithal to declare myself a radical feminist/anarchist, but that seems too alienating a stance. In other words, I see little prospect in my future for the inflammatory, megaphoned war-waging that some of my foremothers in midwifery have shown in trying to achieve recognition for their profession despite widespread and persistent ignorance of what it is that they do. To me, being a midwife means being an activist in a way that is heart-to-heart, eye-to-eye, sharing my love and energy with mothers, fathers, babies, children, families -- with full conviction that my caring for them is also a political act. To me, there is a direct connection between the structures and politics of the public world and our private sense of ourselves, our intimate experience of being human. And it is in the merging of the two that I can identify myself as a midwife.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
the stuff of life
We've had a lot of communal meals here at the Birthwise apartment, so just for fun I thought I'd devote a post to food. I've basically been vegetarian (without necessarily intending to be) since I got here, since the local organic produce is so good, and there's a wonderful whole-foods store nearby with an amazing array of whole grains and organic dairy and exotic legumes to take home. Who needs meat when there's Southwestern black bean soup, or a roast-veg omelette with salsa Jack cheese, or garlic hummus on home-baked wholegrain sourdough, or kale salad with chickpeas and raisins, or tabbouleh on your plate? (And a square of Lindt 70% chocolate afterward...?)
Last week, K made us all an incredible sundried tomato and roasted butternut soup, and some wholegrain cornbread to go with it. It was absolutely incredible -- I mean, I know soup is just soup, but this soup was... indescribable. The recipe came from Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, which is a book I read long ago, have always loved, and am getting 'into' again. It taught me most of what I know about wholegrains, beneficial supplements, sprouts, lacto-fermented foods (like real sauerkraut!), how to prepare veggies, and the importance of good fats, including egg yolks (and I'll reiterate -- we need fat, to be healthy and hormonally balanced and sane!! Down with this tired, unjustified low-fat propaganda already!).
Tonight, I made baba ghanoush (a Middle-Eastern eggplant dip with tahini and cumin) to share, and also ate my first fish since arriving in Bridgton -- a luscious salmon fillet, with a beetroot/mung-sprout/onion/chive/cider-vinegar salad on the side. Mmmm! Strange to think I've not eaten much seafood since arriving in the 'seafood capital' of the US (anybody out there who hasn't heard about Maine lobster?), but then those who know me will know how I take to heart the collapse of global fisheries (as a result of overfishing)... Ecology, politics and appetite are often conflicting interests, I guess.
As you can probably imagine, from my holier-than-thou dietary habits of late, I am feeling pretty good. Then again, I also get to be surrounded by like-minded sister-students and friends all day, I get to swim in the lake, I get to watch the New England fall arriving and colouring the leaves burnt umber, and I get to hear babies being born across the wall from my bedroom, all in anticipation of the day when the hands guiding the emergence of those tiny heads and unfurling plump limbs might be my own.
Last week, K made us all an incredible sundried tomato and roasted butternut soup, and some wholegrain cornbread to go with it. It was absolutely incredible -- I mean, I know soup is just soup, but this soup was... indescribable. The recipe came from Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, which is a book I read long ago, have always loved, and am getting 'into' again. It taught me most of what I know about wholegrains, beneficial supplements, sprouts, lacto-fermented foods (like real sauerkraut!), how to prepare veggies, and the importance of good fats, including egg yolks (and I'll reiterate -- we need fat, to be healthy and hormonally balanced and sane!! Down with this tired, unjustified low-fat propaganda already!).
Tonight, I made baba ghanoush (a Middle-Eastern eggplant dip with tahini and cumin) to share, and also ate my first fish since arriving in Bridgton -- a luscious salmon fillet, with a beetroot/mung-sprout/onion/chive/cider-vinegar salad on the side. Mmmm! Strange to think I've not eaten much seafood since arriving in the 'seafood capital' of the US (anybody out there who hasn't heard about Maine lobster?), but then those who know me will know how I take to heart the collapse of global fisheries (as a result of overfishing)... Ecology, politics and appetite are often conflicting interests, I guess.
As you can probably imagine, from my holier-than-thou dietary habits of late, I am feeling pretty good. Then again, I also get to be surrounded by like-minded sister-students and friends all day, I get to swim in the lake, I get to watch the New England fall arriving and colouring the leaves burnt umber, and I get to hear babies being born across the wall from my bedroom, all in anticipation of the day when the hands guiding the emergence of those tiny heads and unfurling plump limbs might be my own.
Monday, September 8, 2008
an education
This past Saturday went by in a haze of driving, overcast skies, rain, disappointments, and epiphanies. K and I drove into the neighbouring state of New Hampshire to take a look at two cars I was really interested in, both of which I'd researched beforehand and weeded out from a crop of other candidates. It was a long drive, longer than we expected, lengthened by our unintentional map-lessness (which led to our getting lost several times) and the first of several disappointments, which required a detour. Namely, one of the two cars had been sold moments before we arrived at the dealership, despite the fact that the salesman knew we were coming a long way from out of state to see it. I called him when we were a few streets away, to make sure we were headed in the right direction towards his dealership in Hampton Falls. He was unapologetic and made as though his hands were tied, saying, "Well, a woman just came in and paid cash an hour ago. That's life, right?" Agonising.
So we headed east, to Manchester, NH, to see another prospective set of wheels. I'll spare you the long story, but I had a pretty illuminating encounter with what had previously only been rumours in my mind about the world of American salesmen. Bureaucratic problems with my 'foreign' driver's licence, refusal to give me a warranty, squabbles about an already agreed-upon sale price, and the complications of buying a car in a different state than the one in which you intend to drive it -- all these were small troubles in the end, utterly and stunningly eclipsed by the aggression, condescension, and acrid machismo of the salesman. He was relentless. In fact, he was so stupefyingly beligerent, he actually achieved the opposite of his intended result -- I didn't buy the car. Even though I liked it.
K and I stood up and walked out of there feeling like we'd been zapped with a Tazer. So -- epiphanies? Don't buy a car out of state. And most importantly, don't buy from a dealer. And apparently, ALL American car-dealers are like this. They're as bad as the telemarketers who've been calling me up since I got a phone in this country (apparently the MasterCard company kindly passed my contact details on to these bottom-feeders). Bloody hell.
So we headed east, to Manchester, NH, to see another prospective set of wheels. I'll spare you the long story, but I had a pretty illuminating encounter with what had previously only been rumours in my mind about the world of American salesmen. Bureaucratic problems with my 'foreign' driver's licence, refusal to give me a warranty, squabbles about an already agreed-upon sale price, and the complications of buying a car in a different state than the one in which you intend to drive it -- all these were small troubles in the end, utterly and stunningly eclipsed by the aggression, condescension, and acrid machismo of the salesman. He was relentless. In fact, he was so stupefyingly beligerent, he actually achieved the opposite of his intended result -- I didn't buy the car. Even though I liked it.
K and I stood up and walked out of there feeling like we'd been zapped with a Tazer. So -- epiphanies? Don't buy a car out of state. And most importantly, don't buy from a dealer. And apparently, ALL American car-dealers are like this. They're as bad as the telemarketers who've been calling me up since I got a phone in this country (apparently the MasterCard company kindly passed my contact details on to these bottom-feeders). Bloody hell.
Friday, September 5, 2008
across the wall
I'm sitting in my room in the Birth House apartment (see above), separated by a single wall from the impending arrival of a new human being. Earlier this afternoon, I heard the sounds of mother and father arriving, preceded by the arrival of the midwives, and shortly afterward they all came up the stairs and I heard the sounds of the baby's heartbeat, broadcast into the room by the Doptone. The mother was having some prodromal labour, and so the Birth House fell quiet earlier this evening as everyone left to head into town for a meal. They're back now, and I'm hearing splashes as water fills the deep, glistening, porcelain birthing tub in the corner across the wall. It's thrilling, and my neck-hairs are standing on end in anticipation... While I sleep tonight, I will probably be awakened in fits and starts by the tigress-growls of a woman in labour. And I would rather be here, than anywhere else in the world right now.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
the calm
Things are pretty peaceful here in Bridgton, after the buzzing activity of the Labour Day weekend, which saw frothing motorboats and jetskis aplenty in the lake, and vacationing families taking their picnic lunches by the shore and strolling up and down the town streets with ice-cream cones in hand. Now, it seems the boats have been towed back into storage, all the children have gone back to school, and the quietened traffic on the roads reflects only the daily commutes of regular Bridgton residents.
Here at the school, however, things are just heating up. Feels like the calm before the storm, really. We've had a gentle start to our academic programme - only one 'official' class so far, last week Friday - but tomorrow things continue in earnest, with another full-day History of Midwifery review, and then the beginnings of our formal exploration into the realms of human anatomy and physiology on Friday. Then, more A&P on Monday (which will doubtless require an entire weekend's firm commitment to reading chapters out of several textbooks and completing my class workbook) -- and all the while, the BIG fish, "Physical Assessment" and "Normal Prenatal", the classes for which we're all biting our nails in terrified/excited anticipation, are peeking out over the horizon. And there are some serious books piling up on my bedroom shelf...
I've got an assignment on American birth pre-1959 due tomorrow, and some course reading to do too, so it'll be a full afternoon's "work" (labour of love?). I just had a brief chat over the phone with P, which lacked intimacy and direction and caused me a few tweaks of anguish after the call ended... Of course, it's all understandable, given that we are both just getting on with things right now, he with his business and re-established de facto 'bachelorhood', and I with my studies and life here. There can be no room for regret when I have already begun to think of myself irrevocably as a student of Birthwise, as a resident of Bridgton, with a US bank account, with (when I finally get one) Maine licence plates on my car, with my belongings definitively unpacked for the next few years.
Here at the school, however, things are just heating up. Feels like the calm before the storm, really. We've had a gentle start to our academic programme - only one 'official' class so far, last week Friday - but tomorrow things continue in earnest, with another full-day History of Midwifery review, and then the beginnings of our formal exploration into the realms of human anatomy and physiology on Friday. Then, more A&P on Monday (which will doubtless require an entire weekend's firm commitment to reading chapters out of several textbooks and completing my class workbook) -- and all the while, the BIG fish, "Physical Assessment" and "Normal Prenatal", the classes for which we're all biting our nails in terrified/excited anticipation, are peeking out over the horizon. And there are some serious books piling up on my bedroom shelf...
I've got an assignment on American birth pre-1959 due tomorrow, and some course reading to do too, so it'll be a full afternoon's "work" (labour of love?). I just had a brief chat over the phone with P, which lacked intimacy and direction and caused me a few tweaks of anguish after the call ended... Of course, it's all understandable, given that we are both just getting on with things right now, he with his business and re-established de facto 'bachelorhood', and I with my studies and life here. There can be no room for regret when I have already begun to think of myself irrevocably as a student of Birthwise, as a resident of Bridgton, with a US bank account, with (when I finally get one) Maine licence plates on my car, with my belongings definitively unpacked for the next few years.
Monday, September 1, 2008
kum ba yah
On Saturday morning, K (sister-student) and I headed out to the Bridgton Farmer's Market, to procure some stoneground wholewheat sourdough bread, some organic veggies and some incredible coffee beans from a Maine-based micro-roastery. In the evening, we went together to relish in the delights of traditional New England folk dancing (aka "contradance") at the town hall. We stood in rows opposite our partners (who would change throughout the evening), and the leader, or caller, stood at the mic and talked us all through the choreography for each dance before the band struck up its Anglo-Celtic tunes. I haven't had that much fun (or done that much vigorous twirling around at dizzying speeds on a dance floor) for a very, very long time! We laughed with delight the entire evening, and I just fell in love with this wonderful little community of mine.
Yesterday morning, four of us packed some hiking snacks and headed off to Pleasant Mountain, to find the head of a trail called Bald Peak and climb it. It was pretty gruelling (my hips, ankles and calves are creaky with stiffness this morning as I write), because the first part of the ascent was a good half-mile of vertical scrambling up tree-roots and old glacial stones. In parts, the trail flattened out somewhat and the breeze picked up and dried us off, bringing welcome relief. We reached the summit eventually and were over-awed by the view, of old forests and glistening lakes stretching out into New Hampshire. We continued on the trail to another peak, crested with a fire observation tower, and began our descent via a different path, called Ledges Trail. We found wild blueberry bushes and squatted down to forage like hunter-gatherers, picking off tiny, sweet, blue pills of juicy happiness. We spotted an eagle and various tiny snakes, and were overjoyed to be getting lungfuls of fresh mountain air with the bright fragrance of pine resin and spring water. Five hours later, we arrived home and immediately collapsed onto the sofa! What a glorious way to spend a Sunday.
In the evening, K and K (there are two "Ks" living with me in the apartment) and I rose from our afternoon rest to visit four sister-students living in a huge old eggplant-coloured house on Creamery Street. We spent our evening making and eating dinner, talking, giggling, drinking Maine blueberry wine, playing guitar (those of us who could) and singing. Kum Ba Yah indeed.
Yesterday morning, four of us packed some hiking snacks and headed off to Pleasant Mountain, to find the head of a trail called Bald Peak and climb it. It was pretty gruelling (my hips, ankles and calves are creaky with stiffness this morning as I write), because the first part of the ascent was a good half-mile of vertical scrambling up tree-roots and old glacial stones. In parts, the trail flattened out somewhat and the breeze picked up and dried us off, bringing welcome relief. We reached the summit eventually and were over-awed by the view, of old forests and glistening lakes stretching out into New Hampshire. We continued on the trail to another peak, crested with a fire observation tower, and began our descent via a different path, called Ledges Trail. We found wild blueberry bushes and squatted down to forage like hunter-gatherers, picking off tiny, sweet, blue pills of juicy happiness. We spotted an eagle and various tiny snakes, and were overjoyed to be getting lungfuls of fresh mountain air with the bright fragrance of pine resin and spring water. Five hours later, we arrived home and immediately collapsed onto the sofa! What a glorious way to spend a Sunday.
In the evening, K and K (there are two "Ks" living with me in the apartment) and I rose from our afternoon rest to visit four sister-students living in a huge old eggplant-coloured house on Creamery Street. We spent our evening making and eating dinner, talking, giggling, drinking Maine blueberry wine, playing guitar (those of us who could) and singing. Kum Ba Yah indeed.
Friday, August 29, 2008
home
My first week here has gone by in a blur. A lake-swimming, grocery-shopping, cellphone-procuring, bank-account-opening, friend-making, home-Skyping, crazy blur.
Yesterday, we began our Orientation programme, which involved introductions and the like from 9am until about noon, when we headed off to Highland Lake for a potluck lunch (mostly organic, whole-food, and delicious - in true midwifey style) and a long swim, followed by an afternoon of discussion about what it is that we are embarking on together as midwives.
And today, after a shared breakfast of fruit salad and scones, and a tour of our wonderful library (in which I could see myself living), we started our first class -- History of Midwifery. We covered 3000 years of history in the space of a glorious afternoon, huddled together in the cozy classroom, drinking hazelnut/vanilla tea and enthusiastically interacting with each other, getting to grips with all the main historical and political themes, all the while excitedly referring to books we've read or experiences we've had with birth. Then, a fellow student (she is also a naturopathic physician) took me outside to the garden after class to find some plantain for a poultice to soothe my many mosquito bites from yesterday afternoon in the woods.
Tomorrow I'm going on a road-trip to Bangor, 2 hours north of here, with a new friend and fellow student midwife, to take a look at a sweet car I'm keen to buy. In the evening, there's a New England contradance, complete with folk band, which I've been sternly instructed NOT to miss.
Right now, fresh from a 'goodnight' Skype chat with P, curled up in an armchair with my notebook on my lap and my ever-present cup of ginger tea to the side (can you tell that tea is a theme of this post?), I'm feeling that things are more familiar to me, that I have friends here, that Bridgton is becoming home.
Yesterday, we began our Orientation programme, which involved introductions and the like from 9am until about noon, when we headed off to Highland Lake for a potluck lunch (mostly organic, whole-food, and delicious - in true midwifey style) and a long swim, followed by an afternoon of discussion about what it is that we are embarking on together as midwives.
And today, after a shared breakfast of fruit salad and scones, and a tour of our wonderful library (in which I could see myself living), we started our first class -- History of Midwifery. We covered 3000 years of history in the space of a glorious afternoon, huddled together in the cozy classroom, drinking hazelnut/vanilla tea and enthusiastically interacting with each other, getting to grips with all the main historical and political themes, all the while excitedly referring to books we've read or experiences we've had with birth. Then, a fellow student (she is also a naturopathic physician) took me outside to the garden after class to find some plantain for a poultice to soothe my many mosquito bites from yesterday afternoon in the woods.
Tomorrow I'm going on a road-trip to Bangor, 2 hours north of here, with a new friend and fellow student midwife, to take a look at a sweet car I'm keen to buy. In the evening, there's a New England contradance, complete with folk band, which I've been sternly instructed NOT to miss.
Right now, fresh from a 'goodnight' Skype chat with P, curled up in an armchair with my notebook on my lap and my ever-present cup of ginger tea to the side (can you tell that tea is a theme of this post?), I'm feeling that things are more familiar to me, that I have friends here, that Bridgton is becoming home.
Monday, August 25, 2008
future (part three)
To pick up from where I left the story hanging...
I waited at the appropriate boarding gate, as instructed, until everybody had boarded the flight, to see whether there'd be a seat for me or not. Well, there was -- one precious seat, especially for me (or so I like to think). So I was whisked away, and after a fuss-free flight, arrived in Portland just after 5pm. I went straight to the rental car booth to see what was potting, but all the 'cheap' cars were already out, and what remained was way out of budget. So... I decided on a taxi ride, or rather, a cab ride. The unassuming driver, Abdi, was half Kenyan, half Somalian, incredibly friendly and impeccably educated (he told me he liked to read commentaries on US foreign policy, one of which he pointed to on his passenger seat -- Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and The Roots of Terror). Blimey.
One hour, a gas-station stop, a scintillating conversation, about 50 photographs I hurriedly snapped of towns we whizzed by, and $92 (!!) later, I was in Bridgton and looking up at the red brick façade of Birthwise Midwifery School, in the humid summer evening air.
Immediately, student midwives scurried around me, hugging me hello, making herbal tea, asking me questions, and sharing their dinner (of miso soup, avocado maki rolls, crab salad, and Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice-cream -- hardly the New England Clam Chowder I'd been expecting, but who in their right mind would complain?!). It was glorious.
But I was tired. Tired isn't the word. At 9pm, after attempting to stay awake long enough to watch a DVD with the lovely women and barely managing to keep my eyes open for the title menu, I retired to my temporary room in the Birth House (attached to the school building but nonetheless a free-standing, midwife-owned birthing centre for the public). I'd forgotten to ask for a blanket and was frankly too tired to go upstairs again and get hold of one, so I pulled my houndstooth winter coat out of my suitcase in the dark, climbed onto the futon, covered myself with the coat, clutched my beloved Scottie-dog toy, Julian, to my chest and shut my weary eyes.
As I fell asleep, I thought, this is the place that will make me a midwife.
I waited at the appropriate boarding gate, as instructed, until everybody had boarded the flight, to see whether there'd be a seat for me or not. Well, there was -- one precious seat, especially for me (or so I like to think). So I was whisked away, and after a fuss-free flight, arrived in Portland just after 5pm. I went straight to the rental car booth to see what was potting, but all the 'cheap' cars were already out, and what remained was way out of budget. So... I decided on a taxi ride, or rather, a cab ride. The unassuming driver, Abdi, was half Kenyan, half Somalian, incredibly friendly and impeccably educated (he told me he liked to read commentaries on US foreign policy, one of which he pointed to on his passenger seat -- Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and The Roots of Terror). Blimey.
One hour, a gas-station stop, a scintillating conversation, about 50 photographs I hurriedly snapped of towns we whizzed by, and $92 (!!) later, I was in Bridgton and looking up at the red brick façade of Birthwise Midwifery School, in the humid summer evening air.
Immediately, student midwives scurried around me, hugging me hello, making herbal tea, asking me questions, and sharing their dinner (of miso soup, avocado maki rolls, crab salad, and Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice-cream -- hardly the New England Clam Chowder I'd been expecting, but who in their right mind would complain?!). It was glorious.
But I was tired. Tired isn't the word. At 9pm, after attempting to stay awake long enough to watch a DVD with the lovely women and barely managing to keep my eyes open for the title menu, I retired to my temporary room in the Birth House (attached to the school building but nonetheless a free-standing, midwife-owned birthing centre for the public). I'd forgotten to ask for a blanket and was frankly too tired to go upstairs again and get hold of one, so I pulled my houndstooth winter coat out of my suitcase in the dark, climbed onto the futon, covered myself with the coat, clutched my beloved Scottie-dog toy, Julian, to my chest and shut my weary eyes.
As I fell asleep, I thought, this is the place that will make me a midwife.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
future (part two)
Films I watched on the plane (to kill time, because sleeping upright on a twenty-hour flight was near-impossible even for me -- and those who know me, know very well how unshakably deeply I sleep under all sorts of bizarre circumstances): Definitely, Maybe; Made of Honor; Smart People (partially).
With my mind suitably numbed by the above pop-cult entertainment, and my tummy hesitantly accepting of the fact that an entire day's worth of meals (yes, dinner, lunch AND breakfast) would be served - thousands of feet above the ground - in dinky little portions on plastic trays, I snuggled under my nylon Delta blankie and tried to contemplate my fate.
Didn't actually get to contemplate much before we touched down in Dakar, Senegal, for a brief refuelling session and to drop off a few passengers. The rest of us didn't leave the plane, and after an hour we took off again to head straight across the Atlantic.
It would be another 8 hours or so before the next touchdown, in Atlanta. As we crossed a further four time-zones, my night was punctuated with weird dreamless "sleep", the sounds of babies crying and the occasional sharp elbow-nudge from my equally restless co-passenger.
We landed at 08h07 (US Eastern time, six hours behind South African time) at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. I had a connecting flight to Portland, Maine, 1 1/2 hours after landing, so I was pretty anxious when I stepped off the plane to face a 45-minute queue at customs/immigration. I was photographed, fingerprinted and questioned along with everybody else; all my papers scrupulously examined.
I was set free, only to face another half-hour wait, along with everyone else, at 'Agriculture Inspection'... Still not sure what the point of that was. Perhaps they suspected I was an alien plant? Everybody who had checked in a weapon as part of their luggage -- and there were plenty people like that -- skipped the queue and got 'processed' first. Meanwhile, there were families with several small children (one couple had a three-year-old son and 9-month-old twin girls) who had to wait it out for ages in this paint-fumey lounge with exposed construction beams all around. That's not right, people!
I got out at 09h30, precisely when my connecting flight was due to take off. [Don't panic, I kept saying to myself. But I feared I was in for a lot of money.]
The über-friendly Delta employee at the re-booking counter was the saviour of the day. She said, I wasn't the first person ever to miss my flight (well, it was the first time it'd ever happened to me...), and that "Delta takes care of these things". Well, she provisionally booked me on the next flight, at 14h40. The flight was full, but she said there'd probably be a last-minute cancellation or a no-show. Failing that, the last flight I could board was at 8pm, which would bring me in to Portland around midnight - meaning a 1am arrival in Bridgton at the earliest. Too terrible to contemplate, so I put my faith in the universe that the 2pm flight would 'grow' an extra seat for me meanwhile.
I changed money at a ridiculously unfavourable rate (no time to do it at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg), but at least I finally had some greenbacks in hand. Feeling secure in at least a few, small areas helped a great deal, since I was starting to feel vulnerable and a little afraid. I called the school to say not to come and get me, since Ritchie would be waiting for a non-passenger, but she'd already left for Portland to run some errands and she didn't have a mobile phone. Aaargh! So guilt was added to my arm's-length list of emotions to process. I then put some money into a stand-up internet station and tried to chat to P over Gmail, but I couldn't get the simplistic keyboard to work properly. Bloody hell! He suggested a few things to fix the problem, none of which succeeded, so we settled on a few brief e-mail exchanges. I was SO relieved to let him know what was going on, but somehow the interaction with him gave me a shock, made me realise suddenly how much distance I'd stretched out between us in the previous 24 hours. I envisioned the globe in my mind, like those screen-shots you get on the plane of where the tiny little aircraft icon is along the yellow line between departure point and destination. I felt very small.
I locked myself in the loo, upset and screaming inwardly that I must have made some terrible mistake! But the pagan gods (who probably heeded Y's blessing to me at my farewell dinner) conspired to smooth the way for me. And pave it with gold and line it with flowers, even.
Stay tuned, dear friends...
With my mind suitably numbed by the above pop-cult entertainment, and my tummy hesitantly accepting of the fact that an entire day's worth of meals (yes, dinner, lunch AND breakfast) would be served - thousands of feet above the ground - in dinky little portions on plastic trays, I snuggled under my nylon Delta blankie and tried to contemplate my fate.
Didn't actually get to contemplate much before we touched down in Dakar, Senegal, for a brief refuelling session and to drop off a few passengers. The rest of us didn't leave the plane, and after an hour we took off again to head straight across the Atlantic.
It would be another 8 hours or so before the next touchdown, in Atlanta. As we crossed a further four time-zones, my night was punctuated with weird dreamless "sleep", the sounds of babies crying and the occasional sharp elbow-nudge from my equally restless co-passenger.
We landed at 08h07 (US Eastern time, six hours behind South African time) at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. I had a connecting flight to Portland, Maine, 1 1/2 hours after landing, so I was pretty anxious when I stepped off the plane to face a 45-minute queue at customs/immigration. I was photographed, fingerprinted and questioned along with everybody else; all my papers scrupulously examined.
I was set free, only to face another half-hour wait, along with everyone else, at 'Agriculture Inspection'... Still not sure what the point of that was. Perhaps they suspected I was an alien plant? Everybody who had checked in a weapon as part of their luggage -- and there were plenty people like that -- skipped the queue and got 'processed' first. Meanwhile, there were families with several small children (one couple had a three-year-old son and 9-month-old twin girls) who had to wait it out for ages in this paint-fumey lounge with exposed construction beams all around. That's not right, people!
I got out at 09h30, precisely when my connecting flight was due to take off. [Don't panic, I kept saying to myself. But I feared I was in for a lot of money.]
The über-friendly Delta employee at the re-booking counter was the saviour of the day. She said, I wasn't the first person ever to miss my flight (well, it was the first time it'd ever happened to me...), and that "Delta takes care of these things". Well, she provisionally booked me on the next flight, at 14h40. The flight was full, but she said there'd probably be a last-minute cancellation or a no-show. Failing that, the last flight I could board was at 8pm, which would bring me in to Portland around midnight - meaning a 1am arrival in Bridgton at the earliest. Too terrible to contemplate, so I put my faith in the universe that the 2pm flight would 'grow' an extra seat for me meanwhile.
I changed money at a ridiculously unfavourable rate (no time to do it at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg), but at least I finally had some greenbacks in hand. Feeling secure in at least a few, small areas helped a great deal, since I was starting to feel vulnerable and a little afraid. I called the school to say not to come and get me, since Ritchie would be waiting for a non-passenger, but she'd already left for Portland to run some errands and she didn't have a mobile phone. Aaargh! So guilt was added to my arm's-length list of emotions to process. I then put some money into a stand-up internet station and tried to chat to P over Gmail, but I couldn't get the simplistic keyboard to work properly. Bloody hell! He suggested a few things to fix the problem, none of which succeeded, so we settled on a few brief e-mail exchanges. I was SO relieved to let him know what was going on, but somehow the interaction with him gave me a shock, made me realise suddenly how much distance I'd stretched out between us in the previous 24 hours. I envisioned the globe in my mind, like those screen-shots you get on the plane of where the tiny little aircraft icon is along the yellow line between departure point and destination. I felt very small.
I locked myself in the loo, upset and screaming inwardly that I must have made some terrible mistake! But the pagan gods (who probably heeded Y's blessing to me at my farewell dinner) conspired to smooth the way for me. And pave it with gold and line it with flowers, even.
Stay tuned, dear friends...
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