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.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
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...
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