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...