How do i put this?? For the past 15 years i have wanted to be a midwife. The first homebirth I attended in 1991 changed my life. My apprenticeship for the past two months, during this time of massive, mind-blowing changes in my family have served to help me realize a few things. In order to enjoy my life, travel, do the things i want, i cannot become a midwife. I need to utilize the things i have learned and stop putting my life on hold for a fulfillment of a dream that was not meant to be. I could write about the beautiful, empowering birth I stayed up at all night to witness two nights ago...but I am going to go a different direction. Entirely.
My belief is that when things feel like a struggle, when you have too many pieces of the puzzle to make one thing work...maybe it is not meant to be. I have learned to trust God...that the "steps of a righteous man are ordered of God" Maybe my midwifery goal was my idea of how to get what i wanted. However, I trust God with my life. And like many times before, He allowed me to get so far and gently is nudging me in a different direction.
My many, many years as a Christian have taught me that I have a Heavenly Father who knows me BETTER than i know myself and fulfills me better and promises to "give me the desires of my heart". My own husband is testimony to that...that i married a man whom i did not want at first, but when I saw the vision of he and I together in old age, I knew he was "the one". I followed that voice, and despite our ups and downs, I am in love with my man, my best friend, and truly our lives have been blessed. The Next major thing is our foster babies. (We affectionately refer to them as "the babies.") I am now mother of six, or soon-to-be officially, and I would never have chosen that for myself. All i have chosen is to obey, and I already feel the start of the blessing in that.
As for midwifery, when I came home depressed, maybe that was the sign. Or maybe its because economically midwives are dependent on people to pay and in hard times, they don't . Or maybe its because I can't throw a party with friends because I may have to run off to a birth. Maybe it was the realization that they work seven days a week without a day off....plus an all nighter on average once/week. Maybe it was my realization that it is an old dream, and I have changed so much since i first set out to do it. Maybe it is the realization that my dreams are bigger than midwifery can give me as a profession. Or that my kids are my priority. Maybe it was the realization that I can't commit to being "grad night coordinator mom" or "assistant soccer coach mom" if I am also a midwife. Maybe it was the realization that spontaneous over-nighters to santa cruz are out of the questions. Dropping my Student Midwife title doesn't make me as sad as I thought, it actually makes me excited for my future.
I serve a really, really big God. He has blessed my socks off and now as I shed the old and look forward to the new, when i am living in His will, I get ready for the roller coaster ride. I know that I don't know what is around the corner, but that it is good. I can have the "confident expectation of good things" when I am living for Him. WOW. How great is that??
My heart is still for teaching women and empowering them to have a satisfying birth. I still have many options to be involved in birth, including doula work, and even make some money at it...but I am qualified to do much, much more than midwifery. As I begin to focus on the things that qualify as "my bliss", I believe i will be successful without compromising all the other things i hope to do, see, and become.
You always amaze me and bring tears to my eyes. When I need encouragement and am feeling like I can't do.. I find you somewhere(email, myspace, facebook, here, in my phone address book) and I am lifted back towards where I should be heading instead of being stuck. You remind me to look up instead of looking within. Thank you! You are in my prayers. Hugs Holli
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