Follow your bliss

"If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time."

--Joseph Campbell

My bliss is not really allowing me to follow it at the moment. Sigh ok sure that's the point. That if I follow the tiny smidge of bliss in my life I will live the life I should be living.

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure. 

--Joseph Campbell

So I decided after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing that I would apply for a graduate position as a midwife. At best, it would mean I have another option for 2012, as our house purchase fell through due to a technicality in our financing (damn you GFC!)

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.

--Joseph Campbell

I'm trying to embrace all of these things.

I am waiting until 15 September to find out what is happening with my court case. Chances are that there will be another delay, to go with the other 4 that I've had. Colour me VERY surprised if that doesn't happen.
We will decide what we're doing with housing then. Until then, just staying in the moment. Surrounded by boxes.
We will get a rental for 6 months (Sept-March) in an area we like - on the tram line perhaps? Near the beach? Near a cafe strip?
Or if we do settle, we'll look into buying a house.
Then early November I'll find out if anyone wants to take me on as a graduate (bwahahahahaha I'm not betting that they will - I am brilliant on paper until you get to the "Do you have a disability" part and then I'm sure I'll go to the bottom of the list). But I think I can set a start date for March 2012.
The adventure is that I've applied for country placements. Which makes life more complicated but more of an adventure!
Which leaves me with finishing up at Bunnings in December, after 5 years there. I'll have to work out what to do with the shares I hold in the Bunnings parent company when I leave there.

But for now, I'm just waiting for TheBabe to drive around on her car.

Back to midwifery

There is a lot of swirling in midwifery recently - the past 2 weeks have been rather tumultuous.

Which made me realise that I've not posted about midwifery in a long time. Lots of reasons - I am only 15 weeks away from finishing my degree, I have applied for a graduate position after a LOT of heartache and back and forthing with TheHusband, and it's just been a damn hard slog. I'm a little over it but I also need to dive back in.

But recently there's been a lot in the media - one midwife dragged into court to face a very one-sided roasting, midwives running around like chickens sans head about nothing, and lots of mentions about the rate of homebirths going up. All things to tempt me out of the hermitage!

And getting my brain working again. What I think this adds up to is that there is a push to define what a midwife is. Not just in the ways it's been done (to death) already but in a specific, task-oriented, check this list kind of way. So that if you palpate a belly, check any physiological measure, or whatever I've spent the past 5 years learning how to do - not the important stuff of working with women but the practical skills - then I need to be registered. And just as practicing medicine without a license is a crime, so practicing midwifery without registration will be.

And what that means is that only registered midwives will be allowed to practice midwifery. So midwives who are off the register won't be allowed to practice. Not just "are not allowed to call themselves midwives" but won't be allowed to support women in pregnancy or birth. Which I think is what some midwives in private practice have been working towards all along. And it will be the undoing of midwifery and be more limiting that freeing.

Midwifery will get more few layers. Doulas who do the old-fashioned and SO VALUABLE stuff of midwifery of supporting women in their travail with no medical advice involved; lay midwives who combine herbology, aromatherapy, body work, psychology and so much else to caring for women in their community; registered midwives in private practice hog-tied by insurance and regulation to not attend anyone who is not perfectly "no risk"; eligible for Medicare registered midwives doing even less midwifery and more paperwork; and the rest of the midwives who are able to go to work in the system.

And thus there will be another change in how women are served. We started off attending the births of our friends and neighbours, then worked on our own, trained apprentices doing the attending and so on. We tended our gardens and the ill, laid out the dead and welcomed the new, and our reputations were the most important.

Then changes came with the invention of anaesthetic and forceps and thus obstetricians were separated from midwives and the skills were separated. And so much was lost for the women.

Then into the hospitals.
Then into the universities.
And now this.

Call me paranoid but I think the persecution of Lisa for her role in a tragedy that had little to do with her and instead is part of the push to define midwives and limit practice of my craft to only those that hold registration.

To the woman in the shops today with the child...

I came home today from work and saw an article by Janet Fraser entitled "To the woman at the shops with the weeping babe".

I saw you today, at the shops, my sister. I saw you pushing a pram, perusing scarves, unable to respond to the bleating, hiccupping cries and jagged breaths of your newborn. I heard the babe cry out over and over, “Help me. Hold me close. Comfort me. Show me I’m not alone.” and yet in your aloneness, you were kept from responding. Was I seeing the trauma of your babe’s birth in action? The fragmented care of a brutal maternity system which prizes compliance above wellness? The ugly effects of industrialised parenting and the mould into which we are all shoved in this 21st century Sparta? I saw your babe’s face as she shut down and stared blankly at you from the pram and I felt my heart break for you both.

And it has encouraged me to write about something I saw today.

I see you, woman that could be me. I saw you stalk by, wound up tighter than a spring and glowering at everyone who passed. You were a woman on a retail mission today, something clasped in your hand and an item in your mind. You and many others were in the store and they were in your way and I could see that everything was going to annoy you. How much it clearly annoyed you that your child was with you, that your child existed in your timeline for consumption today.

I saw your daughter, frisky and boisterous in her enjoyment of the freedom of childhood. Probably irritating as fingers through cornflour, but really, what harm is there in a little frustration at your offspring's mercurial and inexplicable moods? As you stalked by she stopped to gather a trolley for her treasures. Isn't that what childhood is about? Learning to borrow a trolley, learning to keep your treasures safe and enjoying the excitement of a trip to a store when the reason is lost on you? Isn't it about taking time slowly because childhood whips past so quickly? About learning the tradeoffs between having to suffer the inconvenience of accompanying your mother to the shops instead of the park, because you get a trolley for a few minutes?

Is it really important that you had to stop a moment to untangle the trolley for your daughter? Her yelp at being caught up on another trolley was one of frustration but perhaps, if you'd waited, she would have sorted it out and you could have had a wry smile on your face, a mixture of pride and amusement and something to salve your own anger. And she would have happily gamboled along with you instead of slinking along, rubbing her thigh.

Instead, at that yelp, I saw your anger, your hurt, your baggage, gather suddenly and focus on your child and instead of helping her, you rounded on her and took two swooping fast strides down from the pedestal you are on as her mother, and even as she said "No mummy!" in a thin piping but strong voice, you picked her up and bundled her down an aisle and slapped her. I heard it, clear as day. You smacked her, in public and in a way that made me shake on the inside. In a way that reminded me of a childhood, and made me feel sick.

No one stopped you. No one asked if she was alright, even as she cried and you picked her up roughly and continued to stalk down the store. I hope you were mortified and embarrassed, just as I was shaking and upset at this and had to take a few deep breaths.

And I'm no better for putting my employment above standing up for a child.



If my husband did that to me, there would be police called and cups of tea made but because it's a parent doing it to a child, it's ok in many people's eyes. I hate people who hit their children. There is not justification for it. It is wrong and a symptom of how screwed up the world is that people are going to argue with me on that.


 I remember being smacked by my parents and what I remember isn't the lesson learned - I remember so many other things and so many chips in our relationship.

Seventeen months old!

Dear S - you have been with me in individuality for 17 months. You have turned my world upside down and back to front and put it back together in ways I can't convey and can't quite believe.

In the past week, you have become even more amazing and astounding. You've learnt so many words! Book, sock, fish, cheese, peas, beer, biscuit, car, cat... and so many more! Mama, daddy, papa, Katie and Zaza as well. You also waited last Saturday for me to get home to show me that you can clamber up my side and let go and stand on your own.

You've done some growing as well - 80cm long and out of a heap of your size 1 tops! You are 10kg and because of the increase in your length/height I am loving wrapping you on my back again. I know you're growing because you've gone back to a 7am wakeup, morning napy and then midday nap. That and eating me out of most things in the fridge.

You love reading books and making noises for things, such as a dog bark (urh urh) and beep beep on a nose. You are suddenly in love with a stuffed cotton bunny that I wish I could remember the gifter for, and it's cute to see you ask for it last thing at night. You have so many words for foods and feed me and hungry and more and I love the amazing leaps you're making in communication. Which is lovely given that you spent last week screeching in frustration at me and not sleeping. But the LEAP in development is pay off.

Oh baby do you love dancing! And talking, singing, la la la ing along, and having whole conversations with people. You love to say "Haaaaiiiii!" to anyone we see and you love to smile with your whole body. You love food - mandarin, cheese, peas, meat, egg, grapes. Not so keen on banana and avocado.

You are slightly a neat freak with sorting and storing things. You get a bit upset when things aren't in the right spots and love to unpack the plates cupboard or the baking drawer. Your receptive language is obviously huge compared to your spoken language and I have to be careful to remember that. You can stack blocks, play with a large ball, put things away and LOVE musical instruments and shaking things for rhythm.

A pencil or crayon and some paper and you're a happy girl. You love to scribble and write and play with colour. You love watching me draw as well and are impressed with my skills which is amusing given I have no drawing skills! You ask "Whatisthat!?" all the time and can follow instructions sometimes. You do get upset when something bad happens though - a spilled glass of water or a broken glass and you're upset even if I or TheHusband don't show any kind of upset. 

It's funny isn't it that so many of your fine motor skills are well developd but you're not walking yet. You crawl and climb and clamber and frankly, I'm fine with you not walking just yet. You're hard enough work without that added bonus! I know you'll get there really soon - just in time for summer so you can toddle in the park and at the beach and in the bush. You can feed yourself well, love using adult-sized cutlery and insist on eating what I'm having which means that I'm watching what I eat a lot more than I used to! You love yoghurt and brown rice and fruit, or porridge.

You are the light of my life. My life revolves around you and I love it.

Blargh

I have a strange thing with my chest. I've had whooping cough twice, and when I get a cold or anything in Winter I get asthma that flares up. It sucks and is frustrating and distracting from the rest of the things I have to think about. Especially when I don't like taking my inhaler for it as it gives me the shakes but don't have many other options and have a lot to think on!

It's kind of a long list at the moment. Buying a house is heinously stressful. There is so much crap and fluff and ritual around it. So many boxes to tick and fit into and then other bits that are skated over. It's kind of confusing for the first timer, ya know? And then when I know what I'm doing it'll all be done and I won't do this again evah ;).

I did joke to TheHusband today that the next time we buy our first home it'll be a lot easier. Har har.

At this stage, we are settling at the end of August and moving in the first half of September. Our landlord who is a GEM has offered to advertise the place from that stage as well which means we *might* not have to pay rent at the same time as rent. Maybe.

Add to that that my last placement EVAH for my degree is going to be difficult to manage because I got option number "not even on my list" which means I have to drive an hour each way each shift and there's a lot on my mind at the moment. But I have been doing some knitting - I finished another Milo just the other day, and have knit more of my super secret project as well.

And look! I posted a blog post. Which isn't a fabulous one (yes I did take my inhaler and am all over the place) but it is done! Good night.