National Midwifery Week

Six years ago this week, I started my midwife career. Over six years ago, I started writing this blog. Given that, I thought that maybe I'd have something to say about National Midwifery Week. Truth is, all week I've struggled with what to write. I've loved seeing fellow midwives, those with regular social media presences and those typically more quiet online, write about their work and their passion. It usually isn't so hard for me to conjure up something to say. I'm usually off and typing with just a few filters applied to the topic: What personal thoughts do I want to share about myself as a midwife after six years? What is it that I'm thinking about midwifery, about my work in this field, about the midwife community? What is it that I want to share about my everyday clinical practice, and the people I'm honored to serve? And what could I provide as hopeful posturing for the future? Still, nothing, until this morning, when Facebook showed me my first day of work picture from six years ago.Call it the fact that I feel my passion, and fury, for the everyday moments in this current political climate are shared with my wife. I have found a home for not only my heart, but also my anger about the world as it is right now: there is a solace and a truth in being seen in those intense moments, and honestly sharing them with someone. Realizing this recently has rocked me to the core, and is an incredible strength in my relationship. Perhaps that leads me less and less to my keyboard for lengthy blog-post-processing at the ends of days, and I'm more prone to sharing in the immediate moment on social media streams. Believe me, each day is rife with novels-full of things to say: nothing has changed there.Call it the fact that I felt personally, and wholly, celebrated recently. My sisters-in-law and my best friend mentioned my feminist midwifery work in their speeches for my wife and I at our wedding. One SIL discussed how I talked her through her own cervical exam, and sweeping her membranes, when she was doing whatever it took to encourage her labor. Another SIL discussed how I speak boldly about reproductive rights, and how my bold advocacy was one of the things that Lindsay found attractive early in our dating. And my best friend (also a midwife) spoke about my work in abortion and justice, and how being married to a midwife is both hard and amazing.Call it the fact that lately, truthfully, the daily grind of midwifery work feels small compared to the need to speak openly about my existence in the world as a woman, as a queer person, as someone married to another woman, as a sexual assault survivor, as someone who speaks loudly about supporting abortion rights, as a white person supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and immigrant rights, as a cis person supporting trans and non-binary rights, as an intersectional feminist who seeks to challenge white feminists... midwifery can feel small within all of that.Call it the fact that the ways in which midwifery can feel big and important have let me down recently. In six years, my and others' intentional work in the midwifery field feels like it's made few strides. Midwives as a community continue to push back on caring for trans and non-binary folks, push back on whether abortion is part of our work, push back on perceived challenges to diversifying the profession. Midwives still consider feminism an optional filter to apply to their work and voice when it works for them: intersectional feminism even more discretionary and selectively applied.Call it the fact that my daily act of being a midwife has felt unseen and unimportant the last few weeks. My clinic mornings start out with a review of the prior day's unmet productivity, staring down the list of twenty-five scheduled patients, feeling like there's never enough time or emotional space to truly care for someone, and always being behind in appointment times, lab follow-up, writing charts, and being present for student learning. Labor shifts can feel like opportunities to catch-up on all of those things or actually sleep after a long week, rather than connect with coworkers or enjoy a labor and birth or revel in small moments of midwifery bliss. This week, stepping in to help physicians with a birth on a busy night shift felt momentarily great, tamped down when the attending poked their head in to the room, looked past me to critique the intern, and then claimed billing rights.Call it the fact that I'm tired. That I look at that first day of work picture and I'm not sure how to feel about these past six years of midwifery work. Call it the fact that midwifery week is largely unseen and uncelebrated by those who aren't midwives. That I, and our community, need more midwives who challenge each other on the daily grind, and on the big stuff, so it doesn't feel like a select few always stepping forward. That I love my life at home and cherish that time and need it to feel like a whole person, so sometimes that means writing less often. Call it the fact that writing about midwifery, when it doesn't feel like it gets somewhere, gets me down. Call it the fact that writing about other things feels more important. Call it the fact that there are others whose voices should rise to the top before mine, and I can join in the chorus and elevate their work before adding my own. Call it the fact that writing about my frustrations as a midwife don't seem all that celebratory.I love being a midwife. It is my life's work, one of my identities, and my way of existing in the world. And, at the same time there is this parallel truth: it's hard AF to be a midwife, and lately to be a midwife who stands up for (in no particular order) intersectional feminism, reproductive justice, abortion, black lives, immigrant rights, queer and trans care, and diversifying the profession. This midwifery work, the way that I choose to do it, is everything to me.Call it what it is: midwifery is hard right now. And, at the same time there is this parallel truth: I wouldn't have it any other way.