In Celebration of My Uterus - Ann Sexton

Everyone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings.
They wanted to cut you out
but they will not.
They said you were immeasurably empty
but you are not.
They said you were sick unto dying
but they were wrong.
You are singing like a school girl. 
You are not torn.


Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
and of the soul of the woman I am
and of the central creature and its delight
I sing for you. I dare to live.
Hello, spirit. Hello, cup.
Fasten, cover. Cover that does contain. 
Hello to the soil of the fields.
Welcome, roots.  


Each cell has a life.
There is enough here to please a nation.
It is enough that the populace own these goods.
Any person, any commonwealth would say of it,
"It is good this year that we may plant again
and think forward to a harvest.
A blight had been forecast and has been cast out."
Many women are singing together of this:
one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
one is at the toll gate collecting,
one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
one is straddling a cello in Russia,
one is shifting pots on the stove in Egypt,
one is painting her bedroom walls moon color,
one is dying but remembering a breakfast,
one is stretching on her mat in Thailand,
one is wiping the ass of her child,
one is staring out the window of a train
in the middle of Wyoming and one is 
anywhere and some are everywhere and all
seem to be singing, although some can not
sing a note.


Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
let me carry a ten-foot scarf,
let me drum for the nineteen-year-olds,
let me carry bowls for the offering
(if that is my part).
Let me study the cardiovascular tissue,
let me examine the angular distance of meteors,
let me suck on the stems of flowers
(if that is my part).
Let me make certain tribal figures
(if that is my part).
For this thing the body needs
let me sing 
for the supper,
for the kissing,
for the correct
yes. 


Ann Sexton

life is a highway...highway 104

so much fun. 


christmas has come on gone. lonely this year. but alright. cooked up a bit of tradition and skyped with the family. that was good.


settling in to the new place. being productive.


tending the fire. 


it's a quiet life up here. working. waiting for the babies. meeting new people. 


took my car in for an oil change and they asked me where i'd been. "looks like you've been having fun!"


waiting on babies. babies please please come. but not tomorrow. tomorrow i have a date and i want to enjoy nature for a minute. even tomorrow night would be fine. tonight not so much. i haven't slept. i should be sleeping. but i've been studying like a diligent student midwife. 


still have three multips in dates and i leave in a week. oh how i don't want to miss them! this going away for classes is troublesome. 


six more months. six more months then there won't be anymore distractions. no more pulling me away. 


six more months. 


every birth i attend i'm learning more. growing more. feeling more and more at home. 


six more months and i feel like i can grasp hold of this path. 

best job ever or a week in the life or i want cowboy boots now that i live in the country.

this last month has been filled with ups and downs. 

i lost someone important to me. my sisters father in-law. he was a very special man. he fought a battle with leukemia and past away last month, a month after my sister and her husband got married. it was a beautiful ceremony and a wonderful celebration. i feel honoured to have sat across from him and was fortunate to spend that with him. from the beginning of my sister and her partners relationship our two families worked as one. we spent the holidays together and i was invited over for many a sunday dinners throughout university. 

it was hard not being able to go home for his funeral. on top of this loss a plague fell upon our house. my housemate found a lump in her breast. the dog was diagnosed with malignant cancer. we were left with no option but to leave the house we were in and were all in a position of finding a new place to live. 

in the end it all has worked out. the lump was a cyst, the dog had the cancer removed and although i'm sadly parting ways with a family that i love and kids that i will thoroughly miss living with, we've all found wonderful new accommodations. tom and christine are moving to the island, to a farm, a proper farm owned by a family that wants the farm to come alive again. i wish i could join them. me. i've moved in with melissa, the other student midwife. 

we live in a cabin built in 1900, described as the size of a "postage stamp". it's got a wood stove to heat the house and backs on to port gamble bay. it cute and quaint and the land lady put up plastic on the window today. it's toasty warm. 

so amidst all of this chaos wonderful things have emerged. 

we've had several really lovely births in the last while. the team that we have is working out the kinks of our system. the way to enable both melissa and i told get our numbers.

our numbers. after two and a half years. i'm starting to think about numbers. i'm recognizing my strengths and my weaknesses. i feel stronger since i've moved to the northwest. mental, physically, emotionally. still of course i am the emotional being that i am and i still have a lot to figure out, but i've grown into the persona of a midwife. i feel more secure in this identity, but i still have to learn to give myself enough credit. i know that i can be my own worst enemy. that i will be the one to destroy myself, my relationships, opportunities; if i allow it.

from this day on i need to remind myself to be grateful for what i have, to appreciate myself and what i have been given in this world. to take advantage of it, make the most of it and to see myself as having knowledge, skills and value. 

-----------

a week in review. the life of a student midwife. 

went to clinic monday morning. started with a home visit on the other side of the bridge in this lovely wee village. got to love on two new babies and hang out with a couple mothers-to-be.  as i was getting dropped off i got the call to a birth. turning around i met the other midwife and was part of one of the best labours and births i have ever had the honour to be part of. 

this mother was so into her labour, into the feelings and sensations as the baby descended into her pelvis into the birth canal and emerged into this world. 

i got home at nine the next morning, started a fire and crawled into bed after eating the grilled cheese sandwich i had been craving since lunch the day before. i woke up in the afternoon and heated the house to the point that i could only be in my knickers. it was luscious. cooked good hearty food. yellow split peas and acorn squash. 

wednesday started with a postpartum visit. family settling in beautifully. then chart review. prenatals. manastats. in the evening, i returned to the new families house to encapsulate their placenta. i love this part. 

in the end only about half the placenta was dehydrated. we made the mother a smoothie and then froze small pieces of the raw placenta so that she could continue having her smoothies for the next week or so. home at nine. 

today. back to the farm to collect the last of my things. hugged on the kids. heart melted when little abby reached for me from her mothers back and clung to me and nuzzled into me. loved on me. how these little ones work there way into my heart. back to finish the encapsulation and then off to my midwife's house to "work". really. the intention was there. instead we went grocery shopping. loved that her son grabbed my hand as we walked through the parking lot. seriously. these little ones. got back and then did paperwork. my paperwork. but paperwork none the less. home. dinner. writing. fighting sleep. how i want to sleep. 

not all of it sexy and exciting. but i wouldn't change where i am for anything.  

seriously. best job ever. 

living with you takes the romance out of midwifery

thats what i was told by christine after i was finally home after 3 days of birthing with two strong mothers, and then writing an exam, newborn complications and complications of labour and birth.  

the zombie midwife. the side you never see. go to work monday morning, get home wednesday night.  

put yourself together. go. sleep when and where ever you can. 

i'm craving red meat. i need B vitamins to replenish my stores. 

i wouldn't change a thing.