Keep calm and call the midwife.

So it turns out without planning it I’m semi retired. This time nine months ago was when my midwifery partner - my other spouse - stopped work. I was crazy busy at the time and heading into five months without a backup until my new partner graduated.

So with no control over my workload at that stage I started turning away new clients and basically only taking repeat ones. I think I also had dreams of allowing time to write a book 🤣. As a protective mechanism it helped my mental load at the time - but now I suddenly have hardly any clients over the next few months.

I’m the first to admit a rest was needed but tell that to the bank manager 😬. I firmly believe it’s all about balance and that’s how to survive in this on call game. If only we could actually plan how the day would go though!

My need for a break from carrying the mental load of 40 clients as well as mum, wife, friend, half arsed farmer and mad potter was very evident the other week as I tried to fill my cup at my sculpture course.

Before I even left the house (yes, coffee in hand) the phone had rung for work three times. Mainly chasing a referral to an IT hacked hospital that we now no longer have any way of knowing they have received 😡. It’s time consuming, frustrating and concerning. It leaves your mind distracted making mental notes about when and who to follow up with….

I was also a little late out the door as I had to clean up cat spew that I had managed to walk across the floor. And then I had to wash my shoe 🙄

I checked the kiln for a sneaky peak before getting in the car. Expecting beautiful glazes I was met by brown calf poo coloured sludgy looking pots! Shit, it looked like a 1970s Crown Lynn party gone wrong. We must have had a power cut half way through the firing. So I reset it and started again, crossing my fingers and having conversations in my head about how to tell my girlfriends that their works of art looked like calf shit.

So now I was really late. Half an hours drive later whilst I was on the phone giving advice to my midwifery partner, I drove into the carpark at the pottery society. And drove straight into someone’s tow bar.

And joy oh joy they were still in the car.

And of course they were on the same course as me. There was no leaving a note and skulking off.

She was parked too far back and over my park but I had the good sense not to mention that part. Turns out her towbar was fine, much better than my bumper. Oh well, I hadn’t fixed the other scrapes from the concrete step leaping at me after that manic hospital dawn escape a few months back. Anyway I may as well wait for the hat trick and fix it then. It’s bound to come.

Embarrassing though!

Normally my driving is pretty good. Honest. But my mind was definitely elsewhere. It must have stayed there - because my cockups weren’t finished. I went on to break my figurine’s hair off in more than one place. My painting was so messy I had to give her freckles. But at least these things were mistakes on my own work…

The tutor gave me a hurry up to spray glaze on another piece. A planter with a face that we had all made one of in the first week. Some of us were painting them black. Some white. So I grabbed my piece and did a fine job - if I may say so myself - of spraying it black. I was really pleased with how it looked. Then the tutor held up another planter and asked whose it was…. Ummmm mine?

So then I had to find the owner of the one I had sprayed. Of course she was the last person I asked. So everyone knew. And of course it was the same person I had rear ended. And OF COURSE she had wanted hers white. I would have quite liked a teleporter about then. Instead I just resumed my grovelling routine.

All this before 11am

On the way home I had to pick up a trade me purchase. I parked in a massive puddle. Didn’t notice. Stepped out straight into a pothole and completely buried my converse and the bottom of my jeans in muddy water. Murphy’s law ensured it was the shoe I had earlier cleaned. Then I had to slosh up and knock on the door. She politely said nothing.

I had planned on some other errands while in town but decided it was wiser to head home and stay inside. What a day. Things are supposed to come in three’s! I had lost count.

You’ll be pleased to know that after a week of chilling I now have my brain back. I’ve even done some chores and cleaned that coffee off my window. Can’t believe I had to do that myself though mum 🙄.

I felt human again, rested and keen to actually do some things. Then I watched the ‘Sunday’ episode about the midwife working on her own in the East Cape. Her area covered is much wider than mine, but boy I bet all midwives could relate. I had tears in my eyes when she tried to hold it together when asked if she was tired. Then I wanted to yell at the telly.

But as midwives we’ve been yelling for a while now. No one in power is listening. The mood amongst us over this past year feels like it is becoming one of apathy. We don’t have it in us to fight anymore. We are all starting to save ourselves instead. Midwives are leaving in droves, to Aussie, to part time work, to other jobs. I know midwives who have left to take minimum wage jobs just to be out of the system.

All this in the country that has the best maternity system in the world. The best outcomes for women, the least interventions. All because of our continuity of care model. Our clients know and trust us. Because we are ALWAYS available.

The best, most coveted system in the world.

That is killing the midwives.

We are going to lose this system. If the Ministry of Health and the government would only acknowledge what primary care in people’s homes saves the country in health dollars down the track. Although yes it’s out of my scope I get asked so many health questions by whanau when I’m doing a visit and as a result end up offering advice around nutrition and natural remedies that may help.

Not to mention the cost of a homebirth versus a hospital stay! Don’t get me started on that 😉

So that’s me. No exciting birth stories just yet. I’m still doing the miles in my car postnatally, but listening to some good books on the way. I’m filling my cup so I can keep going for another few years is this wonderful but f*#*ing exhausting job of helping babies meet their mums.