Midwives of the Revolution

Explorations, analysis, and reflections on reproductive health, birth, and midwifery from a feminist, marxist lens

Tag Archives: midwifery


by Leave a comment

Trans-Affirming Midwifery, Always

Dear readers,

If you are an ACNM (American College of Nurse Midwifery) member, please access and sign the open letter supporting the provision of trans health as a core competency for nurse midwives by clicking the link below.

The letter captures so many sentiments I share about why trans healthcare should be absolutely integrated into nurse midwifery from the beginning. Let’s stop ghettoizing any reproductive healthcare (including miscarriage management, elective abortions, basic assisted reproductive therapies for LGBT clients) — and in this moment, especially trans affirming care — and respond to the fact that queer and trans midwives and clients are demanding an expansion of core care that is appropriate and respectful. And let’s please root out the gender essentialism and transphobia in the midwifery community and the current ACNM leadership! Thank you to all the wonderful folks who put together this letter and who have been working so hard to advance an intersectional feminist leadership in midwifery. Our side will prevail.

-A proud signer to this letter and member of The Queer and Transgender Midwives Association (QTMA)

*********************

As ACNM members, we submit this letter to raise our concerns about the ACNM Board of Directors’ (BOD) recent actions in making decisions about access to care for transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) people in closed session and without any mechanism for transparency or accountability. We submit this letter on Transgender Day of Remembrance in the spirit of honoring the lives of those we have lost to transphobia, and fighting for the rights of those who continue to survive. We are publishing this letter publicly so that midwives and midwifery students can sign on in solidarity.

We are alarmed to learn that at their October 2018 Board meeting, the newly-elected BOD 1) failed to approve proposed revisions to the ACNM Position Statement on care of TGNC people, and 2) failed to uphold the March 2018 decision of the previous BOD, which had confirmed that the midwifery core competencies as they currently stand already include gender affirming hormone therapy for TGNC people. Instead, the BOD rejected the Position Statement, stating that “neither hormone therapy or care of natal men [sic] is a core competency.”

These actions were motivated by concerns regarding midwifery care of transgender women and non-binary people assigned male at birth (referenced by the BOD as “natal men”), and are in direct opposition to the recommendations of the Gender Equity Task Force (GETF) Chair and the Core Competencies Committee Chair. No midwives who identify as TGNC or who provide care to TGNC communities participated in the closed discussions related to these motions.

Frustratingly, the BOD is able to withhold the detailed minutes of their discussion per protocol that only open session minutes are released publicly. The BOD included only very vague information on this discussion in the open session minutes. This is particularly concerning given that these BOD decisions have significant implications for work currently underway by the GETF and a number of ACNM committees. In reviewing the available open session notes, it is notable that the only topics from open session that were moved to closed session were related to midwifery care of TGNC people.

With this letter, we intend to alert the BOD and ACNM’s membership of:

  1. The presence of the many current and future midwives who stand in support of transgender, non-binary, gender-diverse and intersex people;
  2. The importance of midwifery care for these communities;
  3. The ethical implications of the BOD’s lack of transparency; and
  4. The practice implications of these decisions on us all.

The BOD’s actions are very concerning in that they create an impression that gender affirming hormone therapy – widely recognized as straightforward and lifesaving care – is not appropriate for new-to-practice midwives. This creates a barrier to increasing the number of providers equipped to provide this care, a development that is very problematic given the significant and well-documented health disparities experienced by TGNC communities. It is important to remember that midwives – including new midwives – are well versed in many forms of hormone therapy (such as for contraception and for management of menopausal symptoms), and that these other therapies are uncontested in their inclusion in the core competencies. Therefore, the BOD’s exclusion of  only gender affirming hormone therapy specifically and unethically targets TGNC people.

While we cannot presume to know the exact intent of BOD members participating in these decisions, the impact is clear. These decisions are transphobic; they send a message that the current BOD does not view transgender women as “real women” simply because some transgender women have a penis; otherwise they would be deemed inherently appropriate for midwifery care under the ACNM vision of “a midwife for every woman.” Importantly, midwives are able to care for people with penises when it comes to circumcision, as part of expanded midwifery practice. Thus, these motions are clearly not an issue of scope, but of what ACNM leadership finds uncomfortable politically or personally.

The BOD did not specifically state concerns regarding midwifery care of transgender men and non-binary people assigned female at birth. In more neutral circumstances this could be perceived as reassuring or benign. However, in the context of the BOD’s actions it raises concern that the BOD perceives transgender men as “women” regardless of their gender identity, simply because some of these individuals may have breasts, ovaries, a uterus, and a vagina. This negates the true selves and humanity of these individuals, and tarnishes the value of midwifery care by filtering care provision through a lens of transphobia.

Biological determinism, the act of reducing a person’s identity to their body parts, is inhumane, abhorrent, and unconscionable. This is the first time the BOD has attempted to make any distinctions between TGNC individuals based on anatomy. Previous BODs have intentionally described TGNC care inclusively, recognizing that gender is a spectrum and that anatomical distinctions reinforce biological determinism. Our peers in allied professions which have historically defined their scope of practice as “care of women” (Obstetricians/Gynecologists and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioners) have long affirmed that care of all TGNC people – including transgender women – is important and within their scope. Our own prior BOD did the same in March of this year. Yet the current BOD has decided to change course entirely, in a move that favors biological determinism and is particularly foreboding given the current political climate.

Within the past month, the Department of Health and Human Services released a memo stating that it is planning to require that gender be identified as a biological condition determined by genitalia at birth. Immediately, over 2,600 experts in the field, including both scientists and care providers, published a response, stating that to define someone by genitalia is “not only fundamentally inconsistent with science, but also with ethical practices, human rights, and basic dignity.” Why are we, as a profession, reversing our prior well-thought-out decisions and joining in a widespread assault on the rights, bodies, and health of transgender and non-binary people? Why have we sided with anti-science and transphobic positions by defining who midwives can take care of based on their genitals alone?

This position places midwives in the inappropriate position of acting as “gender police” tasked with determining who is “woman enough” to receive midwifery care, and leaves the many midwives already providing sexual and reproductive healthcare to gender diverse patients in professional and licensure limbo. Given research that indicates people of color are more likely to identify as TGNC than their white counterparts, limiting access to care for TGNC people also serves to further the already significant health disparities experienced by communities of color.

The truth is that midwives take care of people, not body parts, and that body parts are not inherently gendered. As midwives we pride ourselves on treating the whole person. We care holistically, we believe what people tell us, and we meet patients where they are. These BOD decisions are ethically in conflict with core midwifery values. Instead of providing guidance for clinicians, they require that we choose between practicing midwifery, and participating in a political decision by our professional organization that privileges bigotry and ignorance over the people harmed by that bigotry. They violate midwifery’s ethical obligations as care providers and reinforce the systemic oppressions already experienced by TGNC and intersex people. They use midwifery as a tool to amplify harm rather than increase equity. That is not acceptable.

We will not stand by as this BOD makes decisions that dehumanize the patient populations we are honored to serve. We will not stand by as this BOD makes decisions that dehumanize our own midwife colleagues who are TGNC or intersex.

We ask the BOD to do the following:

  1. Commit to holding all future discussion of this issue in open session;
  2. Reinstate the March 2018 decision that care of TGNC individuals and provision of gender affirming hormone affirmation therapy falls within entry midwifery care as outlined in the Core Competency document Section V.C.
  3. Approve the revised Position Statement and revised Core Competencies documents as submitted by the GETF to the BOD for the October 2018 meeting, without the addition of restrictions on the care of transgender women or the provision of gender affirming hormone therapy
  4. Charge the GETF and other relevant ACNM Volunteer Committees to work collaboratively to review and update the Midwifery Scope of Practice document to include care for TGNC individuals.
  5. Publicly acknowledge the damage that has been done by the BOD’s recent actions, and outline a plan for accountability in the future, including BOD and DOME additional training in gender diversity and impact on health disparities.
  6. Use respectful and inclusive language when referring to TGNC individuals and communities in all communications and public documents; guided by ACNM’s Issue Brief on “Use of Culturally-Appropriate Terminology for Gender-Diverse Populations
  7. Charge the Ethics Committee to review public documents that have potentially political implications.

We, as individuals deeply committed to increasing healthcare access to TGNC populations, hope that you will join us as we continue to strive towards a more inclusive path for midwifery. These signatures below affirm and signify the gravity of the harm we feel these decisions have brought forth by excluding vulnerable individuals from midwifery care.

We invite you to consider taking the following steps:

  1. Signing this letter in support of inclusion of midwifery care for all bodies;
  2. Sharing this letter with peers, friends, colleagues, and students;
  3. Educating people about affirming language and engaging in conversations in a way that supports all people;
  4. Sending a personalized letter to a regional representative or the BOD;
  5. Running for office, and/or intentionally supporting the leadership of TGNC midwives in regional and national leadership roles, so that we have a Volunteer structure that understands TGNC issues;
  6. Sending a letter to your current midwifery Director or the Director at your Alma Mater, with copies to DOME, to advocate for the inclusion of this education in midwifery programs.

For midwives and midwifery students who are TGNC and LGBQ identified: The Queer and Transgender Midwives Association (QTMA) is dedicated to supporting and representing LGBTQIA2S+ midwives and student midwives as they train and grow as providers and people. QTMA provides educational opportunities, advocacy, community and tools for their members, all grounded in an intersectional ideology and framework. It envisions a world where all LGBTQIA2S+ midwives and student midwives have the resources and representation they need to thrive in practice and in their community. QTMA is fiscally sponsored by the birth justice organization, Elephant Circle. Interested folks can connect with QTMA on their Facebook page or by emailing QTmidwives@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Tillman (she/her), CNM, University of Illinois, Region IV – Chair, ACNM Gender Equity Task Force

Simon Adriane Ellis (they/them, he/him), CNM, Kaiser Permanente Washington, Region VII – Member, ACNM Gender Equity Task Force

Noelene K. Jeffers, (she/her), CNM, Region II, Member, ACNM Gender Equity Task Force

Margaret Haviland (she/her), CNM, WHNP-BC, Kernodle Clinic, Region III, Member – ACNM Gender Equity Task Force

Signey Olson (she/her), CNM, WHNP-BC, Columbia Fertility Associates, Region II – Member, ACNM Gender Equity Task Force

Lily Dalke (she/her), CM, LM, Planned Parenthood NYC, Region I – Member, ACNM Gender Equity Task Force; Member, ACNM Core Competencies Committee

Nikole Gettings (she/her), CNM, Region III- Member, ACNM Gender Equity Task Force

Anne Gibeau (she/her/hers), CNM, PhD, Director of Midwifery – Midwifery Practice, Jacobi Medical Center, Region 1, New York State Association of Licensed Midwives – Downstate Region Representative; Member – ACNM Gender Equity Task Force

Máiri Breen Rothman (she/her), CNM, MSN, FACNM, Director, M.A.M.A.S., Inc., Region II; Member – ACNM Gender Equity Task Force

Meghan Eagen-Torkko (she/her), PhD, CNM, ARNP, University of Washington Bothell and Public Health Seattle-King County, Region VII — Member, ACNM Ethics Committee

Lee Roosevelt (she/her), PhD, MPH, CNM, University of Michigan, Region IV

Jenny Nelson, (she/her), CNM, Region I

Jennifer M. Demma (she/her) MSN, APRN-CNM, Family Tree Clinic, Region V

Rob Reed (they/them), CNM, ARNP, IBCLC, Swedish Medical Center, ACNM Region VII – WA ACNM Affiliate Vice President

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jS9Mxdkh45ROZR38H0yXYVI2Bxh05v6aZhCy0u0m57A/edit?usp=sharing


by Leave a comment

A year in the life of a queer midwife

Over the last year, this CNM has found myself in the midst of needing to make, and then executing, some major personal life changes. While I welcomed 2018 with a fire in my belly around gender and sexual liberation from a political angle, and while countless issues impassioned me throughout the dumpster fire of this year in politics (though, most notably, the global and national war on immigrants and refugees), I learned that my ability to focus on, read about, and articulate my response to these was severely diminished by a need to take care of myself and my child above all.

I am making peace with this, and I don’t feel as though I’ve missed out on, say, a major social movement, or that some action I could have personally done would have changed some feature of the year in a fundamental way, outside of myself. But I will say participating in some kind of way in the so-called resistance (proudly proclaimed on car bumper-stickers but otherwise apparently a bit anemic these days) is usually quite therapeutic and makes me feel more connected. I also just want to be that guy that speaks up, that has something to say, a way to make sense of things, a way to connect people to social justice activism, to revolutionary politics, to communities that are organizing. I had hoped that this forum I created, however modest, could serve as a way to work through what it means to be a Marxist midwife throughout my own clinical experiences, and applying that lens to local and world events. (To be fair, I did make a few significant contributions at a national level on some things I quite care about; they just didn’t make it to this space.)

Instead, I’m apparently sometimes just an annual blogger! Living my life and more quietly and modestly thinking through things, reflecting on them to a smaller audience in my real life and adjusting to a new professional identity in the home birth world. It’s been a long year, and certainly not the one I quite anticipated, though it was likely somewhat inevitable that my commitment to and recent deeper explorations of the politics of queer and trans/gender liberation would eventually lead me back to wrestle with my own queer desires and identity. So, while this process started with identifying and attempting to address a series of political questions about the connections between queer and trans liberation and the feminist movement (a la The Women’s March), abortion rights, and birth justice, it seemed to culminate in finding my way back to my own, and yet somewhat newfound, queerness.

Molly Costello’s work kind of says it all. http://www.mollycostello.com

And so here I am, over 20 years since coming out as bi, reconciling my truth with the discomforts of coming out *again* to my Evangelical family who has had the ability to ignore my sexuality as long as I was partnered with a straight cis man. While it’s not easy to navigate divorce– let alone parenting throughout it– I feel somehow so much lighter and clearer in my heart and mind than I have for years, soberly deciding to end a relationship that did not work, and navigating a new, queer love in my freedom.

While this midwife closes the year looking forward to lots of loveliness for myself, my kiddo, the families I’m privileged to call my clients, and my gorgeous community in 2019 — I also dream big, for open borders, and queer and trans liberation, and a free Palestine, and an end to militarism and imperialism, and for reproductive justice, and climate justice, and housing justice, and loads of love, grace, and joy.

P.S. These changes could not have gone nearly as well as they have without the love and support and graciousness and political collaboration of a lovely bunch of humans in my life, especially my kiddo, my dearest comrades, my ex, the Blossom group, my forever friends, my Mama, and my sweetheart.


by Leave a comment

Transition

It has been so long since I have put anything in this space. So much has happened over the last year for reproductive rights, workers, immigrants, healthcare access, the political mood and movements, and my personal and professional life has not let me keep up with it here. Though I have had my best work-life balance of my professional life so far over this last year, I’ve had a hard time squeezing in time for writing about my experience or my thoughts about what’s happening in the world.

A lot of what is hard is that my dear mother has really been on my case about protecting my professional identity, and about being ever so careful about how I present myself on the Internet, in spite of my attempts to remain as anonymous as possible here. It’s incredibly hard, as someone who has so many damn opinions and for whom my profession is a major passion of my life, to figure out how much I can say about what I think about things, while preserving myself professionally. Are there enough disclaimers in the world to cover me and protect me from losing my job, or offending my clients, or not getting some job in the future? Probably not. So I hold a lot of ideas in my mind and wrestle with what is appropriate enough for me to put into print.

Hopefully this is.

Well, I’m doing it. I’m transitioning. A very welcome, but also a terrifying change, from intrapartum care only in the hospital to not only full scope (GYN and OB) care but to homebirth. I have been working over almost the entire last year mainly in a very large private academic medical center that I previously thought of only as my city’s “baby factory” because so, so many people deliver there. I have also been moonlighting in a similar role in a small Catholic community hospital in my neighborhood that primarily serves Black and Latinx patients. These were both very welcome changes from the major challenges I encountered at my previous position, and my life over the last year has allowed me to settle into a fairly reasonable routine that works well with my family and activist lives.

But now my dream job has started, and my world is being uprooted, but for the better.  in the most delightful ways. champagne

Why am I making this change? I’m giving up a 36 hour workweek with hardly any stress about my job, for being on call 20 days a month for a position that I care about deeply and find spiritually satisfying. I’m giving up about 100 miles a week in bike commuting (often schlepping my daughter on the bike trailer) for having to always be close to my car and driving all over a large metro area to I can get to labors and births in a timely manner. I’m giving up a position that allowed me to make a midwifery stamp and positively impact my patients during their labor, as I provide physician extender service as part of a resident team, for one in which I will partner with a team of midwives to develop relationships with our clients, who have invited us into our homes for the most intimate moments of childbearing. I’m giving up watching how the medicalization of childbirth, while “evidence-based” and in highly skilled and talented hands, so often leads to much higher rates of complications than one should see in otherwise healthy people, for a birth setting in which emergencies can still happen, and the operating room or assisted delivery or complicated resuscitation is still a 9-1-1 call away.

Sure, I’m giving up some personal comforts (and admittedly, proximity to emergency help), but I am leaping into what I am hoping will be a tremendous adventure that will train me to be so much more skilled in what I care about: normal birth with healthy people. It’s a tremendous honor to be seen for my skills and potential, and to have been chosen for this practice. There’s only one way to know if this is my perfect fit, and it’s to try! So, here’s to doing my best at trying!


by 2 Comments

Reflections on Birth and Immediate Postpartum Life

Well, this is now six months late…but I’m a new mom! And a full-time working nurse-midwife! I’m finally ready to dust off the keyboard and start blogging again! So, to kick it off, here’s a post I started right after the transformative experience of welcoming my baby into the world and finally polished off this week. It was fresh when the birth smells were deliciously enveloping my newborn, and fun to revisit now. Enjoy.

* * *

My daughter is now just over a week old. The heat of late summer has broken,  and the kids are back in school at the elementary school across the street. Her umbilical cord stump has just detached, and my bottom and other muscles are gradually returning to normal. I’m generally following the advice I so emphatically dish to my patients: sleep when baby sleeps. Now, I’m taking a breather and making note of what this whole birth thing was like.

Empowerment: I made labor and birth affirmations so I could hear my own midwife voice assuring me during challenging times. My partner drew on this principle several times during labor a few times by asking what I would say to a patient at that phase, when needing reassurance or guidance.

One of the inspirations I had in the week before birth was to make myself affirmations to look at when things got hard during labor. I had been thinking of turning to my friends who had had natural or home births and asking for advice I could use to prepare. While I did receive some good advice (both solicited and not) from such sources, it started to feel strange to me — after all, I’ve attended dozens of births as a student and as a certified nurse-midwife: I know what to expect! Granted, many of the births I’ve attended since beginning professional practice have been in a highly medicalized environment, and few of my patients choose unmedicated birth — fewer have the resources for prepared childbirth.

Yet, I knew the chief thing for me to be successful was not just hearing positive birth stories — and I have read and viewed many — and connecting with the friends and family who were there at my Blessingway, provided beads for my labor necklace, or who were lighting candles for me both near and across the country during my labor. Even having the best labor team possible — which I was fortunate to have — was not a guarantee that I would be okay. No, what I needed more than anything was to be able to hear it from the most authoritative voice I know, my own from my heart as a midwife and my own strength as a woman. For what good is a labor team if the mama isn’t the most willing and capable member?

Though I didn’t look too consciously at the pictures I created, they helped promote a good birth environment — my support team would recite the mantras I had written: Ya mero! Fierce mamas believe in you! You are going to get huge! Yes, yes you can. Trust your body, and so on…And more than anything, I was grateful for the opportunity to make them in the days I was “overdue” and making my nest and heart ready for my baby.

The days after birth, I kept reliving the experience. I was so exhausted and overwhelmed with love and sore in ways I never thought possible. Tears would flow every time I remembered how I felt when my little girl was wet and warm and just screaming her little head off, fresh out of the birth canal on my chest. I had heard and taught women about the “baby blues” on countless postpartum rounds. This was more like a spiritual high, of connection that nourished the parts of me that had been longing for this moment of readiness for years.

I also woke up this week in a panic, realizing that I am probably at high risk for postpartum depression. So I called up my doula, who had mentioned that she does placenta encapsulation, and I ordered up an edible form of the afterbirth to ward off the very real possibility of falling prey to the dark side of new mama life.

IMG_0374

Tree of life: placenta print

I had been hearing about placenta encapsulation for a few years, and knew it hadn’t been studied much. Searches in scientific literatures brings up little of substance, mostly concluding that more research needs to be done. But I also knew that loads of mamas and midwives swore by its powers. I had been planning to plant the placenta in the garden, but when I had a major panic thinking of returning to a very challenging work environment just 10 weeks after the birth, I thought why not give this a chance? Most mammals eat their placentas (seemingly more for survival reasons relating to evading predators), and the power of the oxytocin and progesterone gave me hope it would do more good than harm to try it out. So my lovely doula came over and picked up the placenta a couple days after the birth, and generously returned two days later with a beautiful jar of the capsules and extra home-made herbalist goodies.

In spite of my fears of impending depression, I mostly can’t help but think about how lucky I am to have experienced the birth I did, and how well this network of birth and postpartum support is setting up my little family for a bounty of love, patience, and joy. I had one of the most highly skilled midwives in my area at my birth, who worked with me through a fairly long labor and helped me achieve a normal birth. In almost any hospital, I am certain I would not have had such a nice outcome. Being denied freedom to move and oral nourishment, while being strapped into continuous monitors, I imagine my baby and I would have become very stressed, and a surgical birth would have likely ensued.

Since even before deciding I wanted to be a midwife, I knew home birth would be for me, and now having done it, I feel so strong and powerful as a mama, but also even more convinced of the importance of preserving normal, natural birth. At no point would drugs have helped my labor. At every point, my preparation and support team — my mother, partner, doula, and the midwife assistant — helped me more than any drugs normally administered during labor could. Every laboring woman deserves this type of set-up. How much better for me and my baby (therefore also for public health) that neither of us was too stressed physically during labor, so that we could have such a good, non-interventive birth?!

I know that not every laboring person desires unmedicated birth, but if given the tools and support, it seems many more might at least feel they could make that choice. It seems likely that this could be so helpful in lowering our national rates of surgical births, now more than a staggering one third of all births.

Yet birth is only the beginning. After bringing new life into the world, you have to keep sustaining it! And protecting it for many years!

People have asked me how pregnancy, and now how birth, has changed me as a midwife, but I think that piece, the postpartum and parenting piece has been the most humbling as a women’s healthcare provider. Now, I have pushed this baby out into the world, and now I am responsible for her. I am lucky that I have experience with babies and that I feel so confident in caring for her after this magical birth experience. But if it weren’t for my mother staying with us the first week, the meal train organized by other parent friends, and living in a supportive community, I don’t know I would feel capable of doing hardly anything this week! And I have mamas I care for who have hardly any such support — single mamas, teenage mamas, and mamas with unhelpful or unavailable families. It hardly makes sense to leave new moms alone as a society to figure out recovery from birth and caring for a vulnerable newborn baby.

And then there’s breastfeeding! What a major

BFing linocut

Image borrowed from Rachel Epp Buller’s book cover Have Milk Will Travel

commitment! And I knew it was something I wanted to do, and in fact had literally had dreams about for years. But then doing it is another thing all together. So far, so good. I love how it feels to snuggle this little person and I love how cool it is that my body is making the only food she needs now. I also love how my midwife and doula prepared me to deal with the pain in my nipples the first few days, with ointment, exposing them to air, and the homeopathic medicine. But again, how humbling to have worked with dozens of women to initiate the process immediately postpartum, and then realize how hard it is in real life to keep it up, all hours of the day and night. And a crying newborn. How much patience and calm it takes to keep on loving and caring for a needy newborn. No wonder, with such little support from friends, family, and healthcare providers, so few women in this country actually do commit to breastfeeding for any length of time.

I guess that’s it. Just sharing my thoughts on being a new and breastfeeding mama of a beautiful baby girl that I’m head over heels in love with! And of being a transformed midwife with a new appreciation for birth, the yoni, midwives, doulas, and mothers of all kind everywhere and of every time.

 


by Leave a comment

A Day in the Life of a Still-Pregnant Midwife

Late August has arrived, and I have nearly completed 40 weeks of gestation. I wrapped up what Ina May Gaskin refers to as “outside” (paid or alienated) work last week, and all that remains is to rest and make final emotional and physical preparations for welcoming baby Popcorn into this world.

Though I have cared for hundreds of women through some stage of their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum needs, I find myself in awe of the experience in new ways. I am on the brink of one of the most incredible life changes I may have the opportunity to experience–though already participating in creating this life inside has already been remarkable.

Nourishing myself with favorite pregnancy snacks: fresh fruit, Greek yogurt with dates, and “uterus tea” in delicious early autumn air.

Now that I am feeling mostly recovered from a demanding final week on the job, sleeping many hours nightly, taking extended afternoon naps, and not quite having the energy to check off too much else from my to-do list, I find myself open to the possibilities of what comes next. I get to what I get to: today, the phone call to sort out my breast pump order (my very expensive PPO was apparently grandfathered in under ACA and is not required to cover this important benefit), getting the seasonal flu shot (out just in time to offer baby placental protection) while picking up wedding photos my partner and I finally got around to ordering to frame, and planning to prepare a favorite dish for dinner tonight (homemade ricotta and red onion marmalade pizza, perfect for a cool evening).

I am feeling loved and supported and grateful for the fabulous crew and cooperative body that has my back and believes in me and my body’s ability to bring this baby into the world in the comfort of my own home. Pregnancy has been easy so far–I haven’t experienced too many of the aches, pains, indigestion, swelling, emotional turmoil, and sleep troubles that many women suffer through. I hope this continues into the next stages. I  looking forward to lighting this candle, and knowing that the friends that participated in my Blessingway, who will be in Berlin or the Canary Islands and in the SF Bay Area will light their matching candles while they sit in vigil with my labor. I look forward to wearing this eccentric necklace comprised of beads from my friends and family near and far, which will also accompany me in my journey through labor and birth. I look forward to meeting my baby with my loving partner my my side, whenever the time is right.

This eccentric necklace is comprised of beads given me by friends and family, to be worn during labor and birth. The candle will be one of 6 lit during my labor around the globe. The bowl they sit in was a wedding gift from my grandmother.


by Leave a comment

A Day in the Life of a Pregnant Midwife

A note to publish later… 

 Fridays are my on-call day. No scheduled clinic, just a day to take care of life, and catch up on some professional things, and, like all days, be ready to rush into the hospital if a patient is in labor.

Today, I woke up anxious from an bit of a nightmare I had the night before about completing an online course, deadline today, for renewing my Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) certification. I prefer baby and nursing (breastfeeding, not my profession) dreams.

I had nothing else on the docket, and hadn’t even scheduled much else for the weekend, socially or politically, just worried about completing it.

NRP, unlike some other emergency resuscitation programs like Basic Life Support (BLS/CPR) or Advanced Cardiac Life Support, is almost always taught these days on a self-directed online course. 

For someone like myself, who has never been a labor and delivery room nurse, it’s a bit difficult learning the skills entirely from a book and DVD-ROM on my computer. It would be nice to put my hands on the “manikins” or instruments used for the program, before sitting for the “mega-code” portion of the certification. 

But no matter.

I spent the day alternating between my kitchen table, where I got teary-eyed looking at the simulated resuscitation videos (and completely overwhelmed by the premie section), and the living room, where I was playing music from my 2000’s record collection on the turntable with the new cartridge. In between Blackheart Procession and ventilating the baby’s lungs; the penultimate Sleater-Kinney album and intubation, I sipped my coffee and found that NRP wasn’t so hard after all. I was done by 5, certificate on PDF, ready to prove myself to the hospital NRP instructor.  

Then: baking inspiration! While my partner was on campus working on his dissertation and then heading for a social gathering, I munched on Dorie Greenspan’s oat-peanut chocolate crunchies and caught up on the third season of Call the Midwife, which I seem to have saved for just this moment. 

 If you are a pregnant midwife, I dare you to watch that show without weeping. It’s hard enough to do as a non-pregnant midwife. 

 I had planned to go to a political organizing meeting, but it was canceled. So I declined an invitation to a late-night jazz show — strict ten o’clock bedtime for me these days — and hunkered down for more nuns and secular nurses helping ladies and babies in post-war East End.

Just another day in the life of this expectant midwife. (Baby due late August 2015.)


by 6 Comments

The Loneliness of the First Trimester

On Thursday, I was pregnant. Seven weeks and six days of gestation. This was a very carefully timed, meticulously planned, and surprisingly quickly achieved pregnancy. On Thursday, I was happy. I had attended a meeting after work, hearing a report back from a protester that had been in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, and analysis of police violence and the new phase in the struggle against American racism and police terrorism.

And then, I was bleeding.

I didn’t know, I couldn’t know, at first, if I would be the one in two women with first trimester bleeding, or the one in ten pregnant women overall, that would have a miscarriage, or spontaneous abortion. But I knew enough to identify that sign of bright red bleeding that doesn’t stop, when I had no risk factors for other causes of first trimester bleeding, meant I was losing this pregnancy. 

And so, by Friday, I wasn’t pregnant any more. 

And, since I’m not allowed to take any days off work until I’ve been at my job a complete six months (and I’m just three weeks shy of that), I went to work caring for women on Friday, while my uterus emptied. I felt myself bleeding while listening to a young mom’s baby’s heartbeat for the first time, celebrating with her and her beautiful partner. I patiently explained the speculum exam to a terrified young woman, and did a six-week postpartum checkup and got to coo over her gorgeous baby. I counseled an older woman on the risks and benefits of sterilization versus long-acting reversible contraception. I tried to have a normal day, when I wanted to be home, mourning. 

It’s only Saturday, and I’m still pretty devastated. I was supposed to attend my city’s SlutWalk protest, where a year ago, I had given a rousing speech tearing apart sexism. I wanted to be standing with my sisters and comrades in the streets. But more so, I need to heal.

***

I have been musing quietly about the loneliness of the first trimester since I peed on the stick weeks back and had the delightful moment of reading “pregnant” on the digital screen. The feeling was so different from the myriad other times in my life when I had taken the test in anguish — especially the one other time when I had a positive result, in midwifery school, and knew I was going to have an abortion. I was, this time, elated. 

But there is convention in our society to stay quiet about that positive pregnancy test until the second trimester, regardless of which choice we plan to make about the pregnancy. We know that people won’t really understand the complexity of our feelings about the pregnancy, and that we don’t want to tell everybody the bad news, if we end up needing or wanting an abortion, or if the pregnancy ends in a miscarriage. And so we tend to suffer through many discomforts of the first trimester, in silence.

I remember telling some of my comrades and friends what was going on, when I had the unplanned pregnancy years back. Because I am part of a community that embraces reproductive rights, I was fortunate that it was fairly easy for me to tell people at the time that I was planning an abortion, or that I was still dealing with some of the medical issues related to my abortion the few months after it started. I have since publicly spoken out about my abortion many times, working to de-stigmatize the experience that three in ten women will experience before the age of 45. 

Telling abortion or miscarriage stories can be a powerful way to break the silence. But it will take more than telling stories to break the stigma.

Telling abortion or miscarriage stories can be a powerful way to break the silence. But it will take more than telling stories to break the stigma. Art by Favianna Rodrigeuz, Just Seeds Cooperative

At that time, however, I didn’t talk openly about what was going on outside my activist network. But I did have a fellow midwife student classmate and friend who turned out to have an unplanned pregnancy at the exact same time as me. We turned to each other one day after class with our secrets: “I’m pregnant.” Neither of us felt good about it. We were both in the first of our two year program, and planned to go full time. There was no time for pregnancy, birth, and parenting, and both of us had partners that were full time graduate or professional school students. It was terrible timing. We each made different decisions, however. I ended my pregnancy, while she continued hers and is parenting this beautiful child, who is almost three now. 

The other difference between us was that none of our classmates knew that I was pregnant or had an abortion, while they eventually found out about hers, when she started showing and eventually had the baby during the program. We both knew that even in a midwifery program, people weren’t emotionally intelligent enough to deal with a sister midwife’s pregnancy to respond appropriately to our news. So we both kept quiet, attending class while coping with our own pregnancy challenges.

I have wondered sometimes if we would have felt that way if we were attending school in a more politicized or radical time, say at the height of second or third wave feminism. Interestingly, I was able to talk about it with my faculty and preceptors, who all had trained as midwives in more political times and were very accepting of my decision.

If a group of midwife students can’t be mature enough to be present with each other during pregnancy, who can be?

***

This time around, I spent much of the initial weeks of pregnancy being silently excited. I talked about it with few people: my mother, my partner, my nurse-midwife team, and one friend, whom I had asked to be my birth doula. It was strange not revealing the news when talking to friends and family about this big thing that was going on in my life. Many times, I wanted to tell more people. It was humbling to now be experiencing life as a “pregnant patient,” much as I had appreciated the experience of being the “abortion patient,” knowing that this would make me a more compassionate nurse-midwife.

And I continued with my life — bicycling, gardening, going to protests, working long hours, cleaning my house — while thinking about the little life growing inside me. Fantasizing about the home birth I expected to have in early April with the fabulous team of midwives I had chosen to care for me. Talking with my partner about changing the guest room into the baby room over the winter. Getting excited about the cousins our baby was going to have, given that my sister in law is pregnant with her second, and my brother and his wife might be trying to conceive soon. Planning with my partner how we were going to cleverly announce my pregnancy on Facebook and to friends in person. Looking forward to the excitement and congratulations we could expect from family, comrades, and friends. And trying to imagine what it would be like to meet that tiny creature my partner and I had created. 

***

I was starting in some ways to relish the privacy of the last couple of months. It has meant more time for introspection, self-care, and focus. I have needed that inner space to deal with some significant changes to my body and my changing life priorities. 

Like sobriety. I chose to stop drinking around the time that I believed I was ovulating, in the first cycle we tried to (and did) conceive. I genuinely enjoy beer, wine, and the occasional cocktail, but since beginning my new job for the last few months at my job, I had also relied on that delicious glass of wine after work to help me unwind. Being sober means having to actually face all the trauma I see at work, and process it in some other way. And this is a pretty drug- and alcohol- heavy society we live in, so not drinking or partaking in any drugs can be pretty challenging, socially and personally. I have loads of patients that aren’t able to cope with life without substances, and continue drinking and using (marijuana, mostly) during pregnancy. Like many women facing the prospect of complete sobriety for 40 weeks, I worried that I would be tempted to drink and felt guilty for even thinking it might be hard to stop.

Fortunately, I have felt pretty good about not drinking and have enjoyed the challenge of sobriety. But I also dreaded social situations in which I would normally be drinking, worried someone would ask why I am not having my customary glass (or three) of wine. What would I say if someone suggested I was not drinking because I was pregnant? Would I choose to tell them? Would I lie? Would I tell them I didn’t want to talk about it? Fortunately it never came up. (For the record, peeps: Don’t ever ask someone if they are pregnant! They will tell you if they want you to know!)

Another major chemical change occurred in my body as I prepared my body for pregnancy by weaning myself off the anti-depressant I had been taking the last few years. That drug had really helped me through some major difficulties the last few years, from completing my midwifery program, to facing my midwifery board certification, to an extended job search, to the major transition of this new and difficult job I eventually landed and accepted. I am fortunate that my depression is well enough managed, and I am stable enough to face stress without the help of this wonderful pharmaceutical product or alcohol. Mostly I owe that to years of therapy and yoga practice that have enabled me to access pretty decent coping skills, along with an extremely supportive partner. Nonetheless, it felt very difficult to stop drinking and to stop taking this antidepressant at the same time. In hindsight, I may have done it a little differently, but it worked out OK. 

Mainly, the changes in my body with the new pregnancy made me feel extremely vulnerable. I knew I had little control over if this pregnancy would continue successfully or not — knowing what I do about rates and causes of miscarriage. For the first few weeks, I could hardly believe I was really pregnant! Every trip to the bathroom, I feared seeing blood on the tissue paper. Every little tiny cramp or feeling in my pelvic area felt like it could be something wrong with the pregnancy. And since I only experienced momentary twinges of nausea, I looked forward to them, as proof that I was in fact pregnant. I caught myself looking at my breasts in the mirror and sometimes touching them to make sure they were really growing, and tender enough. Loads of women face extreme nausea and vomiting in the first trimester and are completely miserable, whether or not the pregnancy is desired or if she plans to continue it. I’m fortunate I was at least feeling well. 

And when the proof was there, out of nowhere — sustained bright red vaginal bleeding, cramping, and passing tissue — it was clear that it was all over, in a flash. One day, a pregnant patient, the next, a “miscarriage patient.” And I had to believe there was nothing I could have done differently. It wasn’t my fault. It just wan’t going to work out this time. 

***

These are some of the things we don’t talk about when we talk about pregnancy, planned or unplanned; desired, undesired, or ambivalent; spontaneously aborted, continued successfully, or electively aborted. These are some of the things we don’t talk about because we have internalized the messages of the war on women. This war psychically imposes a social and cultural expectation that all women naturally 1. want to become a mother and should embrace every chance at motherhood, no matter the circumstances; and 2. adjust and cope in a healthy way to the emotional and physical challenges of pregnancy. And if they don’t, there is something wrong, or even criminal in her thoughts or actions. Yes, lawmakers have proposed criminalizing miscarriage. Yes, every year, dozens of laws in every state of the United States are proposed and pass regulating women’s bodies and restricting abortion. Yes, laws primarily aimed at Black women  criminalize drug and alcohol use in pregnancy (see Dorothy Roberts’s Killing the Black Body).

Yes, this impacts popular opinion, and shapes how people–even and maybe especially women themselves–understand and talk about pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, and motherhood. And mostly creates the circumstances for not understanding what it is to be pregnant, or how to empathize with a woman who is pregnant, or wants, does not want, or who cannot achieve pregnancy or parenting. 

***
I was grateful I was pregnant on Thursday, and still sad that I’m saying goodbye to that little embryo that I hoped would become a fetus and eventually the baby I would get to parent. I am nervous about what happens next. Will I be able to get pregnant again right away? What kind of loneliness and fear will I face the second time around? Will I make it past the eight week mark next time? Will my readers and friends respond compassionately to this post? 

I feel like I’m in a good enough place emotionally to be able to share my miscarriage story, alongside my abortion story. And like coming out about being queer, or about having had an abortion, I hope that by telling my story, I can contribute to de-stigmatizing something that our deeply misogynistic society doesn’t understand. 

But it takes more than being able to tell the story, for those of us for whom it is safe to do so, to change cultural values around pregnancy and sexuality. We have to end the war on women if we want to shift people’s consciousness and foster solidarity with the challenges people face during pregnancy and parenting. How could we do that? It means opposing every state/federal/local law and institutional policy that aims to decrease women’s bodily autonomy and impose control over women’s sexuality. It means being in solidarity against every form of sexual violence and coercion. It means fighting to end the New Jim Crow. It means demanding comprehensive sexual education for all children. It means standing up for a living wage, the right to union representation, and dignity on the job. It means building a movement for immigrant rights and to tear down the borders. It means calling for free quality childcare and the valuing of care work. 

Some of these things might seem far-fetched and maybe even only tangentially related to my story. Maybe you think I am coming out of left field?

But there used to be a saying in the women’s movement that really meant something, though it has ceased to bear any resemblance to its original meaning: “The personal is political.” In its best sense, it meant that our personal struggles as women or as women of color, weren’t ours alone, but a reflection, or a symptom, of the broader racism and sexism in society. In the era of neoliberalism, we are meant to see our problems as isolated from each other’s, and mostly as a reflection of our own personal weaknesses and inner failings.

More and more, however, I am seeing my personal struggles as intimately related to the structures of social oppression, and I’m tired of bearing them alone. When I fight against the war on women, or against the war on the poor, or the war on people of color, it’s personal. It’s deeply political, as well, but when I think about the circumstances of my reproduction, it’s also deeply personal. 

***

The last women’s movement, like the civil rights and Black Power movements, changed culture dramatically — but throughout my entire lifetime, the right wing has undertaken a sustained attack on the progress those movements made possible. It is my hope that we can build new social struggles from the ground up, that take up some of the demands I mentioned above, and more. Yet most of all, my hope and my argument is that the voices and demands of ordinary people as we struggle with our “personal” issues must be at the forefront of these movements — rather than the tepid Democratic Party politicians and NGO leaders who have been too afraid about upsetting the right wing that they have done nothing but compromise while our rights are under attack.

After all, it was- not well-meaning liberal politicians that made Roe v. Wade possible, but the fact that women took to the streets to tell their own stories about illegal abortion and forced sterilization. Those movements put women first — not the careers of politicians or career “activists.” Change happened, then, and it happens now, from the bottom, up. Or, as the late, great historian Howard Zinn put it, “What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but ‘who is sitting in’ — and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.” 

I don’t think the first trimester, or any part of pregnancy or parenting, has to be lonely. I know that people can develop deep empathy and solidarity with each other’s struggles — and we see a glimmer of that in every mass movement, from the revolution in Egypt to the capitol occupation in Wisconsin, to Occupy Wall Street, and even how people looked after each other in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We have to foster that in our communities as much as we can, but more so, we have to organize movements for reproductive justice that put the demands, voices, and strategies of ordinary women and other people who can get pregnant at the forefront.

Being part of those social movement traditions is what makes me feel a little less lonely as I grieve my lost pregnancy and look forward to the future. 


by Leave a comment

Updates Galore!

I have made it past the 3 month mark…it’s hard to believe it’s only been three months. Almost four now, but still…

Here are some highlights and lowlights from my world these days…

1. Looking forward to the Socialism Conference.

It’s this weekend — an extended conference this year, it started today. But I can’t take any days off work until my six month work anniversary, so I’ll only be attending Saturday and Sunday. Here are some talks and featured events this year that I’m looking forward to:

Special Education & Disability Rights

Marxism and indigenous feminism

Women, race, and class: A history of Black feminism

Who needs gender? A Marxist analysis

Capital’s missing book: Social reproduction theory and the global working class today

Who cares: Work, gender, and the repro­duction of labor power

From criminalization to “rape culture”: Re­thinking the politics of sexual violence

From restrictions to criminalization: The fight for reproductive rights today

Capitalism, socialism, and mental illness

What should socialists say about privilege checking?

Microbes and Marxism: Capitalism and public health

“Obamacare” as neoliberal health care reform

…OMG there is so much! Obviously won’t be able to make it to all of those sessions, but those are some of the ones I thought might be of particular interest to readers, and which speak to some topics I’ve been thinking about/excited about lately.

2. I’m sick of the judging.

I feel like everyone I work with is burnt out and cynical. I’m sick of victim blaming, slut shaming, poverty-ignoring, moralizing attitudes coming from people I work with. Especially the OB I work with. It’s poisonous, and trying to figure out how to respond with fierce compassion. Patients and staff deserve to feel human. 

3. Getting into the hospital…

This will of course bring new challenges. Now, I kinda have it good. Getting used to being in clinic full time, getting to know my patients, learning what basic and expanded skills I need to have for clinic. But it will be nice, come September (fingers crossed!), to have hospital privileges so I can actually start to be present with my patients in the hospital. I still have to have a bunch of deliveries supervised by the aforementioned physician, and hopefully by some midwives I’ll be working with, but it’s good to know it’s on the horizon. 

4. Got a rad shout-out by the fabulous Feminist Midwife!

My friend, mentor, and trail-blazing hero over at Feminist Midwife gave me and a fellow red midwife a lovely mention in her recent post here, honoring the work of sharing the journey via the blogosphere. Thanks, FM!

5. Feeling appreciated

Though every day is emotionally and clinically challenging, it is also rewarding. I am feeling every day that I make a difference when I provide good care, and I can see it in my patients’ faces and in their continuing to come in for care and opening up to me. Another perk is outside of clinic — being known among friends, fellow activists, and family, as someone who knows some things about reproductive health — and who can be trusted to ask about it. Maybe it’ll get old one day, but I doubt it. I love those calls/texts/FB messages about family planning, pregnancy, and sexual health. So, thank you to those folks who have come to me with those questions, and I hope I have been helpful. 


by Leave a comment

Why You Should Choose a Nurse-Midwife for Your Pregnancy/Primary/Well Person Care

When I started on this path, I was in my mid-twenties. None of my close friends had ever continued pregnancies or chosen to parent. This is partly why midwifery had never occurred to me as a career at that stage in my life — none of us were in that place in their lives. But now that we are approaching “AMA” or “advanced” maternal age, or the ripe old age of 35 (haha), many of my friends are now starting families (or trying to). Lucky for them, they now have a midwife friend! 

So, this is an open letter to all my baby-making (and aspiring baby making) friends and family. 

My basic advice/message is:

Choose a nurse midwife for your pregnancy care!*

Here are 5 reasons why many pregnant people should consider using a certified nurse midwife (CNM) as their prenatal care provider and birth attendant.

1. Client education and counseling

Nurse-midwives aim to spend time with our patients and get to know you. We want to know what is important to you and meet you there. If you want a provider to listen to you and to openly and without judgment respond to your concerns about pregnancy and birth, you have a pretty good chance of finding this in a nurse-midwife.

2. Supporting physiologic processes

This is a hallmark of midwifery care. Take initiation of labor, for instance. A midwife will take a holistic approach — to ensuring your due date is correct, to providing physiologic means of helping you go into labor on time, and choosing not to admit you to the labor and delivery unit until you are really in labor. All of these are part of an approach that supports the pregnant person’s ability to have a baby when it’s time. It may also mean helping you push your baby out to minimize trauma and tearing of the perineal muscles, and certainly avoiding cutting your muscle to make room for baby’s head or shoulders (episiotomy). 

3. Evidence-based practice (EBP)

From my first semester in nursing school, EPB was drilled into my brain. I can’t tell you how many papers I wrote about EPB…but I’m glad I did, because it instilled in me a drive to provide care that is based on rigorous review of current evidence and is patient-centered. What does this mean? A good provider (social worker/doctor/physical therapist, etc.) draws upon current research and literature reviews to determine how they practice. I am very proud that this is a centerpiece of nurse midwifery education and culture. Not that seeing a CNM is any guarantee of this, but it certainly something that most CNMs should be familiar with. The CNM professional organization put together this fabulous resource compiling data about how we use EBP – Midwifery: Evidence-Based Practice. Our practice is not (or at least should not be!) based on expert opinion, tradition, convenience, fear of malpractice lawsuits, or other provider-centered philosophies — but rooted in solid evidence and a patient-centered approach. 

 

4. Labor support!

The best midwives will support you while you’re in labor — not just leave you to labor on your own and then show up at the end to do the delivery. In some busy practices, that may not be possible, so I always encourage pregnant people to find out what their provider does. Midwives are trained in labor support, meaning they can help keep you active and can provide comfort measures that can help you out throughout the process. Unfortunately, many physicians do not (but should!) receive training in normal birth, and often do not know what to do to promote your comfort during labor other than offer drugs. Midwives understand that labor is hard work and can support moms through it. 

5. Greater chance of normal birth

According to a recent survey of research on midwifery, you are more likely to experience the following when getting care with a certified nurse midwife: 

• Lower rates of cesarean birth,
• Lower rates of labor induction and augmentation,
• Significant reduction in the incidence of third and fourth degree perineal tears,
• Lower use of regional anesthesia, and
• Higher rates of breastfeeding. (Newhouse, Stanik-Hutt, White, et al, 2011)

These are not reasons you should not use a nurse midwife

1. I want an epidural

If you choose to have your baby in a hospital, your nurse midwife can still order you an epidural, if that is the anesthesia/analgesia option of your choosing. 

2. I want to have my baby in hospital

No problem – the vast majority of midwife-attended births are in hospitals. You may not even realize it, but there may be midwives at your local hospital. 

3. Midwives don’t know enough stuff

So you may have heard that terrible slam Bill O’Reilly made about advanced practice clinicians (APCs, formerly known as mid-level providers, yech!) — worried that the increase in care by folks in these professions aren’t qualified be good healthcare providers. (Yeah, I know, my readers are big O’Reilly fans.) “Lenny from community college” couldn’t possibly be my provider, he said of physician assistants! (See the response from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners here.) Even so! Many people don’t know what training we receive. O’Reilly’s ridiculous comments (among thousands he’s made over the years) aside, becoming a CNM is no joke. I’m proud to say that I have attended many community colleges throughout my education, but I also will report that CNMs are required to have a bachelor’s degree, be a registered nurse, hold a master’s degree, pass a rigorous certification exam, and become licensed through the state they live in as both a registered nurse and an advanced practice nurse. We are very well prepared to take care of people when it is within our scope of practice.

4. I want someone I can see always, not just when I’m pregnant

No problem! Loads of midwives work in settings where they can provide well woman, gynecologic, family planning, and even primary care. It depends on how the midwife’s practice setting works, but in many cases, you may be able to see your CNM across the reproductive lifespan. 

5. Doctors know best

Haha, I know no one reading this blog would think that. But I really ran out of reasons why you should not see a midwife. 

***

So…if you are low risk (not diabetic, chronically have high blood pressure, etc.) you may be a great candidate for working with a midwife! Get out there and FIND A MIDWIFE!!! And if there isn’t one in your area…well, shoot. Maybe you should get on the path to become a midwife, or tell someone you know who would make a great CNM to get on that path. We need more great women’s health providers. If you are feeling the call…better answer!

 

Reference:

Newhouse RP, Stanik-Hutt J, White KM, et al. Advanced practice nursing outcomes 1990-
2008: a systematic review. Nurs Econ. 2011;29(5):1-22

*Or your well person/family planning/gyne/primary care. More on “women” later…


by 1 Comment

How I Got Here; Or: Why I Am a Nurse-Midwife

Now that I’m here, I’ve jumped through the hurdles of getting my degree, passing boards, getting licensed, and becoming employed, I thought it would be nice to reflect on how I got here. It’s easy to take for granted sometimes, now that I just wake up and go to work every day. But I’m doing what I set out to do! I’m midwifing! So…how did that happen?

Back in the day…

My background is in languages and literature. I studied English and Spanish in undergrad. Like many undergrads, I had no idea what I would do when I grew up…Like many women, I thought I was “bad” at science and hadn’t really taken myself seriously in that regard. When the nursing shortage blew up in the mid-2000s, my mom suggested I look into nursing. I didn’t really think it was for me. I had the old-school pre-feminist movement (and very middle class) idea about nurses as doctor’s handmaidens and couldn’t see myself doing it. But then I started looking into it, and taking my prerequisites for nursing school (adventures to tell of another day), and more and more found it seemed like the right next step for me. Hands + heart + science + possible unionism + healthcare activism…that I could get into.

I originally planned to be a WHNP. When I started nursing school, I had never attended a birth, and I really didn’t know much about midwifery. I liked the idea of working with women, but I didn’t want to try to get into a program/field that I wasn’t as passionate about. I knew folks who were planning to be midwives, and they were excited about Ina Mae Gaskin and doulas and home birth. But I was in my mid-twenties, and no one I was close with had had a baby yet, and these topics were remote from my experience. The abortion world was more my bag, and I knew that as a WHNP, I could possibly train to provide early aspiration abortion or at least do lots of cool family planning work.

Trust Women Tiller

Then, I fell in love with birth and also realized that, as I later saw expressed beautifully in the documentary After Tiller, trusting women and being pro-woman/pro-abortion was midwifery. The issues of birth and family planning and abortion are inextricably linked. And, from a practical standpoint, I realized that it made sense for me to provide pregnancy and birth care as well as the other family planning and gyne care I would do as a WHNP. Why hand off patients to another provider to attend the birth, when I could actually be the one to be there for the whole lifespan? So, during nursing school I asked the women’s health department if I could switch to midwifery. They OK’d me.

An Alternative Route

For a variety of reasons, my path to practicing midwifery has not been traditional, at least how it’s done “typically” by CNMs. According to tradition, an RN works in labor and delivery, then goes to midwifery school, then works as a CNM. When I finished my nursing program, nursing jobs in labor and delivery were hard to come by. I got one interview on a hospital unit but did not get the position. I applied to dozens of others. I also had put out my feelers for work in abortion care and managed to get a position through a student colleague connection, at the abortion service in the county hospital.

My first nursing position was a nightmare, but it paid the bills for my first semester of midwifery school and gave me valuable insight into the lives of women seeking abortion in fairly desperate situations. I then got a scholarship so I didn’t have to continue working as a nurse during my program, but it required me to complete it in two years. I babysat for a wonderful family and watched their family grow throughout my graduate studies. Then, as I was completing my final semester of my masters program, I landed another position in abortion care, which eventually turned into a broader family planning nursing role. That is the last job I held until beginning this current job.

After I passed my boards (got certified by the American Midwifery Certification Board), I again looked for jobs around my city. This time around, I had more interviews and got a lot more interest, but still, employers and even my mentors questioned if I could work as a full-scope (meaning: catching babies, not just working in the office) CNM without having worked as a nurse in labor and delivery. Some suggested that I should swallow my pride and try to get such a position and then try again in a year or two for a full scope  job. It was a full six months between my initial interview and my start date for the position I landed, and there were times that I considered this option. Luckily, this position came through, and I got to do things the way I originally thought I could (more or less).

Acceptance

What is midwifery? Is it only possible to be a midwife if you’ve been a nurse during hundreds of births, many of which were probably complicated or high risk? I don’t think so.

It’s hard being one of the handful of people who graduated from programs like mine, that allow you to graduate without having to work labor and delivery, having to prove that you belong and that you can hang with the more experienced nurses. But I am not alone, and I’m grateful for others who blazed the trail before me — whether they intended to or not.

Midwifery is a whole lot of things.* True, the only births I’ve attended are the ones where I was doing the baby-catching (or doing labor support in a few instances). I haven’t seen a ton yet. My career is young. I am humbled by all I have to learn. But I have also worked in women’s health for over six years, and have learned compassion and to not judge women’s lives and choices. Midwifery is trusting women, it’s listening to women, and it’s being present with women. You can’t learn that from a textbook or demonstrate that on a board exam, but you can show it in the type of care you give. I am confident that, as one quarter of women in the United States will have an abortion before the age of 40, my background in abortion provides a ton of useful clinical and emotional skills to be a good midwife. Good midwifery care has to include all phases of the reproductive lifespan, including abortion. (And hopefully one day CNMs will be legally allowed to provide spontaneous and elective abortion care in all states!)

Now

Tomorrow will mark three months as a practicing CNM, but I think I’ve been practicing the midwifery model of care for more than that. I respect that other midwives took other paths — and they may have done so out of their own necessities. I hope that as I enter the birth setting again in a few months, when I get my hospital privileges, I can continue to safely develop my labor and birth skills and humbly continue my journey with new mentors and teachers.

 

*There are, of course, other paths to midwifery outside of nursing. I respect direct-entry or certified midwives, but I don’t claim to know much about their paths. I can only speak as someone that went the CNM route, and know that non-nurse midwives have their own contributions to women’s healthcare that may differ from where CNMs might be coming from (e.g. Ina Mae Gaskin).