Midwifin’ My Life

We all know that I’m going to school to become a midwife. It’s pretty much all I talk about, if you let me.  Really. If you don’t’ want to hear about how excited I am for the semester to start on May 3, do not ask me about school. Because I’ll probably talk your ear off.

But I started thinking over the last few days about that word “midwife”, to midwife. It’s really so much larger than just a woman who catches babies.  It’s a really verb. To love, to honor, to support, to respect, to usher, to midwife.

And wow. I’ve been midwifing the hell out of my life lately.  My life has truly moved into a new era and I really love it.  Had you asked me ten years ago if I ever thought my life would get to this place, I would have honestly had to tell you no. I had no faith or hope left in me. I could not imagine being able to pull of my daily responsibilities, let alone be thriving the way I have been in the last few months.  It’s amazing really.

I’ve been looking for a great new pair of winter shoes.  I found a cute pair of Mary Janes last week at the thrift store, but once the snow hits the ground they just aren’t going to cut it.

I got an invitation to check out Sterling Leather, and they seems to have some decent prices and a great selection of Frye Boots and Minnetonka Moccasins. Not that I’m much of a moccasin person, but hey, ya never know when you’re going to need to make a trip back to 1983.

These on the other hand, I could handle…

Life moves on

WOW.  Things have changed so much around here in the nearly two months since I have posted.  I feel completely disconnected from this blog and that is such a shame.  I really truly love it.

But I got incredibly engrossed in my other blog for a few months while I was going through the treatment program.  I won’t grouse about that here, because really it’s a pretty boring topic.  I’ll tell you though that it is done and I couldn’t be happier about it.  I have time to actually DO things again.

And do things I am!

I don’t even know where to start.  I am finally back on my path to becoming a midwife.  This has been a long time coming and I think I just really needed to focus in for awhile to get reacquainted with myself before I could put this much effort into something so life altering.  And now, I’m much more ready than I have ever been.

I made the decision shortly after my last post, dated August 2, to completely delve into birth work again.  I dug out all of my old information on doula certifications, started researching midwifery schools, talking to midwives, talking to doulas….  Now mind you, education in the birth world never ends.  It doesn’t require curriculum.  Traditionally women learned about birth from other women.  And so I have been in a constant state of educating myself since my passion for birth bubbled over about ten years ago.  I spent some time working toward doula certification five years ago, but life got in the way and I had to pull back for awhile.  Now I am back with more zeal than I realized that I had in myself.  I have been meeting doula clients left and right, and have two confirmed births scheduled over the next few months.

The biggest news for me was that I was awarded the Heart of a Midwife Scholarship from Ancient Art of Midwifery Institute.  It is such a wonderful gift and I am so very honored to feel that kind of support from the school. I will be starting school when the new term begins on November 1.

I’ve begun documenting the process in yet another new blog, Birthing Journey.  Hopefully I will be able to keep up both blogs now.  We will see.

Tags: future, midwifery

Hah~  I’m so good at trying to come up with ways to get myself to blog and then totally blowing them off.  It’s pathetic.

I have to admit that I’ve been pretty overloaded with all the health related stuff I’ve been trying to do.  Between writing on my other blog, riding my bike further and further each day, and trying to stay on top of the rest of my health, I’ve kind of been lazy when it comes to trying to post here regularly.

But, I actually have been following through with the cleaning and organizing.  Just not in the method I originally intended and not on the time line that I had planned.

Thus far I have been taking on one major project a week.  I started out with the pantry.

BEFORE                                                  AFTER

As part of the process I bought myself a brand new label maker and promptly fell head over heals in love with the damn thing. Honestly, I’ve considered labeling W and The Boy with it.  Each and every basket in the pantry has a label.  Each shelf has a label.  It’s perfection.

My next major project was the bathroom.  We adore our duplex.  We really truly do.  It’s vintage and cozy and cute.  But the bathroom downright sucks.  There is not a single cupboard or cabinet in the place.  So, back to Target I went for more baskets and storage drawers.  It is now also perfection, though I haven’t had the chance to photograph it yet.

I think my next project will be the sun porch, but honestly that’s going to drain me of all available cleaning resources for a week or two.

W and I have also taken a  5 A Day Clutter Away Challenge, along with Jenni and Matt and Jumi.  It will culminate in what will look like a big ol’ Awesome Garage Sale, but will really be the group of us drinking lots of cocktails and convincing people to buy our George Foreman grills for $.50.

My contributions to the clutter box thus far have been –

Day 1:

1. Pedometer that I replaced with a much more reliable one
2. Black canvas Mary Janes that gave me big ol’ blisters
3. A lovely kitchen prayer sign that I received for Awesome Christmas but didn’t match our kitchen.
4. A box of short pillar candles minus one candle.  I bought them because I wanted ONE unscented white candle and could only find them in an eight back.
5. A blue plastic Easter basket.

Day 2:

1. A ceramic monkey head bank that The Boy has no interest in.  He can’t seem to save fifty cents, let alone enough to bother putting in a bank.
2. A bunch of perfume and scented lotions my sister gave me, including four purse sized tubes of Sunflowers Hand Cream and a bottle of Tommy. . Um…So not my style.
3. A pretty, heavy-cardboard box that my sister gave me to store girly stuff in, but I never got around to using.
4. Floral silky shirt that I got on clearance at Target and only wore once
5. Blue tunic style shirt that I got on clearance at Target, wore a few times, and then stopped because someone asked me if I was pregnant every time I wore it.

So that’s 10 things and it’s only day two.  Keep an eye out here if you want to a preview of all the other amusing and amazing things that you’ll be able to find at the garage sale, or if you want to see all the strange and useless stuff I’ve managed to gather up over time.

Holy cow

So, I had an appointment at MN-COME to follow up on my test results today. The verdict is in.  My testosterone was incredibly high.  My glucose is out of whack.  I had literally not a single drop of Vitamin D in my blood.  My vitamin B12 was very low as well.  So she added a shit load of medications to my already heavy  cocktail.
This is what my new medication regimen looks like:

Morning:

Phentermine 37.5 mg
B-12 15 mcg
Fish Oil 1200 mg
Aldactone 25 mg

Afternoon, just pre-dinner:

Fish Oil 1200 mg
Multi-vitamin
Lexapro 10 mg
Metformin 2000 mg
Aldactone 25 mg

Bedtime:

Valerian Root 450 mg
Melatonin 3 mg
Cymbalta 60 mgs
Klonopin .5 mg

There were no issues with my thyroid function.  There are a number of small cysts on the actual thyroid itself.  We’re going to keep an eye on those over the next six months or so.

Wow.  Supposively all of this will work together to make me a happy, not “tired all the time”, able to process my food correctly, non-panic attack having individual.  It will also help the crazy hair growth on my chin and help me lose some weight.  And I might even have some energy again.  Between this and the eating disorder clinic dietician helping me figure out the food stuff, I might have some semblance of a life ~!

Maybe i’m running out of things to blog about.  Maybe I just ran out of things that I feel like anyone wants to hear.  I feel like maybe I should just begin a new blog and start talking about the new things that are going on in my life, but then again, this is my life.  This blog has been everything that has happened in my life in the last year.

So, now we’re on to the next chapter.

And I just don’t even know where to find the words to do it.

New “About This Woman” page

I updated my bio page.  It’s a pretty great bio if I do say so myself.

ABOUT THIS WOMAN

A quick break in my blogging break for an important message

“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

The Great MIgration is nearly complete

And I’ve decided to take a complete one month break from blogging to get the house settled.  My last post was January 21, so I’ll be back February 21.

See ya on the other side!