Accepted to the MEP at McMaster! Or, maybe not...

This post is long overdue. I was accepted to the McMaster Midwifery program. As I write this, I’m not jumping of happiness or super exited. “Strange”, you might say. Well, nothing is easy or straightforward for me. Everything has to accompany some sort of drama or it wouldn't be me, right? Remember the interview saga?

The few days prior to receiving the news that I had been offered a spot in the program were extremely hard. Rushes of highs accompanied by the certainty that I would be accepted followed by lows of “what am I going to do if I don’t get in again?” The part that I feared the most was having to go through this rollercoaster of emotions again the following year. Oh, and the interview! I think I developed some sort of post-traumatic distress syndrome from that interview. I have nightmares about it.

So, it is Friday May 3^rd and I’m sitting at the Queen Elizabeth Theater in Toronto, waiting for my 10 year old daughter come on stage and perform her ballet number. My good friend and business partner who had also applied and interviewed, was on the same boat as me restlessly waiting for an email. Most of the people that had applied had already received an email as we had heard form the Facebook Page Canadian Midwifery Hopefuls. There I was sitting in a dark theatre  texting my friend and checking my email obsessively in between each performance when the so expected and dreaded email arrived. The first word was CONGRATULATIONS!, and as I drop the phone and start sobbing of happiness  and relief, my daughter comes on stage. It all just seems so surreal. The dark, the loud music, her dance, the congratulations… It is all like a dream. Immediately after her performance I text my friend and our texts arrive simultaneously with our good news. She got accepted too. We will be in school together! I then phone my husband, but it was pretty hard to talk because I couldn’t stop sobbing. I haven't told the story of how my dream of becoming a midwife began (this will be a posting all on its own) but I can tell you now that it started 15 years ago. For 15 years I have taken small steps, keeping the flame alive, towards this dream.

That evening we went out as a family to celebrate the good news. Especially the hard work of the last 3 years where I went back to school to get all the pre-requisites to apply to the midwifery program. I have a hard time describing the feeling I had for the following 3 days. Relief, happiness, passion and disbelief are some of the words that come to my mind but none of them alone seems to fit what I was feeling. I just let whatever that feeling was, sit with me as I digested how my life was taking a turn. So, you might be asking, “Why aren’t you excited anymore?”  Well, by Monday I had pretty much accepted that it had finally happened and was ready to start acting on it. I went to Mohawk Collage and withdrew from the Practical Nursing program and asked for a refund. I then went to McMaster and inquired about transferring credits and electives that I could possibly take over the summer. It turns out that you can only take summer courses at McMaster when you are officially registered with a program, which I wasn’t going to be until September.

So I go home and start looking into taking summer courses at Ryerson and hope that McMaster would accept them, when I get the phone call.

Phone rings.

Me: hello.

After courtesies are exchanged.

Mac: Are you taking the Practical Nursing program?

Me: I was. Not anymore I just withdrew from the program.

Mac: When did you start?

Me: Jan 2013.

Mac: Do you have any grades awarded?

Me: yes.

Mac: Well we are holding your application because you held back information.

Me: What? What do you mean?

Mac: You didn’t include in your OUAC application that you were taking the program.

Me: I wasn’t! When I filled out the application I wasn’t in the program and when the deadline came I hadn’t even taken any formal examination so I had no grades to report.

Mac: Your application was based on your grades without this program so now is considered incomplete.

Me: Nooooo!!! But my grades are all above 90%. I didn’t know I had to update the info unless I was applying again. I didn’t even have any grades then.

Mac: Well, send a letter explaining and we will have to re-access your application. Christine Fernie is away till May 15th. She will have to look at your case then. Make sure you get us a transcript before then.

Me: I’m sooo sorry, I swear I didn’t know. I wasn’t trying to hide anything. I have nothing to hide! Look at my grades! Yes, I’ll have a transcript first think tomorrow.

So now you understand why I’m not that excited. I don’t know if it is real anymore, and I won’t know until probably May 16^th. I have taken all the steps necessary to fix the inaccuracy in my OUAC application, I have personally taken my transcripts to McMaster and written a letter and email explaining my situation. So, here I am again back to that wait game of not knowing. If they cancel my offer of admission I will have nothing! I have already withdrawn from the Practical Nursing program. I can’t even think about it because it would mean my whole world would be falling apart. Everything that I worked so hard for can be taken away from me and it’s out of my control. Like I said, it wouldn’t be my story if it didn’t involve some drama. However, I'm happy to say that I deeply believe that this will be nothing more then just another little pebble I will have to kick out of my way. If this is happening, it is for a reason and I must take advantage of what is teaching me. I don't believe in chance and I will get in if it’s meant for this journey to start.