Third Year

I haven’t posted for awhile because I have been seriously thinking about discontinuing this blog. It turned out my Normal Childbearing placement was much harder than I had expected. Not so much the huge learning curve that it is, but being in a midwifery student role. When you go back to school at the age I did, and you have been submerged in midwifery for the last 20 years, it is hard to accept certain things. Things that I cannot talk about in this blog. Part of it is the midwife I am being trained to be is not the midwife I had in mind when I applied. How could I have been so wrong about midwifery in Ontario? The first few weeks of my placement seemed like a dream come true until the reality of the "real midwifery" became apparent. I would love to be able to share my thoughts and frustrations here, but we have been warned by the ethics and legal committee from McMaster way too many times about being careful with what we post on social media. Examples of students that were expelled from school because of the inappropriateness of what had been said online were highlighted too many times. Of course, maintaining the confidentiality of clients and people you work with is a must, but there is huge fear of someone finding what you wrote unprofessional or inappropriate. When I’m censored on what I write, I feel I'm not true to the blog or reader. I have thought long and hard if it is worth continuing with the blog, but I do miss going back and reading my achievements when I need some encouragement. Of course, I could just journal at home, but somehow it does not give me the same motivation to write.

There is one thing that I can say, and that is I was very close to dropping out. There were times when I didn’t think I could go on with another day. I felt so alone and isolated. I hated that I was not enjoying what I had waited for so long, in fact that I was dreading every day of it. My frustrations with midwifery were not the only hard aspect of the placement. The rigour of this program is beyond humane. Being on-call 24 hours a day with only four days off a month plus weekly tutorials that need preparation and online contributions is extremely stressful.  The witching hours, poor nutrition and stress made it very hard for me to manage my Fibromyalgia condition, which added, even more, challenges to this program. The lack of clear expectations from preceptors and working with multiple ones, also adds much to the frustration.

The following poem was not written by me but by a senior student. It was published in a newsletter for the midwifery students association, and it spoke so close to my heart that I decided to include in this post.

The fact that I had a summer placement and went straight into third-year, starting with an emergency skills’ intensive week and then six university credits taken online in six weeks did not help me process what I had gone through during the summer. I feel I need some serious counseling before I can get on with my senior placement. Which by the way, is right around the corner, because we should be getting our list for the senior placement lottery in mid-January. Somehow I need to find a way to get the strength to finish this program. Everyone keeps telling me that I’m almost there, but when I think of the senior placement, it brings a shiver down my spine. For now, I will just concentrate in finishing my third-year placements which I'm actually enjoying. I'm especially looking forward to my international placement coming in March but I will leave that for another post.