I am now the owner of a practice with FIVE wonderful midwives. This new reality has suddenly exploded at my feet in all its newness, challenge and opportunity. FIVE midwives.... what is going on at Lovers Lane Birth Center?
One is me: Dinah, owner and roll-with-it-midwife, mistress of the "And why not?" school of philosophy. Another is Adelle, second short, curly-haired, Jewish, middle-aged midwife type who is unfurling in the freedom and ambiguity of life away from the hospital. Third is Kristy, our modest, quiet,and gentle money-and-billing managing midwife. Fourth is Kristine, the amazingly able, get-it-all done office-organizer-midwife. And fifth is Anna, who has yet to begin but will find her own place in our roomy birth center, bringing with her her life with her chickens, her garden her nearly centenarian live-in grandma, her still breastfeeding youngest and her 100-mile-running spouse (now that sounds intriguing doesn't it?)
I'm thinking about subsuming our feelings and being open to our clients wishes, learning and growing as midwives and as people from that. But, at the same time our own feelings matter, our boundaries and comfort zones move over time but they do define us as people and our midwifery practices. We midwives are works in progress. So is the birth center. And so are our clients and their families.
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