Trying to Find a Path in the Forest

I think the scariest part thus far on this new adventure has been the idea of finding an apprenticeship.

I believe so strongly in the apprentice model of education. Midwifery is one of the few career choices you can take any more than relies so heavily on apprenticeship. There was a time when most careers were learned by extended apprenticeships, whether that was as a baker or a seamstress. Young people would find a master to learn from, aspiring to become masters at the craft they were learning. They experienced their chosen field in the real working world. They learned from situations, and not from text books.

This model truly seems to be the only real option when it comes to midwifery. It is a calling that does not lend itself well to classroom learning with hypothetical situations. It is an art where each and every situation can change in a moment, and there is no way to learn the level of flexibility and sustaining stamina without truly LIVING it.

There is also the sisterhood of midwifery...just an aside, kind of-- The "Sisterhood of Midwifery"is one of those phrases that tends to lend itself to what I call the "fluffy" language of midwifery. Personally, I'm not a into fluffy language. I like to tell things how they are. I love beautiful language. I'm a literature hound. Some of my favorite reading is poetry. Yet, when it comes to the real world, I like to keep things real.

But in this case...it is a phrase that I love. The sisterhood of midwifery. Sisterhood. Women, together, in a bond that is unbreakable and undeniable. It describes *exactly* the experiences I have had that have kept me coming back to my passion for birth and the birthwork. It's that sisterhood that refreshes me and rejuvenates my passion. And apprenticeship plays into that sisterhood so much! Women teaching women to care for women. Each One, Teach One. Leaning on each other for our education and, once we are ready, furthering the educations of future generations.

So, I have been searching for an apprenticeship. I've been searching hard. I have contacted every midwife in Minnesota. I've received very few responses back. A few are not looking for apprentices right now, and I have genuinely appreciated that they at least took the five minutes to tell me that. Most suggested that if I was still looking in six months to a year, I could contact them again. I have met with one midwife, but never really heard much from her again after we met. I'm taking that to mean that it just was not meant to happen. I have an appointment this week with another midwife, who I am very interested in working with. There are a number of reasons that I find her practice appealing, including her wonderful reputation. We'll see how the meeting this week goes, but I'm really crossing my fingers.

I know that I will find an apprenticeship when I am supposed to and that the right doors will open when they should.

Boon at the Warehouse Book Sale!

I have been trying to budget out money for books for school for some time now. Books can be damn expensive and I just didn't know how I was going to be able to do more than one or two books at a time.

When my partner mentioned that there was a warehouse sale at the State Fair grounds this weekend, I jumped at the chance. Hoping I would get one or two books to check off the list. Wow, was I surprised when I walked out with a bag that is overflowing with books.

Here is what I got:

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
Amazon Price: $13.00
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $11.00

HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method
Amazon Price: $13.57
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $11.57

The Official Lamaze Guide, Giving Birth with Confidence
Amazon Price: $8.64
My Price: $1.00
Savings: $7.64

Taking Charge of Your Fertility: THe Defininitive Guide to Natural Birth Control
Amazon Price: $16.49
My Price: $1.00
Savings: $15.49

The Birth Book by William and Martha Sears
Amazon Price: $10.19
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $8.19

The Breastfeeding Book by William and Martha Sears
Amazon Price: $10.19
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $8.19

The Hip Mama Survival Guide
Amazon Price: $19.00
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $17.00

How to Make a Pregnant Woman Happy
Amazon Price: $11.21
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $9.21

Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year
Amazon Price: $9.95
My Price: $3.00
Savings: $6.95

New Choices in Natural Healing
Amazon Price: $14.21
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $12.21

The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence
Amazon Price: $8.64
My Price: $1.00
Savings: $7.64

Our Bodies, Ourselves
Amazon Price: $18.72
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $16.72

Fertility Wisdom: How Traditional Chinese Medicine Can Help Overcome Infertility
Amazon Price: $4.40
My Price: $2.00
Savings: $2.20

TOTAL Savings: $126.57

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY SIX DOLLARS AND FIFTY SEVEN CENTS!

That's a HUGE savings!

Day 3 & 4: Tennesee Workshop Trip

I'm struggling a lot to put to words the entire workshop. So, I decided to split it into sections so that I can make sure that I cover everything. The days kind of run together in my mind, because it was all so over powering and completely exhilarating. It would be like trying to describe a roller coaster ride moment by moment. There is just too much. Emotions change by the moment. New information is learned each and every second.

The Clinic

As I was driving up the pavement to the clinic, I was greeted by 100 pounds of Great Pyrenees.

Technically, this big guy is just out of puppy-hood. He's a year old. Sweet as all goodness, but damn, was he stubborn. He was laying in the exact middle of the driveway as I pulled up, and refused to move. I slowed my car down to less than five miles an hour thinking that as I got closer he would get up. He didn't. I ended up having to inch my way around him. When I got out of the car, he and another Pyrenees, as well as a beautiful yellow lab met me at the car and proceeded to sniff my luggage to make sure I didn't have my dogs stowed away in one of the bags. I'm sure they could smell my pack, and it was funny to watch them attempt to climb into the trunk to investigate.

Off to my left was a goat pen, so of course, I had to go say hello. I told you that there was a bit of country in me, but I always notice it more when I'm presented with a real farm.

I was enthralled by the beautiful countryside every day I was there. The second morning I was sitting in my car waking up with a cup of coffee and I was drawn to the dew on the grass. I had left Minnesota in the heart of fall, and when I got to Tennessee it was still very much late summer. It was so beautiful. Little did I know that when I returned to Minnesota, I would have missed Autumn all together. It was SNOWING at home that morning!


I have to say that when I was sitting outside enjoying the mornings, I was also smoking cigarettes. I was horrible embarrassed by that the entire time I was there. I hate that I have such a terrible addiction to nicotine. My insurance will only pay for me to attempt to quit once a year, and January is coming soon so they will pay for medication one more time. This attempt will be much more supported. I'm going to attempt the regular medication route, but add in some alternative health options as well. Hopefully that will increase my chances of a healthy quit.

The Women

The beautiful, amazing, intelligent, loving women that I met during the workshop have changed me. They touched my heart deeply.


From left to right: Joy, Andrea, Misty, Leah (holding Eowyn), Linda, Gay (holding Sophia), and me

It is very rare for me to feel as though I "fit". I tend to feel very much like an outsider no matter where I go. I've gotten good at blending, even when I'm obviously the sore thumb that sticks out. But I didn't feel as though I had to do that. I felt like we were all very different and very unique women, but that there was something bigger than all of us that had drawn us together and made us all part of something special. It made us all "fit".

We all laughed and cried. We sat up talking through the night about our lives and our experiences. We shared meals and "space". We formed a good sized family for the two days we were together.

These women inspired me and reinvigorated the passion that I have for midwifery. I try desperately not to become jaded in this world, but it's difficult at times. These women reassured me of the fantastic love and joy in the midwifery community.

What We Learned

The learning happened so organically and instinctively. We learned through conversations, stories, and hands on experiences.



Andrea and Misty, the midwife's apprentices, were incredibly talented at pulling learning opportunities out of each and every conversation. They found things that peaked our interest and elaborated on it. They took time to help us go over our NARM application packets so that we would be able to navigate the complexity of all the paperwork.


We learned universal precautions and sterile technique. We practiced basic physical exam skills on each other. Two beautiful mamas came in to the clinic to give us the opportunity to learn basic prenatal exams, including Leopold's Maneuvers and fetal heart rate monitoring. A delicious little two week old boy came in so that we could learn to do a newborn exam. I couldn't help but spend some time sniffing his little head.

I have always had a deep fear about my ability to use needles, either for injections or to draw blood. It just wasn't something that I could imagine myself being able to learn. Yet, I did. With a very patient Joy and Misty, I was able to draw blood for the first time. Now that I've actually done it, I feel like I could do it again. It was just getting the feeling for the vein and knowing that I could do it. Confidence!

I have to say that my favorite part of the workshop was the time we got to spend exploring placentas. The two most recent mamas to deliver with Linda donated their placentas to the workshop. It was fascinating! You can read about anatomy all you want, but you never fully understand it until you can witness it physically. And with placentas....wow. There is just such a power in that little organ. There is something almost magical about it.

The Tree of Life
(see those gorgeous veins that look like branches?)

Ms. Linda talking to us about cord attachment

Me, exploring the amnion and chorion

When I left the clinic on Saturday afternoon to head to my hotel in Nashville, I must admit that there were tears in my eyes. I was so incredibly joyful and empowered. The experience changed me, and I can't quite even explain how. But it did.


Thank you, Tennessee for showing me your beautiful land. Thank you to the other student midwives for sharing your wisdom and your babies with me. Thank you to the Universe for the opportunity to learn and grow. Thank you to Andrea and Misty for sharing your mentor, and for putting so much of yourselves into helping us learn. And mostly, thank you to Linda for the delicious food, comfortable housing, wonderful stories, and for having faith and hope for the future of midwifery.

Day 2: Tennessee Workshop Trip

I certainly did not realize it would be a week after I got back to Minneapolis before I would be writing out day 2 of this trip. Let alone days 3 through 5. I also did not realize that my 32 year old body does not respond as well to 12 hour days of driving as it did when it was 22 years old. It took a lot out of me this time around and I had to conserve resources wherever possible. Unfortunately, that meant not spending a half an hour each night blogging. Once I got home, I was exhausted and emotional overwhelmed. I couldn't even put to words how wonderful my week had been until a couple days ago. But I have a clear memory and some great photos to back it up, so I think I can still get you fairly well up to date.

Day 2


After sleeping fairly soundly at the hotel in Saint Louis, I woke up to drizzling rain and a sniffly nose from leaving the a/c on all night. I wanted to make sure that I was on the road as early as possible, but didn't take into account the horrible rush hour traffic of Saint Louis. Blah. I did get to see the Arch from the MLK though.


After three hours on the rainy freeway, I started to get a bit stir crazy. I had been listening to podcasts and had run out of good ones. The satellite radio system in the rental car was not providing anything interesting. And then I saw a highway sign for Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. A quick look at the GPS showed that it would add an hour or so to my drive, but I knew that I really needed some nature time. Don't get me wrong. I'm a city girl at heart, but occasionally, I really need some time with trees around me. This was one of those times.

I can't even begin to describe what a beautiful drive it was. Lush trees hang over all of the roads. There isn't one sound beyond the wind blowing and the occasional car that drives past on the back roads.
At one point, I decided to follow a road sign to a "primitive cemetery". I pulled off the main paved road onto a wet gravel drive. There were a few times that I was concerned that I would end up stuck in the mud, but luckily that did not happen. I had rolled down the windows and was really sucking in all of the fresh air and wonderful smells of the forest. Just after I went around that bend in the road in the photo above, I saw what I initially thought was a large dog. But the closer I got to it, the more I realized that it was a very large bear! I was too freaked out to manage to get my camera out and snap a picture. I just tick tacked my little rental car around and sped the other direction praying that the bear wasn't going to chase me. Of course, now that I look back on it, I realize that the bear was probably more annoyed with me than anything and the chances of her trying to chase me down were one million to one, but in the moment I was terrified. I don't see a whole lot of bears in Northeast Minneapolis!

That was not my only encounter with wild animals during my trek through LBL. I was listening to the AM "park information" station on the radio and was informed that there were numerous locations throughout the park where I would have a good chance of seeing a herd of wild Bison. So, I kept my eyes peeled toward the prairie areas. For the first half our, all I really saw was prairie grass, which was absolutely gorgeous...


but it wasn't a herd of Bison! I was really determined to see those damn Bison! Then as I turned a bend in the road, I notice a couple other cars pulled over with cameras out. And there they were...
just as wild and majestic as I had hoped they would be. I sat down in the grass, about 200 feet from the herd and just took it all in. I had seen Bison in the zoo before, but this was something that I cannot even begin to explain. I couldn't believe how powerful and real they looked. THIS was nature. And exactly what I needed to feel energized again about the rest of my drive.

I finished the drive through LBL, driving from the very Northern entrance all the way to the Southern exit. I could have cut through at a number of places and made my drive a bit shorter, but I was so entranced by how beautiful it was that I just couldn't get myself to turn off the road and head back to the freeway.

I finally made it out, and spent some time meandering through small Tennessee towns along the southern edge of Fort Campbell. I saw homes that I thought were somehow tied into the mythology of that area of the country; essentially little shacks with rickety front porches, barely large enough to have two rooms.

I'm always amused by the billboards in the South. See, in Minnesota, you very rarely see a billboard for an "adult clubs". Sexuality is much more...hidden here. As I drove through Tennessee, I would say a good 30% of the billboards were for gentleman's clubs or sex toy shops. It amused me a great deal. Then I saw what I can only think of as the "strip mall of sin"-- a gun shop, a strip club, a sex toy store, a tobacconist, and a liquor store. It was priceless. Must have had something to do with the zoning in that village, but I couldn't help but laugh.

I finally made it back to the interstate and got the Nashville fairly quickly. Unfortunately, it was evening rush hour and the most I saw of the city was the skyline from the freeway and the rear end of a truck. I sat behind that truck for almost an hour before traffic cleared up and I was able to move faster than 30 miles an hour.

I reached Huntsville around 9 pm. I wanted to make sure I got to sleep as soon as I could, since I had to be in Fayetteville by 7:30 in the morning. I absolutely had to eat, because eating and driving just never equates to healthy eating. I was very tempted by the Waffle House that was attached to my hotel, since we don't have WH in Minnesota. But I made the better choice to keep myself healthy and got a sandwich full of veggies and delicious whole grain bread.

Day 1: Tennesee Workshop Trip

Of course I couldn't sleep last night. I didn't even go to bed until after 11:30, and then woke up, completely up, by 3:00 a.m. There was no way that I could go back to sleep. I tossed and turned. I tried to keep my eyes closed. I tried to breathe myself back to sleep. But when the clocked switched over to 3:30, I decided that enough was enough and crawled out of bed. I tried to nurse my cup of coffee as long as possible, but at 4:00 I was ready to get on the road.

I stopped at the gas station down the road from our house and grabbed a cup of horrible coffee, because I knew that I wouldn't find a coffee shop anywhere that was open. In fact, it wasn't until I pulled into Eau Claire, Wisconsin an hour and a half later that I found somewhere that didn't make their cappuccino from a powder. Somehow, between leaving my house and the sun coming up around 7:15, I manged to pound down three cups of the blah gas station coffee and two Americanos. I must have been much more tired than I realized, because I don't remember much before the sunrise. Of course, right around that time, I realized that I had forgotten to pack my sunglasses. So, I stopped in Baraboo, WI to buy a pair. Nothing fancy, but enough to keep me from getting a splitting headache.


The drive was starting to take a MUCH longer than I anticipated. For some reason, even though Google and my GPS told me to expect 10 hours and 30 minutes, I thought I could make it in eight. At 5 and a half hours, I realized that was going to happen. So, I started planning on ways to keep myself entertained.


This included a side trip down part of Historic Route 66, which wasn't interesting at all. It was essentially a frontage road the the highway I needed to be on anyway.

Being the daughter of a Union man who was the son of a Union man, I grew up around with the labor movement in my blood. So, I knew that I wanted to see the Mother Jones Monument in Mount Olive, Illinois. Um...well, I thought I wanted to see the Mother Jones Monument. So, I drove about ten miles off the freeway into the little village, drove around for nearly a half hour before realizing that it was in the cemetery. When I found the Union Miners Cemetery in the back of the town, I was excited. I love old graveyards. They are so incredibly peaceful and beautiful. So, I enjoyed some time wandering through the graveyard and then I turned the corner and stumbled across the "monument".



Now with a word like "monument", I guess I expected something a bit....well monumental. Instead I found a cement pillar that stood possibly twenty feet tall, flanked by two "miner" statues, with a plaque of Mother Jones' face on the side. There was a cork board covered in plexi-glass about ten feet away with a few black and white print outs about Mrs. Jones' life and work. It was a bit of a let down, to say the least. But I got to enjoy a beautiful little town and a walk in a gorgeous graveyard.

I made it into my hotel around 5 o'clock. And as soon as I walked into my room, I crashed. Hard. My body just did not want to function any longer. Of course, the fact that I had been subsisting on granola bars, Triscuits, and summer sausage all day wasn't helping. After a much needed rest, I manged to run to Trader Joe's to pick up some food and a tin of coffee so that I could make the most delicious hotel dinner I have ever had.

That would be my lovely plate of sliced braeburn apple, sliced baguette, goat cheese, a blob of raw honey, and a coffee cup full of sparkling pomegranate juice! I feel so much better now that I've eaten. A shower will be able to top this day off right. And settling in to read Spiritual Midwifery for the 8 millionth time. I'll be off bright and early tomorrow to finish the driving.

Student Midwive's Prenatal Bag

Ever wonder what glorious and magical items are packed into a student midwife's prenatal bag? Because we all know that there must be some strange new-agey hocus pocus going on in there!




Clockwise from top-left: NARM PEP application binder, Practical Skills for Midwifery text book, sphygmometer (blood pressure cuff), stethoscope, box of non-latex exam gloves, measuring tape, glucometer kid with test strips and lancets, reflex hammer, sterile disposable speculum, and a digital thermometer

Getting a bit nervous

Time is flying and dragging right now. I've been thinking and planning this weekend for my trip and now it is Sunday night. Tomorrow night we have bowling. On Tuesday, I take the foster dog in to be fixed and pick up my rental car. And by early Wednesday morning, I'll be on the road to Tennessee. I'm having a bit of anxiety about the trip, but it's a good anxiety combined with a great deal of excitement.

I spent today updating the iPod, searching Roadside America for interesting things to stop and see during the drive, and putting addresses into the GPS so that I don't get lost. Tomorrow will be spent packing and doing last minute laundry. I also need to spend some time reviewing my Practical Skills Guide so that I'm all boned up on the skills we'll be working on. Not sure when I'll fit that in. Possibly at bowling tomorrow night.

I guess I'm preparing as much as possible. Meant to take some pictures in the last few days of the preparations, but that hasn't happened yet.

Learning to be unprepared

I have never been a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of girl. I like to be prepared. Already there have been times on this journey that I have just had to take a deep breath and relax, because I have done all I can to prepare and I just have to wait for the world to open up and bring the next thing to me. I cannot rush things or force things to happen in the order that I want them to. This new practice in patience and trust in the universe is becoming a learning experience of its own.

The excitement of my trip next week is starting to catch up to me. When I finish this blog entry, I'm headed to the storage closet to dig out a suitcase and start packing. Only four more days until I am on the road! I think I may even start taking some pictures tonight as I pack so that I can add them here. More colorful blog posts are much more interesting.... or something! *smile*