Growing Up

So, Posie has two teeth now. She can sit on her own. She can get up on her hands and knees and rock. She is becoming a tyrant with food. If we're eating, she WANTS IT! She grabs food away from us and chews it down and swallows. Guess she's ready for solids.

My oldest daughter just needed me to buy her some bras to protect her budding breasts from rubbing on her shirt.

Spielberg, my eldest child, my first baby, got his driver's license on Tuesday. I alternate between shouting "Freedom!" and having the shakes thinking about him being off on his own.

And I'm growing up as a midwife too. I feel like I am entering my young adulthood of midwifery, after barely making it through adolescence without getting kicked out of the house. There was a time when I was sure that I knew more than Faerylady. That I was smarter, and better. The same way our teens are sure that THEY will never parent the way we do.... until they are adults and find the same things flying out of their mouths that they never wanted to say.

I am realizing that it is easier for me to have Faerylady at births with me, and to wait for her to tell me what to do. But she won't do that any more. She makes me be the midwife. She makes me make the decisions. And that is terrifying. The responsibility is so profound. The fear of making a mistake has cold fingers, and they are around my stomach, squeezing hard.

Another baby was born a week ago today. Baby girl, 9 lb 8 oz. Caught by Daddy, Mommy and me. We were a team. It was great. Afterwards, when mom was bleeding a fast trickle, more than I like to see, certainly, Faerylady said, "Well, what are you going to do?" My mind raced. Well, her fundus was firm. That wasn't the issue. I could see a clot at the introitus, but couldn't get it to release. Pieces of it kept breaking off. Should I try and visualize the cervix? Maybe there was a bleeder, but with the blood a constant trickle, how could I tell where? Finally Faerylady said, "Do you want the round tissue forceps to pull that clot out?" Um, yes! A clue! That's what I needed. I used the forceps to extract a long and stringy clot that must have been holding the cervix open and preventing a good clampdown. The mom stopped bleeding. I am sure had I been alone, I would have figured out what to do, but when Faerylady is standing there, I seem to lose my confidence and want her to guide me instead of making the decisions and BEING the midwife.

I suppose part of it is a healthy respect for the amount of responsibility, and part of it is my desire to please -- to please the parents, to appear competent and to please Faerylady, who has become almost a surrogate mother of sorts.

I told Faerylady on the phone that I have really appreciated the fact that she is there for me and that I appreciate and acknowledge her experience and wisdom and that I knew I had gotten past a crucial point of feeling like I knew it all and that I was glad she had put up with me.

I'm almost halfway there on the births I need to take the NARM exam. Wow.