As you all know, and have been reading about on my blog for the last couple of months, I applied and was accepted to midwifery school back in July, after having attended the Midwifery Today Conference in Oregon this April.
With Syracuse being as cold and snowy as it is, Tim Baer and I had tossed around the idea of moving somewhere else before our winter here hit. Honestly, I didn't think that anything would pop up and figured that we would be spending another winter digging out cars out every morning.
During the last week of July, I responded to a post on the Mothering.com discussion boards from a birth center in Oregon that was looking for a new apprentice, as their current apprentice was about to graduate. I talked to the midwife at the birth center and her apprentice and, in the second week of August, applied for the position. The last week of August, I got a "Yes, come on out" from the midwife at the birth center. Tim and I discussed it, prayed about it, and decided that this was the best course of action for our family at this time. I've always wanted to be a midwife, my husband is extremely supportive and I've been told time and again that I'll make a good one.
The kids and Tim are pretty excited. I go back and forth between being thrilled and terrified. Overall, I feel a peace about what we are doing. For as crazy as it sounds, I think that this is a long term investment in our family, me being able to have a career.
I have two more doula clients here in Syracuse and then I'll no longer be serving as a doula in the Syracuse area. I'll miss my clients here, whose future births I had hoped to attend. I'll miss the ladies in the Doula Connection, our young doula networking group. Both the families whose births I was able to be a part of and our doula group here will always hold a special place in my heart. I don't know when I'll see any of them again, as a trip to New York isn't in the forseeable future.
I'll no longer be "SyracuseDoula," but I can't imagine that I'll stop writing about birth and family. It'll just be from Oregon, as a midwife's apprentice.
