He continues to guide me. The years since the DR (2014) have been rough but with gifts of love along the way. I have since started the required NARM paperwork and attended a month at a birth center in Utah and two months with a midwife in Wisconsin (2016). I worked at Mama Baby Haiti (2017) getting my first solo catches and acting as primary midwife.
Both acts of God’s hand. I have googled student midwife program many times and one day I got a result. Birthing Your Way in Utah. The donations from doula work paid for the tuition and I got half of assistant phase work done. I finished most of assistant phase in Wisconsin when one day on Facebook at the right time and on the right group there was a post for a student needed and I was the first to respond.
These trips were exciting to finally get the ball rolling for certification. In the meantime, midwife groups met at a round table and decided in the near future many states that allow the practice of direct entry midwives would need to have graduated from a MEAC -Midwifery Education Accreditation Council- school. The only school that is completely distance without travel requirements and affordable was National College of Midwifery. They were advertising their tuition will double when they roll out there online platform so now was the time to enroll. The catch, each student has to have TWO preceptors. There is only one midwife in the area that precepts and she was long booked with a waiting list. During this same time I became aware of birth meetings at a midwife’s house in North Carolina and was invited. Through conversation as well as more interaction through workshops held in that same area they offered to be my preceptor but could not offer me births. It would be for academics only. That fulfilled one requirement but I still had to have a preceptor for births/clinicals. I went ahead and started the paperwork for enrollment.
During this time I prayed. I was praying for the Lord to show me 100% which direction to go. The only preceptor in this area actually lost her apprentice and needed someone experienced to attend births she already had on the books. She called me. We did a few births together which culminated into being asked to officially be her apprentice. Prayers answered? It all was! But the FEELING I was getting from the Lord was not ‘this is the path’ but more like ‘you may choose this path or another and I will be with you’. Sometimes you just have this feeling of confirment and this feeling was more like my options were open. But, I went forward knowing it was not going to be easy.
It was hard navigating how to do the classes and in what order and how many and took some time to acclimate. Then there was 2018. A horrific year losing my father and caring for my mom plus her house fire later left me void. But with 2019 came new focus, a new group of midwife students I met online and more experience. My new study group helps get the classwork knocked out and I now feel in a rhythm with a goal of completed academic work by the end of this year. Completed. At the end of this year. That sounds so weird and as a glass-half-empty person I can’t help but think something could happen. But I remain optimistic in that if it does, God has a reason and I will just wait upon Him. He has brought me this far and He will continue to sustain me.
It is surreal to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Academics are one thing, clinicals and skills and protocols and guidelines are all another as is the national test. But He will be there too.
Moving forward. It is well with my soul. Psalm 146:1
Updated: He sustained! I finished up clinicals in the Philippines January 2020 and spent months studying for the test through COVID and passed June 1. I received my certification in June, my Associates in Midwifery in July, and my license to practice in Tennessee in August. Now we shall see where He leads.
Doula By Donation 