How did I get here?

How did I end up here? If you’ve found this website, you obviously know that I am working as a doula. I’m still a paramedic, but working in a casual capacity for now, at least until I can figure out how to balance all of this craziness that I call life at the moment. But how did I end up here? Ever since my first nephew was born, almost 19 years ago (holy crap, where has time gone?!), I have wanted, in some way, to be a part of people’s lives when they worked to bring their own incredible tiny human into their world. I was able to be a part of that day with my sister, and I want more than anything to be a part of it with so many more.

My original plan was to become a midwife. I wanted to be the one who brought back childbirth as it was for centuries before. Before all the drugs and the surgeries. Before birth was seen as such a scary thing. Before it was looked on by some as a malady that needs curing rather than a natural part of life. We’ve come a long way in the last couple decades, so I guess I won’t be THE ONE, but I can still be one of the ones.

I figured I would need experience to get even close to being accepted into what is a very competitive program. That’s why I went into paramedicine. Turns out, I actually ended up loving my work. It was supposed to be a stepping stone to something more, but in the mean time, I have found a job that gives me satisfaction, despite the fact that I did not intend on staying in this line of work for very long (it’s been 10 years since I graduated as a paramedic…that’s a long time).

My next stepping stone towards my dream, was to get more education. Going back to university was also a good excuse to tell my parents why I was moving to Newfoundland, besides to be a little closer to a cute Newfoundlander. I went and got my BSc in Bio from MUN, learned a lot, met some incredible people, and studied for my MCATs. My thought was, if I’m going to go back to school for that long, why not be a OB and have a much broader reach on the people that I could help. Trouble is, whether I become a midwife, or an OB, I need a lot of time, and I need to be far from this beautiful place in the world that I am lucky to be able to call home now. Time that, right now, I don’t feel that I have.

For now, I have changed the direction of my stepping stones, yet again. I’m moving away from the education piece and back to the experience piece. I’ve become a doula. And what a wonderful place to be able to do it. Currently, there are no other doulas in Central Newfoundland, a place that desperately needs more resources for pregnant women, parents and their families. I am so excited to have the opportunity to give families the chance to have the support that has been shown to decrease medical intervention, increase breastfeeding rates, increase the satisfaction rate of women’s birth experiences, etc, etc (I will talk more on how amazing doulas are another day).

So in other words, I have no idea how to get across to my final destination. I just keep jumping from stone to stone in hopes that I will eventually end up on dry land. I may not end up where I was originally planning on going, but really, who does? And if they do, did they have any fun along the way?

What else is on the go? So much! My cute Newfoundlander and I have recently bought a piece of land; a big piece of land! We are so excited to finally get to start building our house, developing our land into our little piece of paradise, and seeing what grand adventures the universe has in store for us next!

What I am hoping to get out of this blog (oh someone please come up with a better name)? Well basically, its going to be a place where I can share what I’m learning. Maybe this will be my way to be one of the ones… I’ll share what I’m learning about how to make births a more positive experience, what the evidence is saying about common birth practices, and also about how to hopefully live a happier and fuller life. Some of what I write will be about pregnancy and birth, obviously, but I also want to share things like the mistakes we make along the way of building our home, maybe even stuff on farming and homesteading if we ever get around to it, and food…cause I do love food. Just about life. Hopefully we’ll be able to learn together along the way.

My disclosure to you is that I am not a beautiful writer. I have always struggled to find the right words, or figure out how to make what’s in my head flow out to sound just right. I hope that I’ll be able to write in such a way, that you’ll want to keep checking in to see what new adventure is on the horizon. Hopefully the more I write, the better I’ll become. I hope everyone has a very safe long weekend. Thanks for reading!