Stumbling into Midwifery & Finding My Passion
Written by Amy Filleman - Obstetrics & Gyn BSN, RN
When 2015 started, I was ready to end my nursing career. I was burning out and had a nearly fatal case of cynicism. I was unhappy with my job and unhappy with myself because I let my job define my identity.
I thought about going back to my college job in retail. I thought about changing specialties. I thought about moving off the grid and living my life as a hermit who never had to deal with patients again.
Thankfully, none of that came to fruition. Though I do still miss that discount!
Enter a longtime family friend. She had spent her nursing career in labor and delivery until she became a Certified Professional Midwife and opened her own home birth practice. She had asked me a few times before if I wanted to spend a day with her and see what it was like. In my cynical, semi high-risk OB patient background, I was a hard pass. I thought it was
Incredibly unsafe
Gross! Birth is messy. Who wants to clean that up?
Just plain weird.
Bless my uninformed, biased, cynical heart.
If I had been in a different place, I probably would have said no again. But I was desperate to not be at work and was able to use it as a development day since I was still working with OB patients.
It took one patient, just one. A wonderful woman who was 30 weeks pregnant and totally opened up to me, who let me put my hands on her belly and feel her son move. A woman who shared vulnerable, painful story and let me hold space for her. Just one client, and I was in.
It was about 6 months before I attended my first birth. An incredible lady was birthing her third baby at home and said I was welcome to be part of her team. I can remember my heart basically pounding out of my chest. I got there just a moment after she birthed her daughter. Even though I missed the actual birth, I was part of checking on Mama, checking on baby. Part of the Golden Hour after birth. Part of getting them both cleaned up, a shower for our client, fresh sheets, and situated. Two hours later, we left mom and dad and daughter ready for a nap in a bedroom that no one would ever know had just had a birth. I was exhilarated and totally hooked!
Over the next 3 years, I would attend 25 more home, and hospital births. I sat in hundreds of prenatal visits. I had the sweetness of postpartum visits. I cut two umbilical cords. And then I got to catch a baby.
In the midwifery world, we do not call it “delivering a baby”, we call it “catching a baby”. Delivering implies work and it is not us doing the work, it is the strong, beautiful, intentional, committed mama. Home birth means no pain meds! Home birth means intention and preparation. Home birth means having plans and back up plans. Home birth means trust. Hone birth means support.
On this cold night, we arrived at the home as our client labored with her first child. Checking heart tones, charting, setting up supplies, more charting, and more heart tones. Each birth was different, but each had a rhythm and by now, the CPM and I had a rhythm. As birth grew near, Mama found her most comfortable position was squatting next to her bed. So, down on the floor, I felt a warm, wet, wiggly body flow j to my hands. Just writing it, I can feel it again. The weight of that roughly 8-pound body. She was so warm. Then her Mama reached down and took her. It was precious and exhilarating.
Over those three years, I was able to have so many great experiences. I was able to
Bond with patients and develop relationships that continue today.
Attend the births of multiple children in 2 different families.
Expand contacts in the birth world including midwives, doulas, photographers, and birth centers.
Learn how to manage problems Ina less invasive, but still totally effective, ways
Learn to trust the body
Learn to trust to nursing judgement and intuition
Made me super passionate about choice
Revealed how important it is to respect the bodies of our patients and to ask for permission before all the things.
These lessons still stay with me today and I pass them on to my nursing OB students. I pay my experience forward and seeing the excitement in the students for an area I love fills my cup.
As a nurse who worked in OB/GYN, I brought so many skills to the table. I had BLS/ACLS/NRP certification. I understood normal and abnormal. I knew the system and how things worked. I knew the pieces and process of prenatal care. I knew how to chart and did it beautifully if I do say so myself! I knew how to talk to people and how to listen. I knew how to take direction and how to step up and work without having to have my hand held. I could start IVs and push medication. I could communicate clearly with other providers. I could take my nursing skills I used every day in a job I then hated and put them in the midwifery world I loved! It was amazing.
As those who have read my other pieces for EARN know, midwifery did not become my end point. Trauma got in the way, but the skills, concepts, new ideas, and trust I learned in that time reformed me as a nurse and as a woman.
I have not given up on the idea of midwifery. I am choosing a grad program that allows additional certification with only another year of work. It will not surprise me at all if I have the letters CNM behind my name someday. But no matter what I do, I will always love midwifery and homebirth and fight for the choice.
If the idea of being a birth assistant appeals to you, here are some tips to get into the arena
Tap your contacts! See if there is anyone you know ir a friend of a friend who can get you in the door.
The Phoenix area has several birth centers, and they use birth assistants there. That is a great way to meet people.
Get your NRP and start talking to people in the birth world. Doulas and laceration consultants know everyone!
Have an open mind to learn new things, new modalities, and have your knowledge expand.
One of the greatest privileges we have as nurses is the ability to change it up. If we do not like where we are, if we don’t like our specialty, we can change. We can start working with a new group of patients and providers and maybe that will be what brings our nursing hearts to life. For me, my time in Midwifery made me so much better at my job. That job I hated? I am still there. It is not the same. I am not the same. I learned I grew, and I caught a baby. Maybe you will too one day!
👩🏻⚕️I’m Amy! An Arizona native🌵 and private practice triage nurse and an adjunct nursing professor for the local community college. I have spent my career in Women’s Health and am passionate about birth, trauma recovery, and helping other nurses find their dream job. Working with EARN helps to reduce some of the endless job applications and waiting that nurses face daily. I’m an enneagram 6W5 and love Diet Coke🥤