Okay, firstly I will acknowledge the fact that I haven't written here since August. After I was finished waiting for all the summer babies to be born, I started filling my schedule again, and haven't had time to sit and do such things. Fortunately for my vacation plans, some of the later babies were born early, and my on-call period was shorter than I had expected it to be.
I purchased the Canadian franchise of Mama Goddess Birth Shop this past September, and while incredibly exciting, it was quite overwhelming at first. The business is very similar to my midwifery supply business, but it is quite a bit more labour intensive with all the birth kits and such. There was a learning curve for sure. Now that I am more settled into it, I absolutely love it.
While I did attend several births in the Fall months, I did not have to clear my schedule as much due to a lovely doula partnership. We shared our clients and split up the call schedule. I was only on call half the week, so I could feel free to teach courses, get my expanded business in order, or reliably attend social functions even though we had clients that were due. We were also there for each other to spell each other off during a long birth or fill in when the other was ill. It also allowed us both to enjoy Christmas with our children even though we had a Christmas birth. However, my dear doula partner is pregnant, and the time has come for her to step back from doula work for a while.
So for the last week, I have been on my own again. I had 2 January clients, so I cleared my calendar in anticipation. However, as it turned out, I only needed one day. They both decided to come at once, and they were having their babies at different hospitals.
While I always make an effort to have good back up coverage, I never actually like to use back up. It's not that I don't think my back up network is fabulous, or that I don't trust them. I just really love birth and love my clients, and I'm really choked if I can't be at a birth for whatever reason. So when both clients went into labour on the same day, I began to resign myself to the idea that I was going to be calling the back up in.
However, it all magically worked out. I had been at one client's home for a few hours, and her labour had slowed down. She was trying to rest again. I got a call from the second client's husband, and I could hear her screaming in the back ground - this one was moving faster! Since the clients lived very close together, I decided to pop over and check things out with the second client. Things did progress reasonably quickly, and by the time client #1's labour began to pick up again, I was getting ready to leave the hospital - the baby was born and latched and cozy.
So now, to make a long story short, here I am with a clear schedule and all the babies born! Perhaps I will have time for activities such as blogging again.
P.S. In reference to the picture I chose- it's Tori Amos playing 2 pianos at once. She does this at nearly every concert. It's mind blowing. She often isn't looking at either of them, and her piano melodies are typically quite complicated. But she nails it, and the result is amazing, full-sounding, incredible music. It works, without causing either hand to fumble.
