Part-Time Midwife

I've been back to work as a midwife for a little while now. I'm still very part-time, but it's all I can handle at the moment. I go to prenatal appointments in the evenings when Louis can stay with Olivia and I work in my office every other night (alternating with working on the house) when she's asleep.

When she naps during the day, I make or return phone calls. If she wants me to lay with her, I check email on my phone once she's asleep.

Basically, I work around Olivia. I do actually enjoy having so much time to be with her and I really don't think I'll have any regrets as time passes about being home with her now.

Sometimes it's hard to switch into midwife mode, though. I find that I am constantly researching for questions my clients have or learning about new supplies and equipment, forms, insurance billing, etc. There are tons of yahoo groups to check each day and loads of midwife Facebook pages I read. Because I'm home, though, I also spend a lot of time playing with Olivia, cleaning, and taking care of the household. I feel guilty for investing too much time in either direction. Being a part-time midwife has been really challenging at times.

In just the past month or so, my clients have had experiences with and/or questions about the cost of genetic screening, safety of eating tuna, whether to have an early ultrasound, how to deal with early pregnancy fatigue, how to help a friend with breastfeeding problems, how to treat a UTI without antibiotics, taking Floridex for anemia, hiring a doula, requesting copies of prenatal records from the hospital, safety of flying while pregnant, insurance coverage for homebirth, supplies for homebirth, preparing a toddler for a new sibling, screening positive for downs syndrome, stressing out about the positive screen only to be told the hospital miscalculated the due date and there is no high risk after all, how to use cloth diapers without a washing machine at home, positive HPV test, glucose monitoring at home, battledore placenta, smoking in pregnancy, childbirth prep classes, and ketones in urine. 

Part-time is still a lot of work.