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Waiting

Do you ever feel like Inigo Montoya in Princess Bride. You remember the scene where a masked Wesley is attempting to climb the ‘Cliffs of Insanity’ and Inigo Montoya stands at the top of the cliff attempting to make him hurry by all sorts of promises.As Wesley hangs on for dear life, he says to Inigo, “That’s very comforting, but I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait”, to which Inigo replies “I hate waiting”. Sometimes I feel like I’m climbing my very own cliff of insanity in midwife…

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Summer Sun

As the summer sun rises over Texas again this year, most of us are looking for the shade! But despite the Texas heat, I am reminded of what incredible benefit the sunlight has for us all, even the newest Texans that are born this summer! Tucked deeply within the womb, each tiny baby grows, dependent completely on the placenta and the mother’s body for every need. The infinitesimally small size of the heart as it forms in the first few days of life astounds my brain. Even as it is forms it begins to pump red blood cells through the baby’s new body that is s…

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Ninety Seconds

How much can happen in 90 seconds anyway? It all depends on that 90 seconds. If I’m standing in line at the grocery store, 90 seconds seems short, but if I’m holding my breath, 90 seconds seems like an eternity. We are curious creatures; we seek to understand the mysteries that elude us. We search, we discover and of all our discoveries, the one we need most of all is to discover how very little we know.After years of research, we still don’t know what makes women go into labor. We still can’t tell you how to cure stretch marks,…

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Wonder

Midwifery is filled with moments of awestruck wonder. Birth is a time when the veil of the ordinary is held back and a view of life in all its wonder is displayed in vivid color. There are so many moments I am privileged to witness. There is the moment when parents hear the tiny heartbeat of their baby for the first time. There is the joy on the face of a mother that describes to me feeling her baby move for the first time. There is the excitement in the voice of a mother describing to me the first signs of labor. There is the relief on the face of a father when the birth team walks i…

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Of Midwives and Monkeys

Monkeys and midwives, not something you usually associate together, (at least I hope you don’t associate them together) but one particular monkey has been of incredible service to maternity care providers, mothers and babies for the last 70+ years. Rhesus Monkeys are small furry primates, native to much of Asia, who have been beneficial in the discovery of many medical breakthroughs over the years. In the late 1930’s early 1940’s Doctors were able to use the Rhesus monkey in understanding a particular marker on the human red blood cell, and so from…

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New Midwives

This last week marked the test date for the NARM exam, the final test that a midwifery student must complete before she can apply for her NARM Certified Professional Midwife credential. Student midwives, ah what a grand thing. They have brought such joy to me as I have progressed in my journey in midwifery. But some things are just impossible to explain to bright eyed energetic midwifery student who wants to pursue midwifery. Of course going into midwifery I was hazed as well as the next, but I still had no idea what I was walking into. You hear all manner of stories wh…

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