Reassessment
I'm feeling really shit about midwifery at the moment.... Or labour ward at least. I was sat in the office yesterday morning seriously considering walking out and never returning. I just can't see myself doing this for the rest of my life.
I love community midwifery- building up a relationship with women and their families and facing something new every day. I love being able to go out in the car and have the freedom to set your own path that day. I even like clinic; it may be rushed and often stressful but you have the chance to empower women and make a difference.
Labour ward, in short, sucks. Every woman who comes in gets straight onto the bed, lies down and that's it. No active birth, nothing empowering. They're treated more like patients than anything else. And the endless rounds of obs every. 15. minutes. It's soul destroying and frankly boring. In two weeks I've seen 2 normal births.... TWO. That's just shocking. Endless interventions, CTG monitoring where there needn't be and "white coat syndrome" makes it a strange place, making birth medicalised when in fact it's the most natural thing in the world.
I don't know. I'm pretty disillusioned by it all. Perhaps it doesn't help that I'm a couple of days in to a solid 9 day stretch of work without a break.
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