The Inner Physician And The Microphone

This is the last blog post in the series ‘My Journey of Conscious Uncoupling From NHS Midwifery’.

This journey is complete, the uncoupling is done and I will continue my weekly reflections as ‘The Consciously Uncoupled Midwife’ on my upcoming podcast. 

The themes there will be based on my fascination with not only the pregnant female body but our human body in general; With the potential that lies in seeking to truly understand it, in celebrating it and in fostering health within it. 

Your body can heal itself and if you learn how to observe your body in this process, you are less likely to have to resort to an allopathic medicine approach (and the pharmaceuticals that come with it).

I know this from personal experience, this is how I have lived my life for the most part.

As Maria Alfieris from Magicalhandsphysiotherapy told us at the fascia release training I attended just a few weeks ago:

'Know how to activate the inner physician!'

This is what excites me and this is what I want to share with you!

Already my head is full of ideas for the podcast; Guests I want to invite, topics I want to explore and knowledge I want to share with you.

My intention lies in inspiring you towards health and joy in your own body regardless of the kind of body you live in.

Young, old, female, male, slender, chunky, strong or frail; Our bodies are always a source of information, there's always learning in observing the messages from our bodies with acceptance and without judgement (that's the difficult part).

With every client at Essentially Birth, I learn something new. Every time someone brings their body to me for help and support, there's a revelation. Every body is unique and every body wants to be understood. Pain is a message and dis-ease, in many ways, is an opportunity to find perspective. 

Having cut all the remaining emotional ties with my former role as a midwife, I can see plainly now the one and only reason that I had to leave:

It is not, in fact, because of the over medicalisation of childbirth, or because I disagree with all intervention (I don't), it's because I was entirely bored and uninspired by what mainstream medicine and by extension mainstream maternity services have to offer. 

I am interested in shifting the focus of the conversation from an allopathic approach to a functional health and root cause approach and I am hoping that you are, too.

If, instead of resorting to testing, screening, 'prophylactic' pharmaceuticals and medical intervention, we were to focus on whole body pregnancy health everything would look very differently.

By simply shifting our dietary advice, we could cut down the incidence of pre-eclampsia, postpartum bleeding and gestational diabetes (I know that mainstream medicine disagrees with this, but this is already happening in the realm of holistic pregnancy health). 

And why not teach midwives how to give women some simple tools to be free from the most common types of  pregnancy pain?

Just two days ago I had a client come to me for a late pregnancy Massage and Stretch Session. She was about 36 weeks pregnant and had been having this achy pain above the pubic bone that is so common in pregnancy. She'd been sore for weeks. Her midwives told her that this was 'normal' and that there really wasn't anything she could do about it and so she expected that I would tell her the same.

Just to be clear, I do not blame the midwives at all here or in any of my previous blogs.

My observations are not value statements about individual practitioners at all and this particular response could have been mine in my early years of midwifery. I remember well our class on 'Normal Ailments of Pregnancy', there may even have been a whole chapter on those in my long disposed of 'Myles Textbook for Midwives'. 'Myles', as we used to call it in uni, is one of the two main texts on 'midwifery' in the UK. It is basic and entirely based on a medical view of pregnancy and birth. If I had my way it would come off the reading lists in midwifery school. Replacing it with Anne Frye's 'Holistic Midwifery' texts would be a great place to start. We could take it from there.

I digress.

The point is that the matter of how to support the pelvic girdle through pregnancy (and in doing so support baby alignment for a more straightforward birth) is not on the midwives' curriculum. In the fragmented maternity model that most women have access to pelvic pain gets referred to the physiotherapy department (if you are lucky).

Instead midwives are taught that the common phenomenon of pelvic discomfort is 'normal' in pregnancy. If your discomfort moves into the realms of 'pain' then it's the physio's job to help.

It took a trip to Saint Paul in Minnesota and another to Amsterdam for me to learn from some of the most forward thinking health practitioners that a) 'common' does not mean 'normal' b) many ailments can be averted with simple body work techniques and c) some ailments will require a committed whole health approach but they will be resolved if you are willing to apply it.

Long story short, my client's pain was gone within two minutes and, like many before her, she said that she wished she'd come to me weeks ago.

The best thing about it: she now knows how to get rid of the pain if it shows up again and she also knows what to do in order to keep it from coming back.

That's the word I want to spread. To mothers, fathers, midwives, doctors and everyone who steps into the birth space to support the mama/baby dyad. 

So over the next twelve months I'll be telling you of the potential that lies in uncoupling from the risk focused mainstream narrative and actually pursuing health for yourself and your baby through fostering a wholesome connection between your body, mind and spirit.

Are you as excited as I am about the podcast?

There are other reasons for shifting my main focus from blogging to podcasting:

• I initially thought that having a podcast might take less of my time than writing a weekly blog but, so far, the pivot towards a different medium has taken up a lot of EXTRA time and hopefully this is simply because I am new to it and evidently also still writing my blog. I am banking on my ability to talk endlessly about subjects that capture my imagination and on my love of a good conversation here! 
• The podcast will revisit some of your favourite blog posts and in reviewing them I intend to edit them and turn them into a book. I feel that there are many midwives and pregnant mamas out there who want to read about my journey and after publishing a bestselling first book '7 Secrets Every Pregnant Woman Needs To Hear Before Giving Birth' I feel called to do it all again.

My first podcast episode was meant to be in the can by now ready to be streamed when I launch in the first week of September but, as it transpired, the issue of sound, particularly if your aim is to grow an audience, is an important one. 

Not (yet) in a position to justify a major investment in equipment for a venture that ultimately constitutes a hobby more so than contributing to our bread and butter as a family (though some of my clients have sought me out because of the blog and I am hoping that the podcast, too, will help women find me), I took to facebook marketplace to find a podcast mic.

Much to my surprise I found exactly the microphone I wanted for sale in Belfast and the seller accepted a very cheeky offer.

How lucky!

The ensuing attempts at finding a suitable time to collect the bargain from a seemingly reliable young woman (I am ashamed to admit that this verdict was reached by looking at her facebook profile picture once) turned out to be so frustrating that about three days into it I didn't count myself lucky anymore!

I almost went to Argos in a strap to buy the thing at full price only to be able to write a snappy message to this effect. 

Instead I breathed deeply, affirmed that it was *just* a microphone and decided to persevere and pick up the conversation one last time.

In the end it came down to: ‘ Would it suit if I nipped over now?’ 

‘Yes it suits now!’

And so six days after the initial negotiations I found myself on the outskirts of Belfast knocking at the door of a family home.

A young woman did answer the door and her demeanour suggested to me that she had no idea who I was or why I was there.

Had I been subject to a prank?

It couldn't be a scam, no money had changed hands.

In broad daylight and owing to the kiddies' balance bike that had been tossed there in the driveway I assessed the risk of abduction as minimal.

Possible, yes, but unlikely.

Was she just a bit flakey? 

What was going on?

‘I’m here for the mic?’ 

‘Oh, he’s been using my phone.’, she said and closed the door. 

Okay, this was brief. Maybe I need to hone my skills of judging character by profile pictures.

I saw a cat and a dog sizing me up through the living room window and I reckoned that she closed the door to avoid their escape (or that of the balance bike owner).

The sun was out and I turned my face towards it hoping that he would soon appear with the mic. 

And then, after a few minutes, there he was.

It took one glance to understand why messaging to arrange a time for collection felt so tedious, why every morsel of information had to be extracted so painfully, why it took hours for a response each time and why there seemed to be such reluctance to commit to a certain time at a certain date. 

I had been dealing with a guy in his late teens or early twenties.

Ahhhh Gen X meets Gen Y (or Z - I couldn't tell for sure) - say no more! 

How could I not have figured this out, I live with a 24 year old?!

All was forgiven instantly.

Such a lovely young guy, really (I am easily charmed and very forgiving).

On recalling the whole thing for the purpose of documentation, it seems that my subconscious has charted the transaction as  ‘overall pleasant’ despite the sluggish correspondence (not least owing to the pretty sleek looking piece of equipment at a bargain price). 

My microphone is pretty cool and the podcast jingle is ready to go and sounding good if I may say so myself. 

So, here we are. 

'My Journey of Conscious Uncoupling From NHS Midwifery' is complete and I thank you for reading along. So many of you message me every week telling me that I have become a part of your Saturday morning routine and I love the thought of having had cups of tea and coffee with you via this medium. There's more to come and I cannot wait to hear from you in the future.

It seems inevitable that there'll be more writing, too. Writing every week has helped me get clear on how my seemingly sudden break with the Nursing and Midwifery Council became inevitable. 

I know that I will keep writing as a reflective practice.

As my business grows more and more, I hope to hire a virtual assistant down the line who can help me with managing my appointments and maybe even with editing my podcasts into transcripts that are engaging to read in future blogs.

But first it's over to launching 'The Consciously Uncoupled Midwife' podcast on Saturday, September 7th, 2024. I can't wait for you to listen to it.

Until then I wish you all the best.

Have a beautiful August.

May it be filled with sunshine, laughter and many fulfilling birth journeys for those of you who are round and very nearly ready to give birth.