A slight change

So while there has been little activity here, and unfortunately I can't guarantee anything regular being posted here at the moment, I thought I better send you all over to another blog I've started on menstruation:

St. Menses

It's been floating around as an idea for the last few months and as of today I've done something about it. Please be aware that it will contain adult content.

Water

Lent

He sits waiting
'Will you give me a drink?'

Indignant,
'A jar has already been spilled
now I've returned for more,
it's full
for my purpose,
how can you even ask me for a drink?'

she trembles waiting

'If you knew who it is that asks you,
you would have asked him
and he would have given you
living water'

lifeless, the water jar waits

Scooped in her hand
water trickles through fingers
held out to him,
'Give me this water
so I won't keep coming here to draw'

dripping, waiting
offering evaporating on dry sand

'My water becomes a spring
welling up
to eternal life'

he takes her hand
the jar overturns
spilling
welling into nothingness
rushing away

'Go, call your husband'

waiting tears pour

'I have no husband'

'You are right
and the man you now have
is not your husband'

silence
water dissolves around her

she trembles waiting

a spring appears

Snacking on Bits and Pieces

Sitting curled up on the couch tonight I discovered Twisties and KitKats taste good together.

Obviously if I'm eating it means I'm still alive. The earth hasn't swallowed me up, and I truly am hoping to get this blog back to functioning.

So yes, I'm still here, but there have been a few changes. I've taken a year break from my Midwifery degree, and will start back again in July next year. It was a choice I needed to make, this year has been a roller coaster. My Follow Through Journey case studies got lost in the wake of it all. Thankfully I can keep doing them over the next few months while I don't have classes.... the thing is now I have to deal with all the women that got left behind earlier on this year. In a profession which highly values continuity, I feel so wretchedly guilty for leaving these women behind. It's been stopping me from getting anywhere close to catching up. It's got to change...

The other change, or soon to be change, is that this Saturday I'm moving out of home and going to share a small flat with my twin sister Bec who's loosing a house-mate and needs someone to help pay rent. Freedom! I'm packing boxes... can't wait!

So I'm not studying... but I'm still loving midwifery! Or I should say remembering why I love it again. Uni stress was starting to kill my passion. A good reason to take a break, and learn what I want to learn in a self directed way. I'm tossing up if I can afford going up to Sydney for the Australian Homebirth Conference at the start of November. Ina May Gaskin is speaking... I don't think I can afford to miss it! I want to hear her and see her in person!

Also Birth Week 07, similar to last year's Birth Week, is coming up again... the program sounds fantastic. I hoping I can managed to get to a few gatherings in between my shifts selling shoes at work.

Life goes on.

Ecclectic Mess

Nothing cuts a creativity surge to mere smithereens more than a frozen computer, night shifts and a computer which won't read my photos off of my camera. I've opted for the communal 'family computer' for the moment, while I brace myself to purchase a new laptop.... which is just a tad exciting.

And so I don't forget I need to blog about a few things:

1. Placement: After three weeks it finally happened... I looked after a few elderly men last Thursday and Friday. They had transurethral prostatectomies (TURPs). It was so weird. I had to laugh last night when speaking to Ruth, (a friend who's about to graduate as a nurse). We've been chatting about the strange things I've been doing this last little while that have no relation at all to midwifery. So when I saw her late last night and simply said, "I've been looking after the TURP's", she put on her most sympathetic face and said, "Oh honey! Don't worry, once you've seen one you've seen them all... and yes, they're all so damn precious about their bits!"

2. Art: The beautiful art work my little sister Hannah sketched for me (It was for my 21st birthday but it came a tad later). A pregnant woman in charcoal. Photo's to come when I can down load them.

3. Friends: Going to St. Andrews Market with Tim, Ana, Dylan and Susannah yesterday was just perfect. Mmmm kumquat marmalade is divine. Along with the marmalade, my canvas bags were quickly filled with olive and rye bread, an earing (yes just one... I need to buy another like it but slightly different to get the look I want), a pendant from Peru, wild dried figs, some artistic pregnancy photography on a set of cards, and a pair of Indian pants belonging to Tim (because boy's don't bring things like bags with them ;).

After warming ourselves with the famous St. Andrews Chai Tent chai and wandering over the road to the pub to thaw out by the fire we stopped at Hurstbridge for lunch in a gorgeous little retro cafe' called Heart and Soul (photos to come). The op-shop deserved a flying visit and then a longer one in the antique store, where I think the shop owner thought Tim was serenading her with the old beaten up guitar he found in the corner as he tuned and played it. Back on the street Susannah, wondered out loud about the difference between 'organic' and 'bio dynamic' produce after seeing a sign at the health food store, so we wandered in to ask. Browsing the shelves I found pure body art quality henna in the brand I've been looking at on the internet. It was only $3 for 100g!!! Very exciting. Can't wait to start mixing and trying it out.

On we drove to Tim's brother and sister-in-laws place. Hugh was out the back with a few other relatives and it's an undeniable fact that vehicles play a large part in his and Amy's life.... they've got their own marked track in the paddock for driving in! It being wet and muddy it was time for a just a little bit of fun. Mostly everyone took turns attempting a flying drive up the hill to see how far they could get before drifting off the muddy track. Hugh took me as a passenger and the drift in the mud was amazing! The plan is to come out again sometime and have a bit of a wild driving session, just to see what cars can do and how to respond. Very keen.

Once all four of us were back at Tim's place, Ana, Ryan and Mick showed up. After being served some amazing Tequila Sunrises, we drove out into the darkness and sticks to Izzie's 21st birthday party. Her's would have to be the most wonderful party I have been to in my whole life! She is so very loved! People spread through the house and garden and I would have guessed there were 250 people at one point. It almost seemed like a school reunion, just about every person in our final year of high school showed up. Every time I moved I found someone I'd yet to talk to. The garden was perfect with fairy lights and the fire drums to keep warm around, the food enjoyable and the alcohol very tasteful. After speeches we spent some hours dancing.... Mic and Ryan both danced, it was the first time I've ever seen either of them dance and it was just so right to be dancing crazily with a whole group of friends to Infected Mushroom trance music! My only regret was that I hadn't bought a change of shoes from the morning with me, dancing with hiking boots on is just a little clunky!

I fell into bed at 2:15am. A good good day.

oh... and mental note to self... I need to post about the hike I've been on...

Stoked....totally!

If you're not a blogger I doubt what I'm about to say will resonate with you.

But for all you bloggers out there, I'm sure you'll understand the excitement experienced when I discovered some midwives have linked to my blog! Wow! I feel very honoured and now just a little more compelled to write. Hahah, nothing like an audience to get the creativity flowing.

so thanks Alternative Birth for putting me on your resource/links page
and thank you Mama Mid(Wife) Madness for the blog roll mention

You've made my day.

Playing Nurse

(Artist Unknown)

Wow... got to love her uniform!

As of this afternoon I've survived the second day of my Women's Health Gynaecology placement. Helen (fellow midwifery student) and I have concluded a number of things in the short amount of time we've spent carpooling these last few days and I'm sure we'll conclude a lot more than just the following by the end of four weeks:

1. We feel as if we are in first year again.

2. Nursing and Midwifery are NOT the same (we knew this already but there's nothing like a nursing placement to realize it even more). It makes us happy to be midwives and helps us understand why we feel like first years.

3. Our midwifery degree should have more than the one pharmacology subject we took in first year. Giving out drugs freaks the hell out of us!

4. Getting up early makes you yawn all day.

5. Working in a mixed gynae/med ward means we will be caring for men. Helen has, I have yet to experience it.

6. Hospitals are great places to get lost in, especially when they are being renovated!

7. Caring for six women in a surgical ward is very very different from postnatal ward looking after six postnatal mums and six babies, or labour ward with one or two birthing women.

8. Nurses are much more happy to have students buddied up to them than are midwives.

9. Nurses need to have fantastic time management skills. The ward routine has Helen and I fascinated.

10. Feeding, washing, moving and providing complete care for elderly women is very confronting.

11. Cups of tea are very very welcome.

12. Taking down and putting on new dressings over wound and surgery incisions is really fun.... but even so, four weeks of nursing skills in our final year of midwifery seems just a little excessive.

13. I miss midwifery.... in light of the PMS post a few posts below, it's nice to know!

Oh... and thanks so much for the comments in the last few posts, it's meant so much!

3 weeks 3 days left.

Let them go quickly!

Blood and Tears

Lost List by Penelope Illustrations

Strange how something that seemed so closed can suddenly become more closed than you thought it could ever be.

I broke up with the guy I'd been going out with for seven, nearly eight, years this February only two weeks after he'd moved here to Australia from America. You change a lot between the ages of 14 and 21. We haven't seen much of each other the last four or so months, but I had expected to say goodbye face to face before he went back to the US.

Thinking he was leaving this evening I went at lunch time to pick up some linen he'd borrowed to stay on campus and to say the final goodbye. His side of the room was empty, there weren't even any bags. I stood at the door and his room mate, Heath, came a few moments later from the car park. His usual cheerful self he jumped up expectantly and got the neatly folded towel, sheets and blankets from the cupboard.

I filled my arms with them, and paused, attempting to ask the question I was trying to form into words, "When did he leave? I thought he was leaving tonight."

Realizing what had happened Heath's eyes lost their smile as he told me they'd gone to the airport early that morning.

Life happens, not always as we expect. I understand that he might not want to say goodbye, things were settled a number of months ago, none the less I was still shocked. All was closed tightly but now with his going it's almost like a new level of closure has just reared it's head and closed even further over everything. And as always with each layer of closure there is always something to let go of.

I had to let go by writing my thoughts out this morning before going to say goodbye. And in writing and crying and letting go, I bled. This was the first time in five months that I haven't bled on or before the dated I expected. Being late to bleed was strange, but perhaps I needed to let go of things in my heart before my body could let go too. It felt very fitting.