La quinta semana/The fifth week
My week at home went by so quickly and I often questioned why some of the weeks that had seemed to crawl by in early June had not gone so fast! I spent a lot of time this week talking about and processing my experience with my mom, walking with my dad and dog, celebrating my dad's birthday, visiting Chapel Hill to see my apartment for next year and meet with Karen at this midpoint in my summer experience, resting, writing birth reports and reviews (I had nine to do, which will teach me to do them as I go!), organizing (I have so many notes and handouts from my first week of orientation and classes at MLL), and catching up with some good friends from high school and college. It was wonderful to be in the company of my family for a constant period of time and I appreciated every moment of our time talking and sharing meals and time together. You really appreciate home and the comforts of it more when you've left and come back.
I had some important realizations in regards to the research aspects of my time at MLL and received some important advice from my mom and Karen on the difficulties of keeping up with fieldnotes and doing field research. Both of them have told me that it is an aspect of the experience that I need to accept, despite the tedium of taking notes after a 24-hour shift, but I had not really been able to accept and keep up with that task in June. Perhaps it took getting away to shift my orientation to fieldnotes, but something did shift and I was able to come to a place of acceptance. I thought a lot about whether I would like to write a thesis when I return home, balancing the pros and cons of spending a good portion of my senior year researching, transcribing, and writing, and realized that I will not be able to make this decision until I have finished the July session and am back in Chapel Hill in school mode. I thought a lot more about whether I want to be a midwife, especially after receiving my DONA doula certification packet and thinking about whether my path is to be a doula, midwife, and childbirth educator. That, of course, cannot be decided or figured out in a week and I don't have any new answers to these big questions and thoughts. I think it will really take being back in Chapel Hill and comparing the different learning and working environments of UNC and MLL before I can know what will be next. It's interesting to note that this patience and waiting while in the midst of the process really mirrors the patient waiting that midwives and doulas must cultivate in their practices. Being home really made me realize how much I am learning about myself on both individual and interpersonal levels and that there is more left to absorb at MLL in July. I don't feel a sense of completion yet and am not sure if I will even feel that when I leave MLL in early August. I am grateful that the experience is still evolving, as am I. Thanks to everyone who's here to share the process of life with me :)
My week at home went by so quickly and I often questioned why some of the weeks that had seemed to crawl by in early June had not gone so fast! I spent a lot of time this week talking about and processing my experience with my mom, walking with my dad and dog, celebrating my dad's birthday, visiting Chapel Hill to see my apartment for next year and meet with Karen at this midpoint in my summer experience, resting, writing birth reports and reviews (I had nine to do, which will teach me to do them as I go!), organizing (I have so many notes and handouts from my first week of orientation and classes at MLL), and catching up with some good friends from high school and college. It was wonderful to be in the company of my family for a constant period of time and I appreciated every moment of our time talking and sharing meals and time together. You really appreciate home and the comforts of it more when you've left and come back.
I had some important realizations in regards to the research aspects of my time at MLL and received some important advice from my mom and Karen on the difficulties of keeping up with fieldnotes and doing field research. Both of them have told me that it is an aspect of the experience that I need to accept, despite the tedium of taking notes after a 24-hour shift, but I had not really been able to accept and keep up with that task in June. Perhaps it took getting away to shift my orientation to fieldnotes, but something did shift and I was able to come to a place of acceptance. I thought a lot about whether I would like to write a thesis when I return home, balancing the pros and cons of spending a good portion of my senior year researching, transcribing, and writing, and realized that I will not be able to make this decision until I have finished the July session and am back in Chapel Hill in school mode. I thought a lot more about whether I want to be a midwife, especially after receiving my DONA doula certification packet and thinking about whether my path is to be a doula, midwife, and childbirth educator. That, of course, cannot be decided or figured out in a week and I don't have any new answers to these big questions and thoughts. I think it will really take being back in Chapel Hill and comparing the different learning and working environments of UNC and MLL before I can know what will be next. It's interesting to note that this patience and waiting while in the midst of the process really mirrors the patient waiting that midwives and doulas must cultivate in their practices. Being home really made me realize how much I am learning about myself on both individual and interpersonal levels and that there is more left to absorb at MLL in July. I don't feel a sense of completion yet and am not sure if I will even feel that when I leave MLL in early August. I am grateful that the experience is still evolving, as am I. Thanks to everyone who's here to share the process of life with me :)
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