Imagine...

Last week we celebrated the 40th birthday of one of the inimitable wonder women in my life. I looked at the women around me that night and thought 'this is it, I have arrived'. I can shout and scream and rage that I'm single, I can tell them my deepest darkest secrets, and all they do is love me again and again and again. Near or far, this is my tribe and I love them wholeheartedly. I can sing the Grease mega mix and air guitar wonder woman's funeral song with her, I can dance like a maniac and sing like Adele on a power trip, and they still love me.

Last night I worked, welcoming new life rather than my pyjamas and sleep. I watched the spiralling loop-the-loop team stretch and bend and morph into something fluid and strong, winding and wending its way around women and midwives alike. In a chaotic and frenetic environment that is both under control and at the mercy of the tide of service demands all at once, tensions risk boiling over. There's the inevitable argument that one ward is busier than another and therefore is more worthy of time or resources or staff than another. Staff become the pawns when battle lines are drawn, and it feels as though you're being dragged every which way to plug gaps in the service. Midwives are, as much as can be facilitated, kept within their own area of work (some choose to work in core obstetric-led areas, while others opt for midwifery-led birth centres and community settings) but sometimes the tide is overwhelming and women arrive in numbers that outstrip those of midwives.

While it is important that midwives practise in their area of expertise and where they have increased job satisfaction, women are women and deserve love and respect and care wherever they choose or need to be. I am a midwife and I choose to be with woman wherever that may be, whether that's in the induction room or day unit or postnatal ward. She may be in my clinic or birthing at home or I may be in her birth room on labour ward. I am hers. Wherever she is and whoever she is, I am hers. Unreservedly.

I might be the one to care for her, love her, reassure her. I might be the first person to meet her baby or I might be the one to insert a cannula into her wrist. I might get to hold her hand or make her the best tea and toast of her life, I might be the one to walk her birth partner to theatre in the middle of the night. I might be the one to care for her for an entire shift only to miss the birth of her baby by minutes. I might walk into the room and catch vomit or another bodily fluid before we've even been introduced. This is what I signed up for when I chose to become a midwife. That doesn't mean that there aren't places I'd rather spend my shifts, that I don't have preferences for where I work, but I am a midwife and my job is to be with woman. My job isn't to be with woman until she wants an epidural or a caesarean section. Would I rather look after one of my women from clinic in the pool at the birth centre, or a woman having an emergency section for placenta praevia? Would I refuse to care for either woman, would I want either woman to feel as though I'd loved her or cared for her differently (or less) because of where she was or because of her history or her choices?

The spiralling loop-the-loop team sometimes loses sight of what we are doing and why. Our priorities are obscured from view by huge demands and pressures, sometimes we quite literally run down the corridor towards a room and are thrust into a cacophony of noise and people and movement. We see, we listen, we feel, we respond, we act, we challenge, we advocate, we support, we save, we catch.

Even in the chaos, we witness and dole out love and compassion and respect. The team directly around us are our closest allies, but those removed from us by a set of doors, a lift ride, a car journey, an ambulance transfer are forgotten or their work demands dismissed as less important than our own. Do the midwives without a clinic remember the pressures of carrying a work phone and a caseload of women for whom I feel perpetually responsible? Do the midwives who only work in community understand the demands of a busy labour ward full to the brim of sometimes very unwell women and their potentially tiny babies? Do we consider that someone may be calling to ask if we can help, not to ruin our shift but because they genuinely need an extra pair of hands to provide safe care to the women we have pledged to look after? Do we respond by looking for solutions, or by defensively affirming that we are too busy?

Last night, different teams supported me in various situations. I was welcomed wherever I worked and I loved the women I cared for. A colleague stood back as I sutured. Finally I had an experienced set of eyes encouraging and praising me rather than desperately wanting to cut in and take over. She provided guiding hands from a distance (that she sat on), and because she didn't want to intervene I didn't want her to. I didn't need to apologise or ask for help because she trusted me and I trusted her. I knew she'd step in or question me if I needed, which gave me the confidence to carry on. I didn't feel judged or stupid or rushed. She had other things to do but she made me feel as though watching me suture was the most important thing in the world. I hope a more junior midwife says that about me one day. She demonstrated the true art of midwifery which extends beyond the woman-midwife dyad and encompasses the midwife-midwife and student-midwife relationships too. She loved, encouraged, supported and praised me. She would have caught me if she'd needed to, but the way she treated me meant I didn't need her to. She made me feel as though I could fly, and then she made me feel proud of being able to fly.

Imagine having that much impact on someone! Imagine holding someone's future in your hands, precious, fragile and vulnerable. Imagine being a woman and being cared for by that kind of midwife. Imagine being an NQM and being cared for and loved by not one but by a whole tribe of fearless women. Imagine that spiralling loop-the-loop team sinewing its way through your life. Imagine them singing like Adele on a power trip right alongside you. Imagine having a team so fearless and full of love that what they've taught you is that something so unutterably broken can be glued back together and become stronger than ever. Imagine the love and the gratitude you'd feel. Imagine how far you could go with the tribe beside you.