Six weeks

It seems like forever since I've posted anything on this blog.  I've just been so damn busy.  I added up all my births the other day.  In the last month I've attended 19!!  Nuts, right?  I love it, though.  Truly love it!!

In that mix of gooey babies, placentas, and rivers of amniotic fluid, I've finished up another class (I only have 2.5 left) tried to squeeze in a visit or two with my man, went to a family reunion, and found out my dad has been diagnosed with throat cancer.

My head is spinning and my heart is reeling.  EVERYTHING is surreal these days.  I'm so homesick I think I'm having physical manifestations of that, in the form of anxiety and depression.  Add Dad's shit to the mix and I can hardly breathe at times.  All I want is to be there with him, helping with his MD appts, his treatments, etc.  I feel awful that my sisters are bearing the load alone, without me.  I feel useless.

The insomnia is back. I'm waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, worrying that I'll flunk the NARM.  My brain won't shut off long enough for me to sleep.  I just gnaw away at it, worrying myself to death.  If I weren't on call all the time, I'd take a pill and get some sleep.

Plus, I'm having all kinds of foolish thoughts about my husband being home alone for 6 months and the kind of trouble that can bring (it doesn't help that his stupid brother - who has been married the same amount of years as we have - just got caught having a fuck-fest with someone other than his wife!!)  I have to remind myself on a daily basis that Speed isn't his brother (Thank you, Jesus!) and is a man tightly woven with moral fiber.   (Seems funny that I'd use the F-bomb and Jesus in the same paragraph.  Oh well, HE gets me!)

I can't even begin to go into the living arrangements I'm in.  I keep my mouth shut, my ass in my room and try, try, try to make as little a footprint in their lives as possible.  I am perfecting the art of being invisible.

If it weren't for my love of the women I'm working with, the midwives who are teaching me and investing in my future, I'd have bailed a long time ago.  They have become my surrogate family.  I love them!  They keep me sane.  I wouldn't dream of quitting them.  I owe them so much.

So...I only have 6 weeks left.  Six weeks to hone more midwifery skills & finish the didactic portion of my education.  Only six weeks of building lasting friendships/sisterhoods with these spectacular midwives, and only 6 more weeks of being shut up in a 8x10 room.  I can do this!!  I will do this.