I did not know what I was getting myself into when I decided in high school that delivering babies was the work I wanted to do. I sat in biology class watching birth videos and I thought to myself that this was how I wanted to find my place in the career world.

I wanted to work in healthcare.
I loved babies and pregnancy was fascinating to me.
I wanted to make decisions.
I believed birth was a naturally intense and beautiful process.
I wanted to have a skill that could be useful on a global scale.

…that was as far as my brain would take me…

I was wide-eyed and mystified as I drove to Calgary, AB a year later to interview for the Midwifery Program. When I started my first midwifery clinical placement I was still new in discovering what this profession means and how to live it well. But somehow, slowly, bit by bit and with the help of many beautiful women I knew as midwifery preceptors, I learned things. I learned how to perform Leopold’s Manoeuvres and how to suture. I learned to protect perineums and to monitor a baby in labour. I learned when to be patient and when to intervene. Eventually I learned enough to be credited a Bachelor of Midwifery and register as a Midwife in Alberta in 2016.