Life Plan

I think it's about time we talk about my life plan.

A few months ago someone commented on my blog and asked me if I ever thought about being a midwife.  Whoever you are, you should let me know, so I can send you a fruit basket or something.  More likely I will send you a thank you card.

Being a midwife has always sketched me out because there are several different paths to becoming one.  How do you figure out what school to go to or even to go to school at all?  I've thought about state laws regulating midwifery and how some states outlaw the practice.  I don't want to spend time and money to become something that requires me to legally stay in one state.  What kind of a future is that?

I had applied to a med school in the Caribbean and I had really high hopes.  I really thought that things were fitting together for me to go.  And then I got a phone call from an admissions officer telling me that I was being denied BUT I could go to a semester long prep school instead.  I would have to buy a plane ticket and find housing in the Caribbean and somehow pay for the, what was it, $20,000 tuition without any financial assistance.  In two weeks.  If I had done well enough then I would be admitted for the very next semester at the med school.

Uh, no.  I can sit here all day and talk about how my drive would have lead me to perform super well during that semester.  Whether or not that is anywhere near accurate, the truth is that there was no effing way I was uprooting my life in two weeks.

Plan B came within minutes.  I was going to be a midwife.

I called my dad and told him about what happened.  I presented the midwife idea and he was surprisingly cool about it.  In fact, everyone has been surprisingly cool about it.  Was I the only person who thought that midwifery was a second class medical occupation that wasn't quite so legitimate?  Apparently so.

Long story short, I have a plan.  I'm setting up a meeting with my stake presidency in the next week and a half.  Then my BYU application will be in.  If all goes well I'll be a post-bacc student at BYU for spring/summer taking the classes I need to finish up nursing prerequisites.  Once December comes along I'll be applying for direct entry nurse midwifery programs.  That means that I'll be admitted into a post-bacc nursing program where I take all the nursing classes to supplement my completed bachelor's.  Once those are finished I'll be an RN, although depending on the school I probably won't have a Bachelor's in Nursing.  Instead, I'll take the RN certification and work for a year or two while getting my master's degree at the same school I got the RN credentials.  I will not have to apply separately to the master's program, as technically I'll apply straight to the master's program but instead of starting right away I'll make up the missing coursework.  And then I'll be a Certified Nurse Midwife. 

The downside to this route is that I'll have to work under a doctor's supervision or permission, which most likely means more hospital or birthing center based care as opposed to at home delivery.  Unless I can find a doctor willing to sponsor me through at home care, which doesn't seem likely.  The good news is that no matter where in the states I move I can be a practicing midwife.

I once heard that you shouldn't share your plans to do something, because the satisfaction of sharing is equal to that of actually reaching the end goal and can thus slow your desire to go through with your plan.  But totes whatevs.  I've already called to make an appointment with the stake presidency.  One my ecclesiastical endorsement is in it becomes out of my hands whether or not I get accepted to BYU.  And if I don't I'll have to learn the bus route to go to UVU (ugh, I don't want to get to know a new campus).  But either way, the ball has been set in motion. 

I'm going to be able to deliver babies with the same philosophies I've had for the last few years.  However I won't be a doctor, and that is a little tough.  I felt like to reach my feminist potential I needed to kick down the door and be the top of the medical totem pole.  But that wasn't happening.  I didn't try hard enough.  I'm also surprisingly bitter about the consequences of being a nurse.  I feel like being a nurse is an acceptable job for a woman and I hate that.  I feel like it's not allowing me to show the people around me that women can hold any job they want.  And I'm secretly bitter that all of a sudden I'm LDS marriage material career wise.  Rachel Tomco once told my Women in Science club that whens he meets men she tells them she's a teacher, and doesn't go into detail that she's really on the BYU faculty.  Here I am able to tell men that I want to be a nurse (which is an easy way to downplay having a master's in nursing) which is much more acceptable and less intimidating than saying I want to be a doctor.  It's infuriating to know that I will no longer here, "wow, that's ambitious!" because it's not ambitious for a woman to be a nurse.  You know what I mean?  Like, if I were a man no one would ever tell me that wanting to be a doctor was ambitious.  And now that I want to be a nurse no one ever will again. 

I've become socially acceptable and I hate it.