A Midwife's Life

Sara McAleese

I’m a midwife.

People say ‘Oooh, I don’t know how you do it.  All that blood and gore.’

To be honest, I don’t understand why anyone would want to do anything else.

I get to drive around the beautiful Welsh countryside at all hours in all weathers.  I get to support people through one of life’s most ordinary and yet spectacularly extraordinary experiences.  I get to hold wet, wide eyed, amazing freshly born babies.  I get offered champagne a lot.  I eat loads of toast at three o’clock in the morning.  Sometimes I don’t get an awful lot of sleep but then, neither do new parents, it seems only fair.

They say that flying an aeroplane is 99% pure boredom and 1% pure terror.

I’d say that being a midwife is 99% pure joy and 1% sheer horror.

It is exhausting, and it is mucky, but you know, that’s fine.

I’m a midwife.  Why would I ever want to do anything else?