My heart is filled to overflowing with love and happiness right now.  My oldest son married his best friend on April 12!  If I could have traveled the world in search of the perfect life mate for Eric, I am certain that as soon as I met Carole-Lee, I would have known that she was “the one”.  She is such a sweetheart, absolutely beautiful inside and out!  Their wedding day was perfect for a beach ceremony and we all enjoyed a wonderful reception at our home.

I only took two days off-call for the wedding, but one of the mommas delivered on the wedding day, attended by my back-up midwife.  While the family was in very good hands with my midwife friend, I am sad that I missed their birth.

One of the hard things about being a midwife in solo practice is allowing time for vacations and time off.  Midwives desperately need breaks, but are not very good at taking them.  In the past, I have planned my vacations and not accepted anyone into care who would be between 37 and 42 weeks during my vacation. Then, because my clients didn’t like my taking such a big break in due dates, I agreed to receive people into my care as long as they were okay with the fact that I would not be the midwife at their delivery if they went into labor while I was on vacation.  That was all fine and good, however, until someone really did go into labor when I was not available on my son’s wedding day.  It was hard for both me and the client.  Not that I would rather be at a birth than at an important family event, but it does tug a bit at my heart strings when another midwife attends the birth of one of my clients.  I do grow very fond of the families I serve.

I will be off-call again for a couple days when my daughter Joy gets married at the end of May and I really hope no one births on those days.  I will also be out of town for about 10 days in November visiting my grandson for his second birthday and enjoying Thanksgiving with my entire family.  I am letting everyone know now that I will be gone in November and everyone believes they will either birth before I go or after I get back.  I hope they are right.

I’m not very good at turning off my work and just enjoying the rest of my life.  I tried to do that while I had a lot of family in town for the wedding.  Things piled up and people’s needs went unmet, and that made my life hard today as I tried to whittle away at my mounting pile of responsibilities.  It seems that there is always charting to get caught up on, clients and Charis students who have questions or needs that require a phone call or e-mail reply, supplies to be ordered, Charis curriculum to write or revise, continuing education to complete, newsletter submissions to write, and the list goes on and on.  I wish I had a dollar for every Facebook note or e-mail that I have received in the past month that started out, “I know you are really busy with wedding planning and birthing babies, but……” I hated to do it, but I had to allow the non-emergency notes to go onto the back burner and they are sitting there awaiting replies that will hopefully be sent within the next couple weeks.  The responsible person in me doesn’t feel right about leaving things undone; and, when I do, the pressure mounts and creates more stress than my little adrenals can handle.  I am conflicted often.  The wife and mother in me is constantly screaming that there is more to me than my work with my midwifery practice and with Charis Childbirth and that I need to get things back in balance.

In my attempt to find solutions that will allow me to keep my family as my highest priority, I have decided to have Susan Oshel do coaching for all the new Charis students for now and I will continue to coach only those I am already coaching.  I am also considering reducing the number of clients I take from four due dates in a calendar month to three.

If this column had a different name, I may have written about something else, something that sounds and feels much more positive; but, this is what was on “my heart” today as I finally turn in my column to Susan… a couple weeks late.  I do hope she will forgive me for making her job harder this month.

I am so incredibly thankful for all of you and the many ways you enrich my life. Although the conflict between family and work is an ongoing struggle, the Charis students remain a very bright spot in my life and bring me so much joy.  I love working with you and am committed to doing what it takes to keep Charis Childbirth, Inc, the most excellent source of childbirth-related education and certification in the world.  One by one, we are adding the right staff members to keep this ship moving full steam ahead and I am extremely happy about the exciting things on the horizon.

Blessings,
Kristin Schuchmann, CPM, LM
Executive Director, Charis Childbirth, Inc