So this post is a bit of a repeat of before – sorry I’m not being very original. But out book is now on Amazon and free this weekend so just wanted to repeat………
As I have said before…. I trained to be a midwife around 10 years ago. I started as soon as our youngest child was three and started nursery. Our oldest was only five.
My partner – actually I hate that word. My boyfriend (also the father of my children) is a lovely man. We share similar interests; intellectually and culturally. We have the same kind of outlook on life and the same political views. If something were to make me worried or anxious he would be the first person I would talk to about it. We have been together for over 20 years and I still quite fancy him. You get the picture – I hate being publicly sentimental – to cut it short we work well as a couple and I love him dearly.
During my training, we were bearing the stress of the course, having to arrange childcare at terrifying short notice due to the disorganisation of NHS rotas, having very little income, getting used to night shifts (yes it was me that did them but he had to get the children out of our tiny flat so that I could sleep after them), being so consumed by midwifery that I had scant energy left for either of my children and none for my boyfriend – in the middle of all that our relations had got so low that I remember holding a ladder for him while he made a dangerous climb up the house to try to fix something and I hoped he fell off. Not because I’m really evil but because I hate confrontations and all we ever did at that time was argue. About midwifery.
The only reason we didn’t split up was because housing is so expensive we couldn’t have afforded it. Years later I am horrified to think we came so close but that’s what midwifery training can do. The relationships of a lot of my peer’s didn’t make it.
Once I qualified I worked part time and everything became hugely easier. At first we didn’t talk much about the worst times but just got on with things. He wrote a non-fiction book that I felt was a big passive-aggressive dig at my career choice which I let slide. Eventually though we decided to write together. We have written a novel which is hopefully a funny and silly satire about a woman who is a midwife and her troubles at work and at home. You can download the ebook from Amazon here, and up until Sunday 16 June it’s free. (If you like it, please leave us a review so other people will get to know about it.)
By the way, the boyfriend is a much better speller and editor than me and I normally get him to proof read these posts but as it’s about him I’m relying my own skills this time. If you find any errors then that’s more proof of the value of a good relationship!