Reflection and New Year’s Plans

The year is almost over and I have had some time today to reflect on this year. I was in bed, lucky me has the flu, and I thought about what we have achieved this year and what’s to come.

This year seems to have passed very quickly. One year ago we moved into our apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin and to this day, I still hate the 95 steps up to our amazing flat. Papa Madola loves his job, is composing amazing sounds and making clients happy by delivering a perfect product almost every time. Lennon has started Kindergarten properly, he is now away from 8am until 11:45 am. And I got to experience some freedom again.
He has grown up so much and as he turned two, two days ago, I realised that we all have grown so much over the last two years. We had a difficult departure from Cape Town, immigrated to a pretty cold but wonderful country and we made a life for ourselves. I think we can pat ourselves on our backs and give each other a high five for getting through it.

Next year will look a little different. Wir haben einpaar Veränderungen vor uns. Ab Mai werden wir voraussichtlich zu viert sein. Lennon will be a big brother by the time June 2014 comes around and we will be a family with a new addition. Besides a new little human, we are planning on moving apartments, not sure where to, but we have our sight set on the flat underneath us. Das wäre ein super entspannter Umzug. Very relaxed move just 10 stairs down. That would be great.
Papa Madola is going to continue his work as a sound engineer and composer and make big clients happy and I will be continuing to be the house- executive 🙂 with all it’s up’s and down’s.

What do you guys have planned for the next year?
Any changes coming your way?

*Hugs and Kisses*

Women need midwives, Mütter brauchen Hebammen!!!

It seems like a century ago that I wanted to be an independent midwife myself. I applied to all german midwifery schools for a place to learn how to become one of those amazing women that get to be a witness during the most amazing moment when a baby is born. I did some really good practicals, witnessed some amazing home deliveries and not so amazing but necessary cesearen sections and made up my mind to become one of them.

But life happened and I moved from the north of Germany all the way to Cape Town, South Africa to be with my now amazing husband Papa Madola. I started my Nursing Degree in Cape Town and during the course of my studies, also got to deliver some babies myself. And to my astonishment, I didn’t feel any connection. It seemed like the idea of being a midwife was more exciting than actually being responsible for the delivery, the mother and the child.

I finished my studies, not knowing what the heck I was going to do. Since my childhood I had a plan for myself and now I realised it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t born to be a midwife. And I know you have to be born one or you won’t be the best at it. You feel the passion for the job or you don’t. And I realised I didn’t feel that passion when I delivered my 15 babies during my studies.

But what I do know is, that I still feel very strongly about the profession and I believe that mothers and pregnant women are in need of a midwife. They are the rock for most mothers when they feel exhausted, when they feel they are loosing control over their bodies, birth plan or after the baby is born when they feel lost in between breastfeeding, changing nappies and raging hormone cocktails.
We need midwives to to fend off the world when we are too weak to do so ourselves and we need a midwife to be our advocate in a hospital situation. She is our best friend in pregnancy, delivery and once the baby is born.

Now being back in Berlin, Germany, they want to make it clearly impossible for midwives to exist. The government is raising the insurance contribution so high, that it basically forces the midwives to stop working as such or to work for free. And that is happening in a first world country where I was told we were a child-frienldy country.
But how can that be. Without midwives we mothers would be forced to be monitored by only a doctor, then have our babies in the hospital. What kind of a plan is that.
It stinks and we have to stand up to that. It’s our choice to make where we have our children and who supports us during the prenatal, delivery and postnatal time.
Without midwives we will be forced only one way and that’s the hospital with all it’s machines. Yes of cause that is necessary sometimes, but most babies can be born out of the hospital and attended by only a midwife.

I am going to attach a link. Please sign the petition to support the further existence of midwives in Germany and spread the word about it.

http://www.change.org/hebammen

Thank you and good night.*Hugs and Kisses*