MAWS CONFERENCE SPRING 2014

5/9/2014-

I am loving this conference so far. I have met some new people, seen some old friends and really I am not the one to be star struck but I am totally midwife struck.

5/11/2014-

I really should be in the bed right now but I had to let y'all know what is going on. So, here we go...
The day before last I wanted to get into how the conference was going but I just couldn't put the starting of the conference for me in words. I was really at a beautiful loss.

So I get to the conference location Friday night, sit in the car for a minute gather myself because I had been at work, came home took a quick nap after saying hey to family and headed my way over. Walked into the building and I don't know what exactly I was expecting but it was so nice and laid back everyone was really friendly and had little conversations. They had a really lovely spread of different little things to eat and one thing in particular I really enjoyed and it was nettle soup. I have never had that type of soup before but it was the bomb that is for sure and healthy too.

It was so nice I had people coming up to me and asking "Are you Mercedes, I have heard great things about you." Which that was a nice surprise and helped me with my midwife star struck complex...hehe. I even got a chance to speak to a student midwife and it was great but I felt bad I was so excited and happy to be where I was at that while talking to her and telling her my story I started balling. What a drama queen I am, I apologized but that was another thing that was so nice, she really knew where I was coming from and it was just a great moment.

Anyhow moving on. There were some great presentations, I learned sooooo much! It started off with a presentation done by two student midwives that are going for their masters' I believe and they did their project on Washington's Forgotten Midwives, it featured Native-American, Asian-American and African-American Midwives that paved the way here in this state. And well let's just say, wow I was speechless and tearing up during that presentation because you could tell they were passionate about the information they had found and that they really took care and time with what they had learned. I was, no scratch that, I am very happy I was able to attend the first night, almost for that presentation alone. But then on top of that we had this other presenter that came from Detroit and she really put it down on African-Americans and breastfeeding. It was great hearing her talk about how she is making a difference in the community for our precious babies and giving them the, right, start. She even talked about something that I was really interested in and it was Mother-Led groups. Instead of always having an expert come in and teach people, having the community or village drive the group and growing a sisterhood. And this was just the first night, wow right?!

Day Two:
Came in again ready to learn and listen....

Wait, I forgot to tell you guys about the epiphany I had on the way home from Friday night. So they gave everyone a name tag with what your current title is at the conference and mine said Student Midwife. Now it didn't really hit me until I got in the car driving home that I realized. I'm doing it, I am really doing it. Right now my title is student midwife but one day as I work closer to my goal the student part is going to drop off. Wow, that really just blew my mind. You know as you are growing up and your a child, you always think things are going to be so different when I get older like your changing a scene in a movie or something, but no. You don't walk to a new tune or jump into a new world and things don't just all of a sudden change. Somehow you just find yourself somewhere and really things have not changed drastically and being older is no different than being a child, you just now realize that, no means no and yes means no and freedom was a joke and we are all living in a matrix...haha.

Ok, back to day two. Walk in...sit down...get up grab breakfast. Oh and then just by happenstance I meet one of my classmates from MCU. It is kind of ironic to because I am in a distance learning program where people from all over are attending this program so to meet someone was amazing to me and she was really sweet and shared the same passion as me. We had a lovely retired pediatrician come and give a talk and she really opened my eyes to quite a few things that are going on with children and older people, I know that is connected with womb to birth into the early learning stage. It really was great, then we had another women that talked about breaking the trend of institutional racism which was really interesting (please keep in mind there were a lot of speakers but I am just highlighting the ones that stuck out to me). She had just done some exercised and they to me were a little interesting and became a little heated because the subject is a little touchy. Then I think the real highlights of the conference for me was the networking and connecting with other Midwives and Student Midwives, it was great listening to them and being able to ask questions, also really feeling a part of something better than myself. Thank you!

Quotes I enjoyed:

"Children aren't ready to learn until they are socially and emotionally ready."-Dr. Maxine Hayes

"If we don't get things right in the beginning, it won't look right in the middle or the end."-Dr. Maxine Hayes

"Genetics loads the gun but environment pulls the trigger."-Dr. Maxine Hayes

"Resist and avoid people trying to put you in a box."-Benita Horn