It’s that time of the year again. The conkers are landing, all shiny and new, from the chestnut trees. When the kids were little, they’d gather dozens, each shinier than the next, and the bottom of my pram would be filled with these jewels of nature. A bit like sea glass, or sea shells, new conkers are strangely magnetic to small kids. I still can’t resist a smooth glossy, chocolate brown, naturally polished chestnut baby! Even though my kids are far too old (and utterly disinterested in such childish things) to get involved, my inner child will insist on collecting a few each year. 

Once again, I’ll attempt to make one germinate.  Cos that’s my excuse, if you’re asking! So far, all my attempts have failed. I’m obviously doing something wrong but it bugs me because I have made any number of random seeds/pips/stones sprout into life! Avocado stones, date stones, lemon pips, tomato seeds (from past-their-sell-by-date tomatoes) and pepper seeds (from tesco’s peppers), butternut squash seeds (they grow freakily fast and big), lentils, kidney beans (dried, not tinned),  apple pips… I have coaxed all those into germination. Not gonna lie, they don’t always survive much past the 2 leaf stage, but you know, its a numbers game…

I recently tried to work my green fingered magic on olive stones and strawberries but those have not (yet) succumbed to my charm!  I may have to consult YouTube. I don’t know why this bugs me, it just does. I guess it’s no longer green-fingered magic if it’s science! 

But I’m a midwife so I’m well placed to know that new life is as much about the magic as it is about the science. It has to be both! The agricultural revolution was surely a case in point. When farmers stopped accusing childless cat women of witchcraft when their crops failed, and got involved with some pertinent scientific facts, their yields were markedly increased. The irony is, of course, that midwives were quite often childless cat ladies, who’d dedicated their lives to be with their labouring sisters. These women were highly trained and didn’t rely on magic (ok, maybe the odd talisman and some curious traditions crept in occasionally…) but they did rely on cleanliness and hygiene even before research confirmed that this was the best way to promote good magic!

So I’ve Googled how to turn shiny  conkers into trees, having accepted you can’t just plonk them in room temperature compost and hope for the best. It just doesn’t work for conkers (even though regularly-watered-room- temperature-compost does usually have the desired effect) so this year I’m hoping to avoid disappointment by learning what really encourages the magic. I’ll let you know, loyal reader, in a few months!

I really want to believe in magic. Every time I witness magic tricks I’m utterly bamboozled. I love that feeling of delighted bewilderment when the magician makes impossible things happen. Not gonna lie, I’m a little envious… I mean, it’s so astonishing. But of course, while the magician’s skills are undeniable, they are not magic. They are the result of thousands of hours of study and practice. Some would call it a misspent childhood, but I’d disagree. I’m a sucker for study and practice though.  [Full disclosure: I wasn’t a fan of either when I was a kid!] But you just had to watch the Olympics to see how practice makes magic! So. Many. Hours.  But such glorious results!

 Perhaps magic is science plus practice. Luck is different. Perhaps luck preceeds magic. If you get lucky at something, you’ll probably want to replicate results again and again. But if you want to beat the odds, you have to weigh the dice. To be clear, I’m absolutely not advocating cheating. I’m merely saying that you can improve your odds of getting the desired result by studying what makes the luck more consistent. If you discover you have a natural aptitude for, say, running, you might want to study the science behind how to train, when to rest, and what to eat so you can keep improving. So, if by luck you are long-limbed and fleet-footed, you can create magic by training well and practicing hard. If you discover you have an ear for music, that’s lucky. But the magic happens when you put in the hours. You get the gist. There’s also plenty to be said in favour hard graft without innate talent. I have zero natural aptitude for music but I doggedly persevere with piano practice. There will never be magic. But there is immense satisfaction to be had from the dawning realisation that you are beginning to master a piece you’ve been practicing for a while. The simple fact that I have the time to practice is pretty lucky though.

Me, I was born lucky. I don’t know if I was exceedingly virtous in several past lives, or just ridiculously lucky in this one. Either way, I didn’t do anything to deserve it. Not in this life, at least. Born in the right era, white, western, middle class, able-bodied and straight. Not gonna lie, I didn’t always know how fortunate I was. Added to this long list of undeserved advantages, I knew from an early age that I’d be a midwife, so I never even had to agonise about how I would spend my life.

When I was around eleven, having recently parted ways with my dolls (and replaced these with baby cousins whenever I got the chance – being French and Catholic, new cousins regularly materialised!) I was lucky enough to discover there was a job that seemed made for me. I read about midwifery in a kids’ magazine and I was instantly hooked. To be fair, I’d been drawn to the human reproduction exhibit at the Natural History museum, and I’d studied the companion book entitled Life Before Birth; and the project I’d done at school which had started off being about human biology ended up having a 10 page section on embryonic development from conception to birth. Midwifery was always gonna find me. I was lucky though. It found me early. I knew from an early age exactly what I needed to do and although I took a small detour via nursing, my path was set. I was going to be a home birth midwife. Obviously I didn’t realise how lucky I was to have such certainty. If I’d been raised in France, where babies are born in hospital (pas ailleurs) that probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind. But having been born to economic-migrant-french-parents who were lucky enough to settle in the UK because, well, they just could, this wasn’t seen as outlandish or crazy.

I did become a home birth midwife and I loved it. It was all consuming, but I was living my dream. And it was magical, right from the start.  It’s going to sound cheesy, but the truth is that welcoming a new life (be it a home or a cesarean birth) simply never gets old. Never gets boring. Never gets repetitive. Listening in to an unborn baby’s heartbeat remains special no matter how many you’ve had the privilege of hearing.

I’ve just worked out that I’ve done 13500 hours of midwifery. That’s actually not that much over 24 years but motherhood took priority, for better or worse. Am I finally allowed to call myself an expert? Possibly. Will I always feel like an imposter? Probably.  Have I transitioned from luck to magic. For sure! All the things I now seem to know instinctively are the result of science and practice. 

Am I still ridiculously lucky? Unbelievably so.