Midwife, Mother, Me

Whose Womb is it Anyway?

25th Oct 2025

Can a baby be a gift? Or is surrogacy always a transaction? When a woman wants to procreate, despite the potentially dangerous challenges this poses, the urge is primitive and all-consuming. It has to be, or we’d all be childless cat ladies. Out. Of. Rational. Choice. I hate to be all doom and gloom about…
Of Sight and Sound

6th Oct 2025

Nobody tells you you’re a bit hard of hearing… They might be thinking it, but it isn’t polite to mention it. Apart from your honest-to-a-fault kids. But with them, you’ve been practicing selective deafness for years. They can’t hear you (https://midwifemotherme.com/2024/06/23/never-stop-nagging/). You can’t hear them, but if you had to guess, they are hungry, bored…
When your second child leaves home…

19th Sep 2025

Middle Child is going to University! 2 years ago, in one of my first posts, I wrote about Firstborn Son leaving home. Like everything about the second child, I suspect this transition is going to be the same but different, some things easier, some harder, but none of them quite as bewildering. Let’s go back…
Both things can be true

7th Sep 2025

This one is about gratitude. But from a pesky feministic point of view. I noticed, looking back over the two years of writing this blog (yes, midwifemotherme.com is turning two in a few days!) that I was often qualifiying my arguments with a reference to how grateful I am for the privilege of having choices that…
Caught between a rock and a hard place

29th Aug 2025

In her iconic song, Papa Don’t Preach, Madonna has to decide whether or not she should keep her baby… I’m not keen on abortions. Look, I can’t bring myself to kill a spider. And I really dislike spiders. I prefer to use the cup and paper method, and then, voila, problem solved! If only an…
The one about summer

10th Aug 2025

Not wanting to make excuses for not adding new posts recently, but… Sweet Jesus, I’ve been hot! I’m not complaining, mind, I love the balmy weather. We’re just not that good at dealing with decent weather in London. Air conditioning is catching on, but most homes don’t have it. Every year, for about a week…
It’s difficult when you’re an NHS midwife

24th Jun 2025

How do you practice self-care? We’re often too busy looking after other’s needs. That’s the job. But the powers that be don’t make it easy for us. As we know, it’s been unusually hot in London over the last few days. But we have no air conditioning in our not-at-all-purpose-built, south-facing, antenatal clinic building. And…
Decisions, decisions…

16th Jun 2025

I’d over cooked the other day. Or maybe I’d catered for middle child and he’d made plans to eat less nutritious and worse value food without providing adequate notice. So anyway, I was putting the leftovers in an old plastic box (probably a takeaway box acquired by Middle Child from another expensively nutritionless meal, undoubtedly…
Nope, still not autumn or winter

11th Jun 2025

What is your favorite season of year? Why? Learning to embrace autumn (and winter) I tried. Not gonna lie, I much prefer the spring. Every year, the metamorphosis of the trees, from seemingly lifeless skeletons to gloriously green, life sustaining lushness, via a cloud of fabulous blooms… astounding! We’re on the cusp of summer now.…
To yearn is human

3rd Jun 2025

So I was in Florence last weekend. I know, lucky me! This was Leonardo da Vinci’s home town. I finally made it to the Uffizi gallery and took in some exquisite art, including his version of the annunciation. I’ve finally acquired the maturity to really appreciate these renaissance masterpieces. Sure, some of the baby Jesuses…