A Day in the Life ~ A Personal Piece

Well, it’s been 5 months since I launched my Soul Midwifery business—finally stepping away from the hospital space and living my dream of working privately. I can hardly believe it’s true, as I was desperate to work in this way for so long!

The Reality Behind the Dream

As you can expect, I was a little naïve to some of the harder parts of the job. It all just looked wonderful from afar. As I continue to navigate this space, some things I’ve found challenging at times are the relationships—establishing yourself amongst your community, other services and navigating your support people… and your not-so-support people. I’ve really learnt to ‘find my tribe’ and be true to myself.

For so long in my work life as a midwife, I’ve had to suppress and adapt to serve the policies and not the women, and as I’ve moved into this space, I’m still learning to be fully true to myself. Not allowing others to hold me hostage—and absolutely—it’s been about gathering a support team around me to cheer me on.

The Midwife Gap

Midwives in this space are hard to come by. Would you believe that it’s extremely difficult to find midwives eager to work in the homebirth space? Cue barrier #2. After years building relationships, I thought I had a big pool of fellow midwives to run this race with me. But as the time came and the commitment was needed, the stress kicked in.

So many midwives were too fearful to work independently or didn’t feel safe at a homebirth. Other midwives were fully supportive but weren’t in the life space to work with me. This felt huge in the first 3 months of practice. I couldn’t believe after all this time this could be the thing that holds me back.

But alas, with some reassurance, patience, and continuing to show up and be with community, the support came. And now I feel completely well supported by some beautiful and experienced midwives. Despite this space generally lacking for regional midwives, I know now that I have my people. And I hope more join—just for the simple fact that working in this way is truly life-giving. Women-centered, joy-oozing, and a physiological haven of what is homebirth midwifery.

Behind the Scenes of Private Practice

A few other learning curves include creating and automating life as a private practitioner, building contracts, invoicing, paying second midwives, etc. Starting out can be totally overwhelming. I was fortunate to have enrolled in Mel Jackson’s mentorship as well as joining The Midwives’ Midwife (Jaimee).

Although starting out isn’t the best time to be spending thousands on mentorship, I just knew I needed it. With limited local support at the time, having these discussions and catchups were ground-breaking for my startup. Despite feeling very small, sometimes judged, I’d then jump on these pages with other PPMs around Australia all with overwhelming support. Great discussions on normal birth, navigating difficult systems, and all of the above! I truly felt on fire after every session.

And now I feel a million times more confident with all things ‘business life’. With a template for everything, I felt confident I was on the right track.

Reflections: Is It What I Expected?

A day in the life ~ is it what I expected? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. There are hard moments, isolated moments—but the moments with women, of truly individualised, evidence-based care, in the comfort of their home—is so satisfying.

It’s harder work personally, but a million times more rewarding professionally. I wouldn’t change it for the world. But I’ll also always be honest and upfront about the struggles.

Hannah x