Born for Life: A Midwife's Story
Scroll down for an excerpt!
Julie grew up in a small rural town in New Zealand. She started work in the local maternity annexe on leaving school at the age of sixteen. She married young and was happily married until to death of her second baby at birth led to depression loneliness and despair. Life was full of challenges for many years and it was during this time that Julie became a Christian. In time Julie realised her dream of becoming a midwife in her late thirties.. 'Born for life' tells her story and she hopes it will encourage others to follow their dreams even with life's difficulties. Life in time can turn around and be wonderful. Following the story written in 'Born for Life : A Midwife's Story' Julie has travelled extensively and worked in several countries around the world, caring for women of different cultures. Midwifery continues to be her passion and love. She is still happily married to Barry. They have three adult children and seven grandchildren. https://twitter.com/BornforMidwife
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From a young age Julie pondered what she would do with her life A job as a nurse aide in the local Maternity Annexe at the age of sixteen gave her a love for being with women during labour and birth and caring for mothers and their babies. Life could not have been happier, married to the man she loved and the birth of a son. The tragic and unexpected death of her second baby in her first hour of life led to depression, loneliness and despair that lasted several years. The dream to train as a nurse had all but died as she continued to work as a nurse aide at the local hospital but was unexpectedly reignited in her late thirties. The true story tells of a woman’s struggle to overcome tragedy and who triumphs to become the midwife that she was born to be. The many birth stories are told from an era in the 1970s through the eyes of a young nurse aide to modern day midwifery in New Zealand as an independant midwife with her own caseload. Get Your Copy on Amazon Today!
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Enjoy an Excerpt from Born For Life!
The Beginning
When did the dream start? When did the journey begin? My grandmother gave me a small Ladybird book as part of my birthday present when I was ten years old. Reading the life of Florence Nightingale, I decided that being a nurse was what I wanted to do when I grew up. Imagining that, like Florence, I would be able to heal the sick and bring hope to people with my care and compassion. I imagined tending the sick and dying in a war zone in some far off land.
I thought a lot in my childhood about what I would do in life. Along with wanting to become a nurse, I also wanted to be a circus performer, an air hostess, an Olympic swimmer and even an actress. One by one though, my dreams would come crashing down. In my circus phase, I put a hole through the bedroom wall doing somersaults off the bed. Dad was not impressed and I was severely reprimanded. My circus career ended before it began. In my swimming phase, I can remember nearly drowning at least a couple of times. Dad rescued me from the river at a Lions’ Christmas picnic. I was walking to the other side of the river with a friend, hand in hand. My friend, who I was walking with, was a lot taller than I was. So as we walked, I was going deeper under the water.
Fortunately, Dad spotted us before my head completely disappeared. Then, again, on holiday in Rotorua, I jumped into the deep end of the swimming pool, still unable to swim. I remember all the hands coming down to grab me out of the pool as I kept coming up to the surface and then going down into the water again. I copped another scolding from Dad who was usually quiet, loving and sedate. He seemed rather stressed as he pulled me from the water, telling me to never jump in a pool again without finding out which was the deep end.
The nursing dream seemed to be the only one where I didn’t have my bubble burst and where no discouragement came to destroy it. So I carried my dream of becoming a nurse from the time I read the book until I wanted to leave school. My mother decided that working at the local hospital as a nurse aide was good enough and didn’t see any need for me to go away and do formal training.
She knew the matron of the local hospital and, while talking to her one day in town, my mother asked her if there was a vacancy for me as a nurse aide at the hospital. I had finished school at the end of the fifth form because I was bored and impatient to run my own life.
I had been rebellious in the fourth form and had never really regained my love of school. As my grades had dropped, I struggled to keep up. Amazing how a year of mucking about, having some fun and not applying oneself, puts you back so much that it’s virtually impossible to regain the ground lost. So leaving school seemed to be the best option and jobs were easy to find in 1970. My first job was at the local shoe shop for six months, before I got the call from the matron to start work at Pahiatua Hospital.
This is what I had dreamed of. Also, as I was earning $12.50 a week at the shoe shop and I was going to be earning $52 a fortnight at the hospital, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. A doubling in wages overnight seemed like a small fortune, so there was no doubt about taking the offer.
I had a boyfriend, Barry, whom I had been going out with since I was fifteen years old. He didn’t want me to leave town to do formal nursing training and especially not to Palmerston North, which was 40 minutes away. There were rumours of girls sneaking out at night from the nurses’ home there and boys being sneaked into the nurses’ quarters, where drinking and sex were rumoured to be rife.
Heck no, Barry didn’t want to risk losing me to that and at the moment I was satisfied and happy. At least I was going to be a nurse, not a trained one, but a nurse nevertheless.
As I walked up the driveway, I admired the beautiful rose gardens that were uniformly placed around and the perfectly manicured lawn with trees lining the hospital boundary. Surrounding the buildings were masses of colour from the flower beds, with edges trimmed and not a weed in sight. The driveway curved around, going from the main hospital and offices to the maternity annexe at the far end of the hospital grounds.
The main part of the hospital was made of red brick, large and square in shape. There was a long corridor going from the main hospital to the maternity annexe. It was painted cream with rough caste plaster up to the windows, then plain plaster above that was also painted cream with a green board separating the two. The roof of the hospital was covered with red corrugated iron.
Nervousness and apprehension stopped me from fully appreciating the beauty and tranquillity of the hospital grounds as I made my way to the large front door.
My heart pounding, I waited by the main office for Mrs Sinclair to call me in for the fitting of my uniform. Finally, she came out of a side door in the corridor and called me into the little sewing room. She had a tape measure in hand to measure the length of my uniform, which had to be around knee length and not too tight around the bust. The uniform was a white, short-sleeved dress that was slightly stiff and buttoned all the way up the front. There were buttonholes on both sides of the uniform.
Down one side of the front, the buttons went through the buttonholes and were secured at the back by a metal clip. The buttons were round and white with a metal eyelet at the back. A metal clip was put through the eyelet at the back to secure it in place. These buttons were taken off after each shift and the uniform put into the laundry. The nurse aides had cardboard hats that came flat and we had to fold them into shape and then clip them onto our hair. The trained nurses, or sisters, and the matron all had fabric hats.
“You will have to buy some white stockings and white shoes and you will need a red cardigan for when it gets cold,” Mrs Sinclair said.
“Your uniforms and cape will be in a locker in maternity when you start. I’ll have them all named for you. The locker will have your name on it and a key in the lock.”
The nurse aides had blue capes lined with red and the trained nurses had red capes lined with blue. I must say, I felt a sense of pride as I tried the cape on. It had a thick, wide collar and there were two straps that came down on either side that crossed over in front and buttoned at the back. The capes were made of a thick, woollen material and felt very warm. They were not to be worn while tending to patients but could be worn at other times and, like the uniform, were not to be worn home.
After I had finished being measured up, Mrs Sinclair showed me to a seat where I was to wait for Mrs Brunton, the matron, who wanted to see me and give me a tour of the hospital.
I had never met Mrs Brunton before and my nervousness worsened while waiting outside the door of her office. There was no mistaking who she was when the door eventually opened and an older, grey‑haired lady came over to greet me.
“Hello, you must be Julie. Mrs Sinclair tells me she has finished measuring you up for your uniforms. She’ll have them ready for you by the time you start next Monday. Now come with me and I’ll take you to meet Sister Foster. She is expecting us over in maternity. That’s where you will come when you start. I am sure you will enjoy working at the hospital and maternity is such a nice place to work.”
I stood up and all I could say was, “Yes. Thank you.”
I was intimidated and in awe of this woman who looked a lot older than my mother and had an air of grace and authority about her. She was dressed in a white uniform similar to the one I had tried on, but with long sleeves that were cuffed at the wrists. She looked almost regal, as she also wore a white veil that flowed down past her shoulders. The veil was made of a fine material and the hat itself was stiff and clipped to her grey, wavy hair. She looked like a nun, but dressed in white not black.
I had never met anyone with the sense of presence that she had. I spoke quietly when she spoke to me, nodded in the appropriate places and felt I had to almost bow in her presence. Her smile was soft and warm, helping me feel at ease.
“This is the main office of the hospital, next to the front door,” she pointed to the room before us with glass sliding windows.
“Mrs Griffiths works there but she is away today and my office is here.” She pointed again, this time to a huge door next to the main office on the right. The door had a large brass handle and the words ‘Mrs Brunton, Matron’ written on a wooden plaque in the centre.
I was to meet Mrs Griffiths in time. She did all the administration and had a huge influence on the running of the whole hospital, from the kitchen staff and the gardener to the matron herself. The hospital couldn’t have run without Mrs Griffiths. She also took all the x-rays and ran that department as well.
Mrs Griffiths kept an eagle eye on the financial side of the hospital. I later found out that even pinching a meal off the trolley was almost a sacking offence, although we did risk it at times.
Mrs Brunton took me around to the dining room. She explained about the meals and when and where to order them. You had to write down your order on the pad in the dining room if you wanted a meal, then the cost of the meal would be taken out of your pay. The main meal of the day was at midday and was served to the staff in the dining room. We also had morning and afternoon tea in the dining room. Tea was at 5:30pm and had to be ordered when you came to work in the early afternoon. You could bring your own meal though and have it in the dining room or in the maternity kitchen if you preferred. During the day, you were expected to have all meals and breaks in the dining room. In the evening and at night you could eat in the kitchen located in maternity. There were chairs and tables outside for when the weather was warm and we could have our breaks there.
Mrs Brunton continued giving me the tour. The maternity annexe was at the far end of the hospital. I pondered why she had chosen me to work there. I had not asked to go there but when she rang and asked if I wanted to work in the maternity annexe, I jumped at the chance of working with mothers and babies.
‘What a neat job,’ I had thought.
As we came to the maternity entrance, there was a door across the other side of the passage, which opened to an outside covered walkway that led to the nurses’ home.
On the left was the start of the maternity annexe. As we walked down the corridor, the labour room and connecting bathroom were on the right. The delivery theatre was next to the labour room and, across the corridor from the labour room, was the clean utility where the autoclave machine was kept. The autoclave machine was used to sterilise all the instruments and bowls that were used.
The next room on the right was the dirty utility or pan room and opposite that were the large nursery and the milk room. Along from the milk room, to the left were the staff kitchen, the clean linen room and the dirty linen room.
Next to the nursery, on the other side, was the sisters’ office. Mrs Brunton walked into the office and I followed just a few steps behind.
There in the office with her back to us sat a rather large, middle- aged lady with short, grey hair. With a short knock on the door from Mrs Brunton, she turned around.
“Hello hello,” she said as she stood up to greet me, making me instantly feel at ease. With her grey hair and short, dumpy appearance, she gave the impression she had been in charge of maternity for a long time.
“Sister Foster, this is Nurse Watts who will be starting here in maternity next week. She has just been measured up for her uniform and I’m giving her a bit of a tour. I think you have her on the roster to start next Monday on the morning shift.”
“Welcome to maternity. I’m sure you will enjoy working here. You will be working with one of our more experienced nurses for the first few days so she can show you the ropes. It shouldn’t take you too long to settle in,” said Sister Foster.
I warmed to Sister Foster the minute I saw her. She had warm, blue eyes and a smile that would, without much provocation, burst into an infectious, raucous laugh. She had devoted her life to a career in midwifery, having had no husband and no family except an elderly mother. She commuted from Woodville, fifteen kilometres away, where she lived with her mother and a cat. I was to learn over the course of time that Mrs Brunton and Sister Foster were not exactly the best of friends, with Sister Foster regularly chucking off at the fact that Mr Brunton was the gardener.
Sister Foster warmly welcomed me onto the staff, explaining shift times and showing me the duty roster for the following fortnight. She gave me a pen and paper so I could write down the shifts that I would be doing for the first two weeks of work.
“This is where the roster is kept and, when you start, we will take you through things. Most of the nurse aides love working here and I’m sure you will like it here as well. Come to the side entrance on Monday morning in time to start at 7am. The door is normally unlocked at that time and if you come to the office here, Nurse Smith will be on shift and she will take you to the changing room.”
Both Mrs Brunton and Sister Foster showed me around the rest of the maternity annexe. There were two single rooms for the antenatal women on the left side starting next to the main entrance, then two double rooms before the end of the corridor and the outside door at the other end. On the other side opposite the outside door, there was the patients lounge/dining room. Three double rooms and the patients’ toilet and shower were next to the dirty utility room and opposite the sisters’ office.
The lino floors were meticulously cleaned and polished thanks to Smithy, the cleaner who worked in maternity. Smithy washed, polished and cleaned the maternity annexe with enthusiasm and gusto. A tall woman in her 50s, Smithy wore a green uniform down past her knees and her hair was short, straight and dark. She wore no makeup and was slightly bent over at the waist leaning to her right side. I knew her as she lived down the road from us in Princess Street.
She greeted me with “Hello, Julie,” as we passed in the corridor.
‘Nice to see a familiar face,’ I thought as we passed her.
The walls were pale green, clean and freshly painted. Not a speck of dust or dirt was to be seen, and the smell of detergent and Savlon was a smell I would come to associate with the hospital and especially maternity.
I was shown the outside door at the end of the corridor and, as I walked down the ramp, I was filled with excitement and expectation for my new job. Not knowing where it would lead or even caring. I was excited just to start.
I thought a lot in my childhood about what I would do in life. Along with wanting to become a nurse, I also wanted to be a circus performer, an air hostess, an Olympic swimmer and even an actress. One by one though, my dreams would come crashing down. In my circus phase, I put a hole through the bedroom wall doing somersaults off the bed. Dad was not impressed and I was severely reprimanded. My circus career ended before it began. In my swimming phase, I can remember nearly drowning at least a couple of times. Dad rescued me from the river at a Lions’ Christmas picnic. I was walking to the other side of the river with a friend, hand in hand. My friend, who I was walking with, was a lot taller than I was. So as we walked, I was going deeper under the water.
Fortunately, Dad spotted us before my head completely disappeared. Then, again, on holiday in Rotorua, I jumped into the deep end of the swimming pool, still unable to swim. I remember all the hands coming down to grab me out of the pool as I kept coming up to the surface and then going down into the water again. I copped another scolding from Dad who was usually quiet, loving and sedate. He seemed rather stressed as he pulled me from the water, telling me to never jump in a pool again without finding out which was the deep end.
The nursing dream seemed to be the only one where I didn’t have my bubble burst and where no discouragement came to destroy it. So I carried my dream of becoming a nurse from the time I read the book until I wanted to leave school. My mother decided that working at the local hospital as a nurse aide was good enough and didn’t see any need for me to go away and do formal training.
She knew the matron of the local hospital and, while talking to her one day in town, my mother asked her if there was a vacancy for me as a nurse aide at the hospital. I had finished school at the end of the fifth form because I was bored and impatient to run my own life.
I had been rebellious in the fourth form and had never really regained my love of school. As my grades had dropped, I struggled to keep up. Amazing how a year of mucking about, having some fun and not applying oneself, puts you back so much that it’s virtually impossible to regain the ground lost. So leaving school seemed to be the best option and jobs were easy to find in 1970. My first job was at the local shoe shop for six months, before I got the call from the matron to start work at Pahiatua Hospital.
This is what I had dreamed of. Also, as I was earning $12.50 a week at the shoe shop and I was going to be earning $52 a fortnight at the hospital, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. A doubling in wages overnight seemed like a small fortune, so there was no doubt about taking the offer.
I had a boyfriend, Barry, whom I had been going out with since I was fifteen years old. He didn’t want me to leave town to do formal nursing training and especially not to Palmerston North, which was 40 minutes away. There were rumours of girls sneaking out at night from the nurses’ home there and boys being sneaked into the nurses’ quarters, where drinking and sex were rumoured to be rife.
Heck no, Barry didn’t want to risk losing me to that and at the moment I was satisfied and happy. At least I was going to be a nurse, not a trained one, but a nurse nevertheless.
As I walked up the driveway, I admired the beautiful rose gardens that were uniformly placed around and the perfectly manicured lawn with trees lining the hospital boundary. Surrounding the buildings were masses of colour from the flower beds, with edges trimmed and not a weed in sight. The driveway curved around, going from the main hospital and offices to the maternity annexe at the far end of the hospital grounds.
The main part of the hospital was made of red brick, large and square in shape. There was a long corridor going from the main hospital to the maternity annexe. It was painted cream with rough caste plaster up to the windows, then plain plaster above that was also painted cream with a green board separating the two. The roof of the hospital was covered with red corrugated iron.
Nervousness and apprehension stopped me from fully appreciating the beauty and tranquillity of the hospital grounds as I made my way to the large front door.
My heart pounding, I waited by the main office for Mrs Sinclair to call me in for the fitting of my uniform. Finally, she came out of a side door in the corridor and called me into the little sewing room. She had a tape measure in hand to measure the length of my uniform, which had to be around knee length and not too tight around the bust. The uniform was a white, short-sleeved dress that was slightly stiff and buttoned all the way up the front. There were buttonholes on both sides of the uniform.
Down one side of the front, the buttons went through the buttonholes and were secured at the back by a metal clip. The buttons were round and white with a metal eyelet at the back. A metal clip was put through the eyelet at the back to secure it in place. These buttons were taken off after each shift and the uniform put into the laundry. The nurse aides had cardboard hats that came flat and we had to fold them into shape and then clip them onto our hair. The trained nurses, or sisters, and the matron all had fabric hats.
“You will have to buy some white stockings and white shoes and you will need a red cardigan for when it gets cold,” Mrs Sinclair said.
“Your uniforms and cape will be in a locker in maternity when you start. I’ll have them all named for you. The locker will have your name on it and a key in the lock.”
The nurse aides had blue capes lined with red and the trained nurses had red capes lined with blue. I must say, I felt a sense of pride as I tried the cape on. It had a thick, wide collar and there were two straps that came down on either side that crossed over in front and buttoned at the back. The capes were made of a thick, woollen material and felt very warm. They were not to be worn while tending to patients but could be worn at other times and, like the uniform, were not to be worn home.
After I had finished being measured up, Mrs Sinclair showed me to a seat where I was to wait for Mrs Brunton, the matron, who wanted to see me and give me a tour of the hospital.
I had never met Mrs Brunton before and my nervousness worsened while waiting outside the door of her office. There was no mistaking who she was when the door eventually opened and an older, grey‑haired lady came over to greet me.
“Hello, you must be Julie. Mrs Sinclair tells me she has finished measuring you up for your uniforms. She’ll have them ready for you by the time you start next Monday. Now come with me and I’ll take you to meet Sister Foster. She is expecting us over in maternity. That’s where you will come when you start. I am sure you will enjoy working at the hospital and maternity is such a nice place to work.”
I stood up and all I could say was, “Yes. Thank you.”
I was intimidated and in awe of this woman who looked a lot older than my mother and had an air of grace and authority about her. She was dressed in a white uniform similar to the one I had tried on, but with long sleeves that were cuffed at the wrists. She looked almost regal, as she also wore a white veil that flowed down past her shoulders. The veil was made of a fine material and the hat itself was stiff and clipped to her grey, wavy hair. She looked like a nun, but dressed in white not black.
I had never met anyone with the sense of presence that she had. I spoke quietly when she spoke to me, nodded in the appropriate places and felt I had to almost bow in her presence. Her smile was soft and warm, helping me feel at ease.
“This is the main office of the hospital, next to the front door,” she pointed to the room before us with glass sliding windows.
“Mrs Griffiths works there but she is away today and my office is here.” She pointed again, this time to a huge door next to the main office on the right. The door had a large brass handle and the words ‘Mrs Brunton, Matron’ written on a wooden plaque in the centre.
I was to meet Mrs Griffiths in time. She did all the administration and had a huge influence on the running of the whole hospital, from the kitchen staff and the gardener to the matron herself. The hospital couldn’t have run without Mrs Griffiths. She also took all the x-rays and ran that department as well.
Mrs Griffiths kept an eagle eye on the financial side of the hospital. I later found out that even pinching a meal off the trolley was almost a sacking offence, although we did risk it at times.
Mrs Brunton took me around to the dining room. She explained about the meals and when and where to order them. You had to write down your order on the pad in the dining room if you wanted a meal, then the cost of the meal would be taken out of your pay. The main meal of the day was at midday and was served to the staff in the dining room. We also had morning and afternoon tea in the dining room. Tea was at 5:30pm and had to be ordered when you came to work in the early afternoon. You could bring your own meal though and have it in the dining room or in the maternity kitchen if you preferred. During the day, you were expected to have all meals and breaks in the dining room. In the evening and at night you could eat in the kitchen located in maternity. There were chairs and tables outside for when the weather was warm and we could have our breaks there.
Mrs Brunton continued giving me the tour. The maternity annexe was at the far end of the hospital. I pondered why she had chosen me to work there. I had not asked to go there but when she rang and asked if I wanted to work in the maternity annexe, I jumped at the chance of working with mothers and babies.
‘What a neat job,’ I had thought.
As we came to the maternity entrance, there was a door across the other side of the passage, which opened to an outside covered walkway that led to the nurses’ home.
On the left was the start of the maternity annexe. As we walked down the corridor, the labour room and connecting bathroom were on the right. The delivery theatre was next to the labour room and, across the corridor from the labour room, was the clean utility where the autoclave machine was kept. The autoclave machine was used to sterilise all the instruments and bowls that were used.
The next room on the right was the dirty utility or pan room and opposite that were the large nursery and the milk room. Along from the milk room, to the left were the staff kitchen, the clean linen room and the dirty linen room.
Next to the nursery, on the other side, was the sisters’ office. Mrs Brunton walked into the office and I followed just a few steps behind.
There in the office with her back to us sat a rather large, middle- aged lady with short, grey hair. With a short knock on the door from Mrs Brunton, she turned around.
“Hello hello,” she said as she stood up to greet me, making me instantly feel at ease. With her grey hair and short, dumpy appearance, she gave the impression she had been in charge of maternity for a long time.
“Sister Foster, this is Nurse Watts who will be starting here in maternity next week. She has just been measured up for her uniform and I’m giving her a bit of a tour. I think you have her on the roster to start next Monday on the morning shift.”
“Welcome to maternity. I’m sure you will enjoy working here. You will be working with one of our more experienced nurses for the first few days so she can show you the ropes. It shouldn’t take you too long to settle in,” said Sister Foster.
I warmed to Sister Foster the minute I saw her. She had warm, blue eyes and a smile that would, without much provocation, burst into an infectious, raucous laugh. She had devoted her life to a career in midwifery, having had no husband and no family except an elderly mother. She commuted from Woodville, fifteen kilometres away, where she lived with her mother and a cat. I was to learn over the course of time that Mrs Brunton and Sister Foster were not exactly the best of friends, with Sister Foster regularly chucking off at the fact that Mr Brunton was the gardener.
Sister Foster warmly welcomed me onto the staff, explaining shift times and showing me the duty roster for the following fortnight. She gave me a pen and paper so I could write down the shifts that I would be doing for the first two weeks of work.
“This is where the roster is kept and, when you start, we will take you through things. Most of the nurse aides love working here and I’m sure you will like it here as well. Come to the side entrance on Monday morning in time to start at 7am. The door is normally unlocked at that time and if you come to the office here, Nurse Smith will be on shift and she will take you to the changing room.”
Both Mrs Brunton and Sister Foster showed me around the rest of the maternity annexe. There were two single rooms for the antenatal women on the left side starting next to the main entrance, then two double rooms before the end of the corridor and the outside door at the other end. On the other side opposite the outside door, there was the patients lounge/dining room. Three double rooms and the patients’ toilet and shower were next to the dirty utility room and opposite the sisters’ office.
The lino floors were meticulously cleaned and polished thanks to Smithy, the cleaner who worked in maternity. Smithy washed, polished and cleaned the maternity annexe with enthusiasm and gusto. A tall woman in her 50s, Smithy wore a green uniform down past her knees and her hair was short, straight and dark. She wore no makeup and was slightly bent over at the waist leaning to her right side. I knew her as she lived down the road from us in Princess Street.
She greeted me with “Hello, Julie,” as we passed in the corridor.
‘Nice to see a familiar face,’ I thought as we passed her.
The walls were pale green, clean and freshly painted. Not a speck of dust or dirt was to be seen, and the smell of detergent and Savlon was a smell I would come to associate with the hospital and especially maternity.
I was shown the outside door at the end of the corridor and, as I walked down the ramp, I was filled with excitement and expectation for my new job. Not knowing where it would lead or even caring. I was excited just to start.
