crisis and opportunity
i have been helping people give birth for about 15 years. in those years i have worked in several different practices. for many years, being a midwife was who i was, it was my main source of joy.around the time i was facing down 39, realizing that there were things i wanted in life that i didn't have, i decided to pursue parenthood.
after a year of "should-i-shouldn't-i" making list after list of pro and con, costs and benefit, i decided to adopt from china, which was a relatively straight forward process with a pretty predictable time line. at the time i was working in a small cnm practice with 6 cnms as one of three fulltime cnms. full time meant 2 24 hour calls and 2 8 hour clinics. you do the math- most weeks that meant that i was working 64 hours and getting paid for 40. truthfully, i was exhausted and crabby most of the time. work had become less important to me, and my life outside of work took priority. i managed to advocate and get a temporary decrease to .9 fte which meant that i was only working 60 hours a week. that helped alot, but i really only wanted to work half time.
just before i was due to get my referral i tried very hard to get a reduction to a .5fte which would have meant working one 24 hour call and one clinic- "only" 32 hours a week( for 20 hours pay) . the big cheese said "no" with the lame excuse that they could not have any more part timers. no one in my practice was willing to stand up and say "lets make this happen" when the highest person on the food chain said "no". now mind you three of them were working half time at the time. the day i found out the answer was 'no' i was beyond upset. i was hurt that none of my partners, who i had considered to be friends, could see how important this was to me. no one was willing to advocate or try to come up with a creative solution. i had been there nearly five years.as an added insult i was told that i was going to have to go back to being full time, but not until after i came home from china.
i knew i wasn't going to be willing to do that, but had accrued over 4 months of paid time off between sick time and vacation. i couldn't quit before i went to china since i would have lost most of the paid time i had coming.
so 12 weeks before my leave was over, i called the lead cnm to ask for a meeting to talk about the schedule. she refused saying "you're going to quit aren't you". when i answered that yes i was, she said something along the lines of "well there is nothing to talk about." it was horrible to not even be granted the courtesy of a face to face conversation. i felt betrayed, angry ,sad and mad. alot of mad. it was not how i expected to leave the practice.
so there i was, home from china with a new baby, no job, health insurance that was going to disappear soon, and several long term friendships that had imploded. my plans for day care were no longer since i didn't have a job. it was a crisis of huge proportions.
so i went on call for kaiser,and found cheap health insurance on the internet.i was able to support my daughter and work much less making more money. i decided to sell my house and move closer to my support system in southeast portland. in 12 weeks i became a mother, quit my job and moved. as someone pointed out to me, basically the only huge life stress i missed out on was jail.
five years later i look back on that time and am amazed at the transformation in my life as the result of that crisis. it truly was opportunity in a prickly, hard to swallow package.
today i have two kids who bring me incredible joy. being a mother is who i am. i relish the time i spend with them, (even if i am watching the clock for bedtime at the end of the day). i love our new house, though it is no longer new. my job at kaiser is a great fit for me, i enjoy my patients, get paid what i am worth and for the actual hours that i work. i have new friends. i have time to enjoy my life without being exhausted and crabby from my work.
someone told me that the chinese character for crisis is the same as the character for opportunity. i believe that.
after a year of "should-i-shouldn't-i" making list after list of pro and con, costs and benefit, i decided to adopt from china, which was a relatively straight forward process with a pretty predictable time line. at the time i was working in a small cnm practice with 6 cnms as one of three fulltime cnms. full time meant 2 24 hour calls and 2 8 hour clinics. you do the math- most weeks that meant that i was working 64 hours and getting paid for 40. truthfully, i was exhausted and crabby most of the time. work had become less important to me, and my life outside of work took priority. i managed to advocate and get a temporary decrease to .9 fte which meant that i was only working 60 hours a week. that helped alot, but i really only wanted to work half time.
just before i was due to get my referral i tried very hard to get a reduction to a .5fte which would have meant working one 24 hour call and one clinic- "only" 32 hours a week( for 20 hours pay) . the big cheese said "no" with the lame excuse that they could not have any more part timers. no one in my practice was willing to stand up and say "lets make this happen" when the highest person on the food chain said "no". now mind you three of them were working half time at the time. the day i found out the answer was 'no' i was beyond upset. i was hurt that none of my partners, who i had considered to be friends, could see how important this was to me. no one was willing to advocate or try to come up with a creative solution. i had been there nearly five years.as an added insult i was told that i was going to have to go back to being full time, but not until after i came home from china.
i knew i wasn't going to be willing to do that, but had accrued over 4 months of paid time off between sick time and vacation. i couldn't quit before i went to china since i would have lost most of the paid time i had coming.
so 12 weeks before my leave was over, i called the lead cnm to ask for a meeting to talk about the schedule. she refused saying "you're going to quit aren't you". when i answered that yes i was, she said something along the lines of "well there is nothing to talk about." it was horrible to not even be granted the courtesy of a face to face conversation. i felt betrayed, angry ,sad and mad. alot of mad. it was not how i expected to leave the practice.
so there i was, home from china with a new baby, no job, health insurance that was going to disappear soon, and several long term friendships that had imploded. my plans for day care were no longer since i didn't have a job. it was a crisis of huge proportions.
so i went on call for kaiser,and found cheap health insurance on the internet.i was able to support my daughter and work much less making more money. i decided to sell my house and move closer to my support system in southeast portland. in 12 weeks i became a mother, quit my job and moved. as someone pointed out to me, basically the only huge life stress i missed out on was jail.
five years later i look back on that time and am amazed at the transformation in my life as the result of that crisis. it truly was opportunity in a prickly, hard to swallow package.
today i have two kids who bring me incredible joy. being a mother is who i am. i relish the time i spend with them, (even if i am watching the clock for bedtime at the end of the day). i love our new house, though it is no longer new. my job at kaiser is a great fit for me, i enjoy my patients, get paid what i am worth and for the actual hours that i work. i have new friends. i have time to enjoy my life without being exhausted and crabby from my work.
someone told me that the chinese character for crisis is the same as the character for opportunity. i believe that.
posted by chris at
10:47 AM
3 Comments:
I love happy ending stories like this. Your girls are beautiful.
You mention your post-adoption quarter-year very casually, but you took a great chance to change your life. There should be a Chinese character that has the pictograms for "triumph" and "disaster" side-by-side; you took a real leap of faith and I'm glad it worked for you. But you shouldn't minimize your courage. This took a lot of guts, and good on you for risking it.
I agree you definitely took some good leaps of faith that we always must do when we are not right in our world. So glad you seem to have the Chinese character for "good fortune" prevailing. Yeah you!
What brings this retrospective to mind? MJ
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