The thing I lost in the fire.

I'm in the last few weeks of my first year of midwifery school. Only two years more before I graduate and become eligible to become a Florida licensed midwife! Time has flown by.

A lot has changed since I started midwifery school in August. One of the biggest changes came when Mike and I broke up during my first semester. I've been wanting to write about this for a while but how do you sum up two years in one blog post?

There is no blame for how our relationship ended. When I got the calling to become a midwife it was as if a fire consumed me. I was being pulled toward midwifery on an almost cellular level. It takes a lot of compromise and patience to date someone who is in midwifery school (or who is a midwife!). Not only was I spending two days a week in Gainesville, I could get called to a birth at anytime and not know when I'd be home. How would you feel if you had to share your partner with laboring families for hours, or even days, at a time? It's asking a lot.

I don't know if I was just extremely busy with school and clinic this past semester but I've been thinking about us more now than when we first broke up. I miss us. When I look back at the good times it brings a smile to my face because we had a lot of fun together. I miss our dog family, going to his moms to hang out and just spending time together. I don't regret going to midwifery school at all. I know that I'm in the right place. I just wish that we could have figured something out. I suppose everything is exactly how it should be.

I've been carrying around this ache for a couple of weeks. I am grateful for everything that has happened and I can't wait for all the changes that will happen next. When some people break up they see their relationship as a waste of time. I look back at our relationship and see it for all the ways it changed me in a positive way. Moving to Saint Pete, meeting my midwife preceptor, becoming a doula and applying to midwifery school all happened because of my relationship with Mike.

I haven't seen him since February but I wish him love and happiness in whatever he does. He truly helped change my life.

"Love hurts sometimes when you do it right." - John Legend