Hey, friends!
I have gone and done the thing: I have launched my Patreon!
Today marks the day that I began my midwifery apprenticeship 22 years ago. Just a year ago I announced that I was taking an educational sabbatical from my midwifery practice in order to finish my Social Work degree and go to medical school to become a Full Spectrum Family Practice Physician. It was just last week that I took my last final of my first semester back in college. This thing is real. It is really happening.
As my role has shifted this year from being at the side of labouring people, midwifing birthing folks through rites of passage, to being behind the scenes of some evolving and new systems of community care, I have learned many vital lessons about my community, the greater birth and reproductive community of Pittsburgh, and realised just how incredibly valuable I am to my community and how valuable my community is to me.
I have learned the important truth that I can not do this alone. I can not do this work alone, I can not build new systems of care alone, and that I am not on this journey alone. This journey is as much of one for my community as it is for me. My community will evolve as I evolve. We will grow up together and each have our seasons of supporting one another.
I need you, my community, to support me, to labour with me, to midwife me through to the other side of this journey. I can not wait to return the favour threefold.
I am inviting you to join me on this journey, become a sustaining patron, and support me as I learn new skills and gain access to resources with which to better support you. Thank you.
midwife michele
they/them
midwife, herbalist, educator, & future physician