Certified Nurse Midwife

I know I do not post here very often, but exciting things don't happen very often, and I have no idea if anyone even comes to look at my blog any more. My day to day life seems pretty dull to me, especially because I have been in school for so long (seems like forever). None of my kids remember a time when I wasn't in school studying for something. They have no idea who Mommy is when she doesn't have her nose in a book. I started my pre-requisites for nursing school in January 2010, when my twins were not even a year old. My now 5-year-old was conceived during my first semester of pre-requisites, and my almost 3-year-old was born about two months after becoming an RN. My goal from day one was to become a midwife, even though it seemed like that day would never come.

It took six and a half years of blood, sweat, and many tears. These last few semesters of midwifery clinicals nearly broke me entirely. There were times when I wondered if I really should be doing this. I was beaten down so hard that I thought I would never graduate, even after spending all of that time and money. But, after eight months of clinicals, I did graduate (finally!). I got my congratulatory email from my school the day after my birthday last week. But even though that gave me my master's in nursing, I still could not call myself a midwife. Not until today...

Today I passed the AMCB (American Midwifery Certification Board) exam which makes me a CNM (Certified Nurse Midwife).

I took this selfie right after getting into my car after passing the exam. I studied my brains out over the last week, and it paid off.

I wish I could tell you that I'm done with school, but there is one piece left for me to accomplish. I am going to do my school's 9-month DNP program for my doctorate. Once that is finished I will be 100% done with school, and then you'll be able to call me Dr. Kahn. (I've always wanted to be called that. See 90's Nickelodeon TV show Salute Your Shorts if you don't know why.)

My next step is to find a midwifery position in my area, though that is proving to be somewhat difficult. I have interviewed at several hospitals, but most (if not all) places want someone with at least some midwifery experience or at least some labor and delivery RN experience. I have neither. In the meanwhile, I will be working at Roxbury Community College as a maternity clinical instructor for their nursing students and hopefully will pick up some doula clients to keep improving birth on a small scale even if I'm not working as a midwife (yet).