To be sad that I'll probably never train as a midwife

[PrettyWisdomous]

Throughout pregnancy, I always said to the midwives "I could never do your job", as I have a phobia of blood and needles. However, since DS was born, I've felt so inspired by the care I received that I've been thinking a lot about whether or not it's something I can do.

I'm a very caring person and love having a job (in a completely unrelated field) where I'm making a difference and not lining some fat-cat's pocket. However, my current job isn't really a career and although it does make a difference, it's not "daily" or something that I can actually see the effects of (very often, at least). I'm a great communicator, meticulous attention to detail, interested in people and helping others - I really believe that I would be a good midwife. I'm looking into CBT to overcome my phobias, which is the only thing that would hold me back.

... Except for the old foe, money. You need a degree to become a midwife. There is no way I can give up my work to become a student. It's unlikely to ever be something that I can do, we just couldn't afford to live off DP's salary alone, especially with the additional costs to put DS in childcare whilst I was learning or on placement.

This makes me feel sad. I've put the lottery on, but I'm not hopeful.

When I had D.C. 1 in hospital I was alone in ward after a few hours and chatted to mw who was doing rounds in the middle of the night. Turns out she has been a recruitment consultant prior to student mw..... who knows what your future holds. Don’t give up totally.

There must be a mw chatroom who can maybe advise...

Childcare is the biggest hurdle for mature students who are not lone parents and have a working partner. The partners income disqualifies you from a childcare grant from student finance. You are advised to apply for childcare costs via tax credits/UC, who tell you that you both need to be employed to qualify (they count full time students as unemployed) and advise you to go to student finance. We got round it by using childcare vouchers but I know that's not always possible.

I’m looking to do the access course soon! I’m overcoming that hurdle before worrying about getting on the mw course as I’m still half tempted by nursing. I’m 31. Best of luck

No reason at all not to do this if you want it badly enough! As previous posters have said you will need an Access to HE course in Health or Science, the fees for these are paid by Advanced Learner Loan from Student Finance and this gets written off when you get your degree. The Welsh government is still giving bursaries for some Allied NHS courses so worth checking out if you’re close enough to commute to a Welsh uni.

I’m just finishing up on my Access Science course which I have loved, I’m at college 2 days a week so am working too. I also have a bursaried place to study Radiography at uni in September - and I’m way older than you at 40

I really hope you go for it, life is too short to not follow your dreams if you possibly can!

Oh and I thought I could never afford to give up my steady, safe, relatively well paid job (which I had come to hate). I did it, we managed, I gave up my car and nights out/holidays and I have no regrets at all

If you're in your 20s you have plenty of time! I'm 41 and there's a lot of mature students in my cohort. Might be worth going for a support role position to see if you actually like the job? It's not all delivering babies, that's a very small part of midwifery. Good luck!

I'm a midwife, in case my username didn't give that away!

Being totally honest the training is hard, very full on and if you have a family as well, as I do, you'll find it virtually impossible to work alongside the degree.

The bursery was available when I trained and financially we did struggle for a few years, had to delay buying our first home as we quickly went through our deposit savings. I believe that now the bursery has gone the financial support available is actually better, however you pay it all back afterwards so thats probably why.

You'll need some recent study, many people do access courses before hand, and you'll need some relevant volunteer experience, some great suggestions on this thread already. It's also pretty competitive, I was one of 18 in my cohort and 1400 applied for those places! You will need to do the research and be able to prove to them that you are ready for this.

But after all that you finally qualify and it's the best feeling in the world! The job is hard, the hours long, rarely get a break, rarely finish on time. The NHS is struggling which can be hard, going home knowing you could have done better if there was just more time, more staff, more money. It really is amazing though and you feel so so privileged to be doing it. It needs to be an absolute passion however as otherwise you simply won't cope with the demands of it.

Feel free to PM me with any questions and good luck!

I think the needle and blood phobia would need to be dealt with first as this is a big stumbling block. How bad is your phobia?

I somehow missed the part about the needle and blood phobia! That would definitely need dealing with first, there have been many days when I've been quite litteraly soaked in someone else's blood. Is the phobia just your blood, you having needles or does it apply to others also?

I am starting my training this september starting with the access course. There is loads of help available at university etc look into your local universities for what they can offer and help with. The student loan calculators and tax credit calculators are also useful

I'd love to go back and retrain as a midwife, I'd be taking a big salary drop though (I'm a software developer now) and I'm not sure if I could justify that when we have 2 kids under 3 and want to buy a house at some point.

Thank you all so much for the encouraging replies. The needle and blood phobia is pretty bad, I go a bit faing just hearing the word blood!! But I know it can be overcome.

CatchingBabies, I believe I would be a passionate midwife, and I feel very motivated that its what I want to do, but particularly me is scared that I'll go through all of that and then hate it. I'm also a bit nervous about an earlier comment that said there aren't many vacancies.

Maybe it's not the thing to be doing with a very young family (DS is only 3 months and we will want DC2 at some stage).