AIBU to put a strain on my family to do a midwifery degree?

[Habbyhadno]

I have wanted to train as a midwife for years, and now my children are all at school/nursery I want to start an access course this Sept with a view to staring a Midwifery course at uni next Sept.
I think it's something that I'm going to have to really bust a gut to do, financially and childcare-wise with my DH having to pick up quite a bit of the slack, I'm not sure we'll get much means tested support as DH has a decent (not huge, but ok to live on one wage) salary. However, I've been a SAHM for four years now and want to do something for myself and get back into the workplace, hopefully in a rewarding career that I've always been interested in.

Has anyone else done this? Am I being selfish to delay earning a wage for the next four years and get into debt and cause a load of stress about childcare to re-start my career from the ground up?

Viewpoints and experience welcome...

I did the access to nursing and midwifery course a couple of years ago. To get on the access course you had to have gcse English, maths and science. I had the science but needed to do the maths and English. But to get on the gcse course I had to complete functional skills level 1 & 2. I’m glad I did I think I would have struggled without doing the functional skills first. The access course is really hard work. But getting a place on a midwifery degree course is very difficult. We had people getting all distinctions but still couldn’t get a place at a uni. I got offered a place but didn’t get the grades ( I was ill when trying to complete the course) . I still enjoyed doing the access course and made some great friends.

I qualified as a midwife in September and have been working now for 6 months. I have 4DC’s including two preschoolers and I became a single parent in my 3rd year. Midwifery training is really tough and to be honest I thought everything would magically become easier when I was qualified but the hard part was just beginning. I can’t honestly say I love it, it is really really stressful although I work at a crazy busy inner city hospital with very high risk population and horribly underfunded services. Training with young children was possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I would really really recommend working as a health care assistant for a while and seeing how you like it and how you cope with the long hours and rolling shifts. It is not family friendly. I know a midwife who started at the same time as me who has already left because she hated it so much. 3 years of hard work and so much money down the drain. I don’t want to be discouraging, but the reality of working in the NHS needs to be experienced.

You would definitely have sone transferable skills through your work as a governor- communication, decision making, diplomacy, dealing with sensitive issues and complaints.
The other thing you need to consider is that the experience you mentioned as a service user is so different to being a clinician. You probably had a lovely positive experience with your midwife team but obviously as a midwife you would be working in frequently very challenging situations - domestic violence , terminations, bereavement, drug addicted babies, fgm, high risk pregnancies. In my experience on a post natal ward as a volunteer it was a real eye opener and the vulnerable and complex cases will be the ones that you obviously prioritise so it's really important to go in with a realistic idea of what the job entails .

Thanks everyone. My head is in a complete spin tonight so I'm going to sleep on it. Maybe the best thing to do would be to work in my maths first, they do free courses at college and possibly try and get some volunteer work in this year and then see how I feel about it.

Do it. You'll earn back the debt a few fold over the course of your career. Do think carefully about how you'll manage shift patterns once qualified though. As wonderful as midwifery may be it's pretty gruelling and not necessarily compatible with the family life you may also want. There are other AHP careers that could give you both more easily 👍

First year student in an allied health subject here. I have a 2 and 4 year old and haven't felt guilt as extreme as this. I'll be studying part time next year, the course will take me twice as long but I wanted to be there more for my boys. Are you able to talk to existing students at the uni to ask what the work load etc is like? I have a degree in a humanities subject from a redbrick uni but this degree is next level!!

Sorry committed a MN sin and replied before I RTFT. Good luck OP

Right - I think I need to start small. I've emailed my local hospital to ask about MSW roles or volunteering/work experience.

I've also applied for a level 2 maths course that's free, so at least that's something to be getting on with.

I did it with law school. I think it's totally worth it and you seem to have an understanding and kind DP. Do it. Life's too short! ❤️

As someone who did this then transferred on to a different course once at uni, being a parent of young children, the hardest part isn't the academic stuff but the practical childcare and going to uni side. Midwifery degrees are saturated with applicants and of those students, most will be going to live in student accommodation. You need to be able to commute to your nearest uni, if you can do midwifery there, and bank on being accepted.

I did GCSEs on top of the Access course as I'm from a different country, but once at uni I was told they'd have offered me a place anyway without! A couple of others were told similar so it pays to enquire with the university themselves as opposed to going by the criteria you've found online or given by college.

@Iamuhtredsonofuhtred

I qualified as a midwife in September and have been working now for 6 months. I have 4DC’s including two preschoolers and I became a single parent in my 3rd year. Midwifery training is really tough and to be honest I thought everything would magically become easier when I was qualified but the hard part was just beginning. I can’t honestly say I love it, it is really really stressful although I work at a crazy busy inner city hospital with very high risk population and horribly underfunded services. Training with young children was possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I would really really recommend working as a health care assistant for a while and seeing how you like it and how you cope with the long hours and rolling shifts. It is not family friendly. I know a midwife who started at the same time as me who has already left because she hated it so much. 3 years of hard work and so much money down the drain. I don’t want to be discouraging, but the reality of working in the NHS needs to be experienced.

I'm a NQN and your comments pretty much reflect how a LOT of newly qualified feel, it's grueling, underfunded, under resourced and then the 1% pay offer was a massive kick in the teeth.

If I could turn back the clock I would do physiotherapy or radiology.

I've PM's you OP but just wanted to say you can absolutely get onto the course without volunteering I came from an admin background and just used transferable skills from that. I also had to do my maths GCSE alongside my access as my genius 16 year old self thought it was more important to go to the hairdresser than sit my exam 🙈