Applying oneself

The calendar rolled around to February, and it happened.

That thing I knew was coming all along, and yet, it still hit me hard in my chest and found that vulnerable Momma place that mixes fear with excitement and chokes it back up in inexplicable tears over the most random of conversation points.

Mary Hannah is applying to midwifery school.

Which is fabulous. A dream come true. Something she’s worked towards, prayed over, and planned on for five years. Something we’ve helped make happen by paying for classes at Bastyr University, buying a small library of books, driving her hours away to witness the miracle of birth firsthand.

And yet, it’s bittersweet. Our girl is doing it. She’s stepping out into the future God planned in advance for her.

She selected a program about a year back– one that focuses specifically on her vision and calling. God willing, she’ll be traveling back to the west coast this fall to start classes. The reaction from friends has been overwhelmingly positive; the people who know her best hear about a school where training midwives for the mission field is the main (but not singular) focus and see the custom-made fit. A handful of folks have been less than enthusiastic. Why can’t she find a school in North Carolina? Why doesn’t she just get a nursing degree? We’re less daunted by the location (honestly, we expected to be on the other side of the globe, so the other side of a continent feels pretty darn close right now!), and a little surprised by the suggestion that nursing take the place of midwifery given her specific interests. Mary Hannah strongly prefers homebirth over hospital settings (she’s attended both) and doesn’t see the two roles as being at all the same. She wants to catch babies in places where hospitals are not an option. A nursing degree isn’t the door she’s knocking on.

From my end, seeing the arrival of a season I have anticipated as a mother and home educator for so long is both beautiful and awful. I remember how she devoured books on birth, how she wondered at her first lessons on placental placement, how she spent a week researching a particular condition for a pregnant family friend, then wrote up a report for her without being asked. These are the good things; the things that remind me how blessed I am to watch this blossoming. But then I remember that growing means going. I know I am going to miss Mary Hannah’s continued presence, her smile, the sound of her guitar coming down the stairs, the way she runs up behind me and hugs me, stealth-style. I’m going to turn to offer her one of our pithy comments in the kitchen a hundred times before I remember, “She’s not here right now.” My heart is going to break with worry, and swell with joy at her excitement.

It’s going to be different. The new normal. And it will, eventually, feel right.

But for now, we’re just focusing on the getting there. Putting together the application, getting recommendations, helping her prepare for the Skype interview. She’s moving on, and it’s our job to help her take flight.

From here, she can go anywhere.