Why did you become a midwife?

I was 12 years old when I decided I was going to be a midwife. It was at secondary school where they were doing a careers fair for the older students, and my friend and I snuck in and there were nurses there that had retrained as midwives and I just, we just got talking to them and it was at that moment I just thought, “That’s what I want to do”.

It’s just, it’s one of those things where it’s not just the birth of the baby, I’ve got no romantic ideas about it, it can be a very upsetting, very stressful job but it’s so rewarding. Just to look after a woman, especially one-on-one care, and really feel you’ve—you know she might not remember your name, she might not remember what you look like, but she’ll always remember how you made her feel.

Where will you fit into the new Mothers’ Hospital?

I’ve asked to go to birth suite, when we go over there cause that’s usually where I like to be.

We were sent emails with the rooms, we were told which managers are going to be working on which floors, before you actually select your floors. You’re asked where you want to go, whether you’d like to rotate, what kind of shifts you would do, would you like an eight hour or ten hour break between shifts. I mean you do feel like that, coming from the UK and the NHS especially, you do feel a little bit spoilt. With all these choices, I can work where I want, I can do the length of shift I want, and can have as much time off in between as I want, so yeah.

What’s it like living in Australia?

I really don’t feel like I’ve immigrated to the other side of the world I think because I’ve still got that feeling of, “Yeah, this is somewhere where we belong”. I don’t feel like a foreigner, I don’t, you know, I’m not made to feel like a foreigner is probably the best way to put it.