I finished my clinical requirements for my CPM at Casa in 2003. I came there with a lot of midwifery experience behind me. However, I took to heart what one of the Casa midwives counseled me to do, “Come here to learn from us, not try to teach us what you know. Come with a humble attitude and be willing to put in the effort to work hard and have fun.” I would pass on that counsel to any prospective Casa intern. Now that I am a primary midwife, I have commented many times that my Casa internship prepared me for the unexpected in birth, taught me how to serve a wide population of families, and encouraged me to build bridges to midwives in my community of differing philosophizes or personalities.

I greatly appreciated the direct oversight of the senior midwives there. Each had there own practice style and ways of teaching. At first, some of us interns found this frustrating, but I soon began to realize the advantage of such differences. I learned that within the framework of midwifery care, there is room for many variations on the theme. The differences began to broaden my skills instead of frustrating them. Learning how to multi-task while doing prenatals or managing several labors/births at a time was also a great challenge. This was not one-on-one home birth! The demand for multi-tasking solidified both my critical thinking skills and my midwifery skills. You come to either know it or "lose it." I can see that developing quick skills will prove vital when faced with an out-of-hospital birth emergency.

Before I arrived at Casa, I was intimidated with having to resurrect my high school Spanish and at the thought of trying to do prenatals with women who spoke a different language. However, I soon found out that birth has its universal language, and that my feeble efforts to learn Spanish did give me some words and phrases in which to communicate. “Soy, Maureen, pero no hablo Espanol muy bein. Habla Ingles?” “No,” often with an embarrassed shake of the head, was usually the response or “un poquito”. We’d both laugh and continue the prenatal. A warm hug and soft touch of my hand communicated more than my faltering words. The shy smiles in response told me so. If my small vocabulary lacked, I’d go hunting the halls for one of my colleagues fluent in Spanish to help me.

Since leaving Casa, I’ve enjoyed many phone hours talking midwifery with friends I met there. Treasured friends. Learning to appreciate and work with many different kinds of people at Casa will help any prospective midwife develop a better empathy and understanding of people. And like people anywhere, some will become your friends, some you will work well with, and a few will tax your forbearance. But this is real life.                                                                         

Casa is one of those transformational experiences in the life of a midwife. Casa is a physically, emotionally and professionally stretching experience. You bring to it who you are, and then you are put in the fire to become more than who you expected you could become as a midwife. I am a Christian mother who home schooled six, (they now span 18 to 30 years), a grandmother of 2, with one more soon to come, and a wife of 30 years. And as the Bible says, I have become an “'older woman' teaching the 'younger.'”

Casa helped me realize my life-long dream of becoming a competent midwife. I was challenged at Casa, but now know that I have sister midwives I can call on in a heartbeat to counsel with. They are in El Paso working 24/7 pouring their hearts and hands into the woman they serve, and yet I know they are also willing to answer my questions and continue to share their knowledge with me far away in Minnesota.

Would I recommend Casa? Yes, without a doubt. But come prepared. Study your Spanish, read your midwifery books, be willing to learn and most importantly be willing to learn from, forebear with and love others.