Three years and five months ago, I embarked on what would become the most remarkable journey of my life to date-I started my training to become a midwife.
This huge change in my life, however, started back in 2015, when I decided after several years slogging it out as a musical theatre actress – auditioning, performing, paying out for headshots, websites and showreels – that it was time to move on. This decision did not come easily. I had been performing for as long as I could remember; from ballet classes as young as four years old and performing regularly throughout my school years, to completing my musical theatre degree and then the big move to London, signing with an agent and starting work. It had been my focus for most of my life.
Honestly, it broke my heart to stop. But I knew that it was the right thing to do. For my own wellbeing, for my mental health, for the lifestyle I knew I wanted. That still didn't stop it being difficult the day I moved out of my London flat, moved back to my parents' house and started thinking about ‘what's next?’.
Becoming a midwife had always been an option in the back of my mind but it wasn't until I went for dinner with my oldest and best friend (now my maid of honour) when it all fell into place as we righted the world's wrongs over glasses of wine and plates of nibbles. She encouraged me and believed in me.
The very next morning, I started putting together my university application. It was daunting to be diving headfirst into this new world, but the further I got into the process, the more I knew it was the right move.
Overall, I loved my training. Of course, there were highs and lows, but it was a positive challenge and I knew where it was leading me: to a job I was rapidly realising may well have been my true calling after all.
I loved the placements and job satisfaction. I loved the predictability of knowing when I was working and when I wasn't-making plans for days off and knowing that I could always keep them without an unexpected audition or gig coming up. I loved sharing my training online (obviously maintaining full confidentiality for all involved) and the feedback from other students and potential students who found it useful to read about.
‘Overall, I loved my training. Of course, there were highs and lows, but it was a positive challenge’
Surprisingly, I even enjoyed most of our assessments, feeling my brain challenged in a way that theatre could never quite do. Job interviews went by in a blur and before I knew it, I was turning up on my first day as a qualified midwife. So, let's fast-forward to now. Five months in, working full-time as a newly qualified midwife; is it everything I expected?
I moved industries in the search for a life with a work-life balance while still being able to do a job that I love and that gives me job satisfaction, where hard work and years of experience is rewarded, where you know when you are working and when you aren't, where you are paid by salary, not freelance. Honestly, I had a lot of expectations of the life I was moving into, and a lot of things I was desperate to move away from. It made the heartbreaking decision to change industries so much easier-knowing I was pursuing a better quality of life.
Yes, the job is tiring, stressful and demanding, and there are days when it can be a real struggle, but overall, this change in my life, into this new role, has found me all of the things I wanted and so much more.
Of course, there are going to be good days and bad days in any job, and the days when the short-staffing across the NHS is more prominent are definitely more difficult, but overall, I simply love the job; something which I think will only increase when I rotate to other areas and get to know the wider team.
I have found something I love, with the predictability of a rota that tells me when I am working more than a week in advance. I have a salary (albeit a newly qualified salary) and am in the process of arranging my first mortgage and planning my wedding; both of which would have been a huge struggle with the unpredictability of freelance pay!
I don't know how I got so lucky as to find a second career I love as much as the first. Midwifery, to me, just fits. I'm not saying there aren't days when I would rather stay in bed or where my third night in a row really doesn't appeal, but those days are outweighed tenfold by the days where I leave the hospital knowing I've done a good job, where I have made a difference, and where I know I can go home and turn off my work life and spend time with those I love for a few days until my next shift.
That work-life balance and quality of life I was seeking when I turned my life on its head and changed careers back in 2015; I've definitely found it!