One day I will tell you all about #Normalbirthforlonenuts and how it came to be but today I  want to talk about  #Acornic. The Acornic midwife was a funny nickname given to me on twitter by Deirdre Munro (@DeirdreMunro). I remember when I saw it on twitter for the first time and laughed. It was obviously a link to Normal birth for lone nuts and our new logo. The logo in question is an acorn with a baby inside it. Yet, today I had a #InoMo (Innovationmoment ) when Deirdre again referred to me as an #Acornicmidwife.

The acorn as we all know is the seed of the oak tree, and we think of the saying .

“From Little Acorns do Big Oaks Grow ”

But what about the Acorn ?

It will need to be strong to reach it’s potential,  to meet the challenges it takes to grow and belief that it will become what it aims to be.

Now think of a student midwife …. What qualities will she/ he need ?

She or He will need to be strong. Now that is strength in many ways ,mentally and physically but I think it really is resilience . The student midwife will need to be resilient . I have read about resilience and it really makes sense in the emotionally charged world we live in to build resilience. So , the challenges to grow could be the challenge of being resilient, to find ways to self-care and to develop strategies of self – compassion. Though, the student midwife will need to have courage. My wonderful twitter mentor Jenny Clark (@JennytheM) tells me to have #couragebutter , the ingredient of self -belief ?.

The wanna-be student midwife has to have belief that she/he can be a student midwife . The student midwife has to believe that they will finish the course and qualify as a midwife ….But.

The student midwife may struggle to find  the self belief she /he had. In that I mean the longing to be a student then the reality of being one and the demands of the course means it may get lost . She or He will need to draw on their resilience , they will need to actualise self-care and self-compassion. Ultimately they will need to find their self- belief again.

The belief that YES they can do this , YES it is hard , YES it is a challenge like no other they may ever encounter… (well perhaps , Motherhood/ Fatherhood if they have not been there yet!!  ).

The question is then How ?

Well, My answer Acornic Midwives AKA student midwives is to join twitter – link up with the wider midwifery community. Become part of  #globalvillagemidwives  and tweet to midwives that inspire YOU. The midwives on twitter have been an Acorn and now they are oaks. Tweet them and they will support you . Now, I am not saying that you need to twitter stalk midwives when you are an acornic midwife but the day a midwife you admire “tweets” back is a great moment . This moment is known as a #MyoMO (@DeirdreMunro). Still, there are many acorns on twitter and of course I am one of them so you can tweet me if you like . I spread positivity , Jenny Clark (@JennytheM) may call it #positivitybutter and Deirdre Munro (@DeirdreMunro) calls it being #protonic. I call myself Cordy Positivity.

I know the support that is my Twitterfamily is inspiring my journey , developing resilience , helping me to have self belief , self compassion and #couragebutter.So the nickname Acornic is no longer funny , its my way forward . I think being an acorn could be great . I think the acorn has so much potential and growing into an oak is an amazing job well done.

So I say yes, I think I will be an Acornic Midwife that embraces her chance to  grow into an Oak.