Adventurous Midwives
===

[00:00:00] I feel like we gotta give a little backstory

to this because this is gonna be a

super random episode,

but I'm showing up for it.

Well, Allison, first I would love

to set the stage

and, I've discovered a few truths,

and I wonder if they're true for you.

It doesn't matter where

I go or what country I'm in,

or even if I don't speak the language.

Midwives are my favorite people,

like full stop.

Same for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Right. Of course.

And it's like we recognize each other

or there's this simpatico that

happens that's hard to verbalize,

but whether they're bidans in Indonesia or the

pakeke in Hawaii, or yortama in Danish or partera

in Spanish, it doesn't matter

what they call themselves.

It's like we are a different species, I think.

I think we're just fighting for women.

That's what everyone's

got this crazy fight in them,

which is amazing.

They have these crazy stories [00:01:00] behind them.

The stories just represent the reality

that we live, right?

We live on the edge of reality.

We're, we're at the threshold

between the worlds,

you know, like we are a special breed.

I wanted today's episode to be,

an exploration.

About that crazy connection that

we have with midwives,

we'll tell the story of how you

and I connected in just a minute about,

this edge of reality that we exist,

that creates all these stories and all this magic.

And then in order to do what we do,

I think all midwives must have

this truly adventurous spirit.

And you and I are living adventurous lives.

And so I just wanted to kind of go into that.

And that's my idea for today.

Yeah. Well, let's talk sailing, midwifery, adventure.

I know all

the things, all the layers,

well, you just outta the blue reached out to me.

And I love this, and this is what happens

when you see another midwife.

You're like, I know you. If I don't know you,

I wanna know [00:02:00] you. Right?

So you reached out to me on a random

sailing website because I'm now crewing for,

a number of boats in 2025 is my year on the water.

So thank you for reaching out. It's pretty awesome.

Okay. And second of all, let's get into it.

So let's do introductions first, Allison

tell us who you are, where you are,

and what you're all about.

Yeah, so I am a midwife.

I graduated in 2014.

I took my then family of five.

I have, three grown children,

so I took them over to New Zealand.

So we moved over to New Zealand.

I did the midwifery degree over there.

My background was accounting,

so completely different.

And after I had my second child,

I'm like, oh, I wanna become a midwife.

So I'm back to school for seven years.

Four of those were done in New Zealand

and then came back to

Canada after that was

finished to practice here,

did the bridging program at UBC

and practiced here [00:03:00] for six years and

then wanted to sail, like get out

and be on the water again.

So I moved back to New Zealand,

bought a sailboat.

Sailed around French Polynesia

for a year, and then I missed midwifery.

So I came back here,

went back into practice, you know,

the whole, that balance,

juggling it, act of the ocean

and the mountains

Missed work. Being on the ocean,

it's so amazing to be out there.

But you know how busy

we are as midwives.

I really miss the hustle and

bustle of being on call

For some crazy reason and now

I'm back here practicing,

and missing the ocean.

So yeah, that,

that constant battle.

And, and that's why I was,

I've been on that crew website just being like,

oh, maybe, maybe I'll crew for when

I get two months off here and there.

Maybe I'll go crew.

You are living the dream. I love it.

I've lived bus life, van life before [00:04:00] and

I know midwives who live a mobile lifestyle.

I've done travel midwifery for years,

and I think you have as well. It's just a different breed.

We are so curious. Let's try to break this down.

You were an accountant first, which I love.

I wanna dig into that, but what was

the call to midwifery for you?

What were you like, I know I need to do this.

I was living in Calgary, Alberta,

so in the prairies in Canada,

I was doing accounting

for Honda and BMW

and then. I had my second daughter

and I was like, okay, I don't really wanna

go back to that being

in the dealership industry.

I didn't wanna go back to that.

So I'm like, okay, maybe

I'll become a doula or

a photographer.

So I went and did

photography for a little while

and was a

professional photographer And then I was a doula kind of on the side.

And in Calgary in 2009,

I caught a baby,

by accident in the hospital.

The nurse ran out of the room.

I caught the baby and I'm like,

I [00:05:00] have to do this.

So then I looked into midwifery.

Awesome.

And seven years of university later

I am catching babies.

That's amazing. And I love that

you went to New Zealand,

a lot of midwives in the US dream

about going to New Zealand for midwifery.

What was that like?

The reason why I went over to New Zealand,

a lot of people ask me that is 'cause I had an

accounting background

before and I could apply to the

UBC program in Canada and they were only

accepting nine people a year.

With my accounting background,

I didn't think I had a chance to get into midwifery

in Canada because most of them would

have degrees in, you know, women's studies,

women's health, those kind of things.

So then applied to New Zealand.

I met somebody in Calgary,

doing my human anatomy,

my pre-reqs for university,

and she was like,

my cousin's a midwife in New Zealand.

I'm gonna apply in New Zealand.

And I'm like, me too, then.

So I came home, told my husband at the time,

Hey, would you [00:06:00] move to New Zealand?

If I got into university

and then we ended up selling everything

and moving overseas

So it was a whirlwind kind of crazy time,

Were you

on North or South Island?

So I applied to the South island, got into

Otago in Dunedin and then was there for

two years and then moved up north

for just the more births,

because Dunedin is a town of 150,000 people

and then 50,000 of those people,

our university students.

So a lot of people go over there to

do med school dentistry, those kind of things.

Yeah, there's a

lot larger population on the North island, so

you can catch more babies.

That's right. Yeah. And lots of Canadians over there.

I met quite a few Canadians in New Zealand

doing the exact same thing from all over the country.

Because Dunedin program had 52 people in my class from all over New Zealand

and international students.

So now I kind of know midwives throughout

all of New Zealand,

[00:07:00] which is really, really cool.

That's

very special.

Yeah.

And did you end up staying and

practicing at all or as soon as you graduated, you

came back to Canada?

No, as soon as I graduated,

I came back. And then I moved back to Auckland.

It was two and a half years ago now.

I moved back there and was practicing in Auckland.

In one of the hospitals.

You can be kind of like a nurse

on a ward, as a midwife there.

So that's what I was doing.

And then in the meantime, got a sailboat

and then ended up leaving the country again.

Yeah, midwifery is lovely

you have a lot more options.

You can be immersed

right in the hospital, as a hospital

employee midwife,

or you can work out of the hospital.

I find that they do work more as nurses

when they're on the unit, though,

like under obstetricians

that's what I didn't like.

We're a little bit more

autonomous in Canada,

so most of us have our own practices.

We have hospital privileges here,

so that's really [00:08:00] nice.

Canadian midwifery

is just a little bit different.

Yeah, yeah. But a lot of, job security and

flexibility within that degree

that comes, you know?

In Canada and New Zealand, you get this kind of

full spectrum practice location ability,

whereas in the US it's very segmented.

Yes. We have a lot of American midwives coming

up to Canada to work because of that.

They work in our universities, you know,

they are employees of the university,

training students.

And then they have

their own practices too,

we do a lot of these,

practices that are GP midwives

delivering out of hospital.

Bigger practices that take

on a lot more people.

So you know, they're taking

on 40 to 60 a month,

whereas a midwife practicing on your own,

you would only take like four to six

a month per midwife.

So

those GP midwife practices,

the client [00:09:00] goes wherever the client needs.

And the, and the providers follow,

so if they're low risk, they stay home

and if they become high risk,

they go to the

hospital.

Most of the bigger practices are

done in hospital, to be very honest.

We have the smaller midwifery practices

like that are at a 25% kind of home birth rate.

So we have, if a woman's choosing a,

a home birth, a lot of times we would

transfer them to a smaller practice.

That's very cool though.

Well, tell us about the sailing bug that bit.

Ya. How did the sailing, adventures find you

and what made you think I'll buy a boat.

So in Canada I was doing like just crewing on,

you know, just a sail around salt spring

kind of races here and there.

But like before that even, like why did you love sail?

Like how did that get into your blood?

Just from being a West Coast girl, I guess, in Vancouver,

on the ocean, seeing all the sailboats

then when I went to New Zealand,

one in three people [00:10:00] own a boat there.

So everybody's sailing. you know, America's Cup

is in New Zealand

and all of the big. Fast races.

So at the time, I was going out like

fishing a lot in Auckland and

then a sailboat

would whiz by and I'd be like,

oh, that's cool.

my last partner, was just like,

would you ever live on a boat?

And I'm like, yeah, of course.

That's like my dream to live on a boat.

He's like, okay,

well let's buy a boat and start sailing.

So that's kind of how, yeah, that's how.

I walked onto a sail, like a big catamaran

I was like, oh, this is the boat.

It's spacious.

We could sail around the world,

that's how I got really into sailing.

Our boat landed in New Zealand and two weeks

later we were crossing an ocean.

It was crazy. I was drawing on a piece of paper.

The sails took it to one of the sail makers

and was like, this is what I

want the design to look like.

And then. He made it for me

and we put it on the boat everyone

thought we were stupid because people

do little [00:11:00] shakedown sails here and there,

and we're like, no, let's just cross an ocean,

but it worked out for us.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

And your partner knew how to sail as well,

so you guys, you had the two of you? No,

no, no. He wasn't a sailor. He was more of a fisher.

Kind of guy. Okay. Yep. So you knew how to sail?

Yeah. I was the sailor. Captain.

But then we had two crew that were helpful,

so there's four of us doing night watches

and stuff throughout that crossing.

Good.

It's a long crossing from New Zealand

to French Polynesia. Depending on the season,

the weather is

rough. Most people go west around the world and

we were heading east. So it was kind of backward.

It was a backward sail for sure. We had a big storm right before we left,

and then we just kind of waited it out and started crossing.

Two weeks at sea and the boat fared well.

Yeah, it did, it did really well. Where we landed in

French Polynesia that took two weeks

and we pulled [00:12:00] in like with very little diesel or

anything left on the boat and had to

wait for a shipment so they only

get fuel once a week at that island.

so we had to wait for diesel before we could,

fuel up there and then just 'cause you

need diesel to like pull into the ports.

Sailboats are kind of a misnomer.

You sail during passages, hopefully with good wind.

But you need to maneuver in tight spaces with marinas and harbors and you need the fuel.

what an epic trip and how long did

you end up living on your boat?

So a year. Wow. And did all the little islands

in French Polynesia.

All right, so now the tough question.

How did you let go of your boat?

Do you still have your boat? How did you get off of it?

No, sold it and, bought a home in Canada

I wasn't ready to retire, like fully retire yet.

When you have a big boat like that,

it's really hard to leave it.

Like you either have to marina it.

You can't just leave it on anchor,

obviously, when you're [00:13:00] gone.

Those are the kind of things that

I didn't really think about.

You know, you have this million plus boats

sitting out there, you

have to have it somewhere safe. If it's moored,

you worry about crime, you worry

about people coming onto it,

and stealing stuff off of it, right?

Like, which happened in Meraya.

We had like a thousand dollars fishing rod.

Some guy just, we were on the boat and

he came up to the boat and took it in the middle of the night.

Those little things happen quite a bit so you

wanna be on your boat if it's sitting out there.

Yeah. It is kind of an all or nothing choice.

I just, crossed, the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean

from the Andamans to Sri Lanka,

and we got into Galle Harbor

we were one of two boats that were usable.

Not military it's a tiny harbor.

There's this, this is not a cruising destination,

not like the Caribbean it was a little sketch,

behind military entrance, so like nobody could get in,

but there was just like these military

guys running and having their breaks

[00:14:00] not secure to leave. And the captain

had to go do business in India.

And so it was all like, who's

gonna come babysit the boat?

Because it really can't be left alone.

And that is a whole thing you have to worry about.

It's an all or nothing for sure.

That's why you see these people living on their boats

and sailing around the world and

they don't really leave their boats a lot of the time.

Like I wanted to go over to

Europe

and you just can't leave it.

You're just, you know,

and it's really hard to find

somebody to watch your boat, right?

Because they have to know how, they have

to know about boats for one, and if it needed

to be moved or if anything happened,

like the watermaker shut down, for example.

You have to get somebody to fix it.

So you have to be in a decent port to do that.

You can't just leave it on anchor because if a big storm

comes through and you don't know how to lift up a

anchor and put it down. Yeah,

yeah.

It's Dragon. Yeah, absolutely. And then

there's all the constant maintenance.

Yeah, it's constant, [00:15:00] for sure. Constant.

Even on a, even on a brand new boat,

you have things not working, fixing everything. Sails, ripping.

So the question needs to be asked,

given how hard midwifery is and how

hard sailing is why are like this?

Why are we like this?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good challenge.

You know you're alive because it's not easy.

But those days, when you're

sitting there with a wine

watching the sun go down

on a boat that day is so amazing.

And then I think with midwifery,

like watching the sunrise as a

baby's being born so amazing.

Right? Just so amazing. Feels like life.

I've oftentimes thought that it is

, these edge of reality experiences

that really do make you feel alive.

And that must be why we do it,

is it is actually so similar,

being so immersed in the elements, and

I think of a laboring woman as an [00:16:00] element.

The fifth sacred thing for sure.

The Star Hawk says, yeah, for sure.

Well, so Allison, this has been, like,

we get a gist of the whirlwind and people

who follow my journey know that

I'm also kind of like a whirlwind

I have some tougher questions for both of us,

not just for you.

I'm gonna be in the hot seat with you.

I guess I have some tough questions I am

asking myself these things on a regular basis.

If you take conventional wisdom and there's a

lot of, advice, that midwives don't always heed.

I'm wondering why, the sticktuitiveness keep going.

Those are, phrases said in our collective culture.

Work hard, persistence I don't know.

Stick to it. If business keeps

coming to me though,

I don't even know if that's a word.

But we don't like, like you had,

the accountant job

at a reputable, like, whatever,

and you just sort of let go.

And I guess my question is like,

how did, not [00:17:00] just why, because

why feels powerful, but more of how did

you know, how did you know to let go or

how did you know when to let go?

Are you any

of my past career?

Yeah. Or, or like a couple of times you let go of the past career and jumped

into this new amazing job that required

seven years of education.

Mm-hmm. And then you went back to be

employed at a different country, and then you went,

you know, and bought a boat, and sailed in Polynesia

and then you sold your boat.

I mean, there's been a lot of

let go and you're not following a traditional path.

How did this happen for you?

Yeah. I think there's a lot of power in being

able to go with that tide, you know, like, this isn't

serving me anymore.

Okay, let's go this way for a little while.

With change comes, turbulence.

That you feel for the change

i've never regretted just [00:18:00] going

that different direction.

So I think that I'm really

comfortable with change for one.

I'm really comfortable going, okay,

I can just buy another boat

and go back to French Polynesia

if I wanted to. I always say

that to people that are,

are looking to make this huge change.

Okay, well yes, it's gonna

take time and work to,

to move to New Zealand,

for example, sell everything,

move to New Zealand.

That takes a lot of work.

But what happens if it doesn't work out?

A lot of people say that to me, like,

what happens if you get there and you're like,

I don't wanna be here anymore.

Then it's time and money,

but you can always come back. I always have

That belief that you can always just kind of

slip right back into your old life.

A lot of people have this box like thinking,

I'm gonna stay in this job,

I'm gonna do this thing until I retire.

And what happens when they retire?

They usually just die or get comfortable

and cozy and then are living

on this crazy budget 'cause

now they can't afford it.

Or have a panic attack

that everything's [00:19:00] different.

It's that box like thinking,

and we see a lot of people getting

to that retirement age going, what am

I gonna do with my life if I'm then retired?

I'm just gonna have the same

day to day monotony.

Right. Just doing the same thing.

And I don't think of life like that.

I just think of

what's the next big thing?

How many things

can I get packed into this life, yeah.

And my dad died really young, like he died at 56.

So I'm always thinking, okay,

if I die at 56, what do I wanna do?

Because life isn't guaranteed.

Not even one day.

And launching into the unknown

and choosing the less traveled path is

certainly one way to know you're alive.

And like you were saying,

I think midwives are so primed for this.

Like there is, like [00:20:00] every birth

we walk into is the unknown.

We are like living in the unknown all the time.

That actually, I think we're quite good at this,

but it goes so counter to what society suggests

that I think a lot of midwives second guess themselves.

I think you and I like, we've kind of thrown ourselves

to the wind and been like, we're just gonna do it.

I get a lot of comments. I'm sure you do too.

People are like. How, why, how are you so crazy?

Or like, why do you, where are you now?

A lot of people are like, it's like,

where in the world is Carmen San Diego?

They're like, no, no. It's where in the world is Augustine.

You know? That's

what all my friends say when I call them.

What, what country are you in?

That's usually when what they're at.

If they haven't heard from me for,

for a month or whatever.

Yeah. They're very surprised.

Where are you now? Yeah, exactly.

I think there's some real magic and beauty

in what we've been able to do.

I think it makes some people really

nervous or overwhelmed

and some people kind of jealous. I feel [00:21:00] like

I've gotten a lot of weird jealousy for the

choices that I've made. I look so free.

Yeah. Because I'm actually really free.

Yeah. I wonder if that's true for you.

Yes. I, a lot of times feel free. I think a lot of things

that I do just scare people.

Like yeah, they just are like, how do you sit in

that uncertainty of being in a different country

that you don't know

they act kind of jealous when

I show them a beach picture.

'cause you know, all of them wanna go away

and they're like, yeah, I just sell everything and

move to Mexico and live on a beach.

I have actually done that. I've gone to have that lifestyle

and that's not where your answers are.

If you think that you can just get rid of your career

sell everything and then go sit on

a beach in Mexico and you think you'll be happy, there's more to life than just sitting

on a beach and being so burnt out.

So I think a lot of people are burnt out.

And midwives in general too, right?

A lot of us are just burnt out [00:22:00] from life,

burnt out from everything.

I read recently that healthcare jobs in general

have some of the highest, burnout, obesity,

breast cancer, and divorce rates.

Mm-hmm. And I would say that midwives are very,

very high even above the

standard healthcare assessment.

Lots of the midwives in the UK are

really making it very public about how devastating

it is to life when you feel so

burnt out and exhausted, you know?

Do you think that the lifestyle that you

and I both choose, which is very informed by freedom,

do you think that spares us from burnout?

no. I think it makes it more, yes, I've had moments of great relaxation and all that kind of stuff,

but I find that, in this day and age especially being on call, like being on call for

long periods burnout is just a thing.

I know most midwife friends of mine.

Don't wanna be in the career that they're in.

They love [00:23:00] it to death,

but it's really hard for a life work balance.

I've really tried hard to have that life work balance every practice that I go into, I'm like, okay,

how much time off can I have a year?

I'm more focused on the time off that I'll get. that is why I've never been solo as a solo practitioner.

I've always had a big team.

It's really important to me for my time off,

and I love the women that I get to work with. but I don't think we're doing them

any good by being super burnt out

I know when I come on for a woman,

I know I'm giving my best self.

Yeah. definitely. I would say almost

kind of the opposite.

I think that the life that we live might

be a reaction to burnout.

I feel like I've chosen such big leaps around

the globe and into side hustles,

like, construction management

and sailing on cruise, just because

I feel like I need that kind of escape from

the on-call full timeness of [00:24:00] midwifery.

Yeah. One way to combat that

is to leap into something else.

You're not gonna be any

different sitting on a beach

than you are wherever you are.

Everything goes with you.

Mm-hmm. That is so true. That is so true.

Yeah. I've just done a 12,000 kilometer journey

in the last week. A lot of it on trains it is such

a marvel to be in different country different currency

different languages different systems,

and downloading different apps so you can

download different tickets to different things.

It's like, it's such a, it's such an interesting thing to drop

into other culture. And it really helps to broaden

my awareness and perspective, helps me to

have so much more compassion for myself

and for everyone else when you zoom that far out,

you really get to see that everyone is

doing the very best that they can.

I feel like that's one [00:25:00] benefit that this very

global world view has given me.

What would you say are any other benefits

from being a global citizen like you are?

The adventure is great.

The friends around the world I think is a benefit. There's a lot of positives.

There's a lot of positives to seeing different culture. I

have a way, a way more heightened awareness of

Cultural differences between my clients,

Canada's so multicultural, so I have a

very different perspective than

I ever would've staying in Vancouver.

Humility, cultural humility.

That's right. When you get to see other cultures.

Yeah. Well, let's drop into the real challenges because

I think that can be helpful too,

one of the biggest challenges

I've faced as a global citizen is that while

you do have friends all over the world,

you don't get to see them very much.

For [00:26:00] sure those in-person catch ups

are what I miss most about being

out in the middle of nowhere.

French Polynesia, right? You can have this,

and as lovely as this is when you're

FaceTiming with a wine or coffee,

it's great, but there's also a disconnect.

And it's not the same as giving

someone an in-person hug.

I find being away through

those big life challenges,

if someone has their father passing away, or their mom,

or just going through something with their kids,

it's really hard to be there online.

I find that that's the biggest,

the loneliness that you feel

when you're. It, it is this magic of, yay,

I'm doing this awesome thing.

I'm on a boat and amazing adventure.

And then there's this deep rooted loneliness

that comes along with that

was the biggest negative for me.

And having a home to come home to,

that's grounding.

That's here. I think that

I've solved that problem.[00:27:00]

Keeping roots here and then

adding the adventures.

And it's hard to do. But

I feel that that's a real dichotomy.

Roots and wings, right?

That's the challenge of

which am I using more of?

I think we do need both,

when you make close friends

all over the world, you're only

with one of them at a time.

That's one of the challenges. Yeah.

I'm missing some good friends right now

it's always so interesting.

Can we dive a little bit into, partner world

while you're global citizen?

Is that an okay topic?

Yeah, yeah. Everything's on the table.

That is, a partnership is oftentimes

the casualty of midwifery. Certainly was for me.

I find midwives have one of two partners.

They have either a super supportive partner.

Or an absent partner and there's no in between.

Sometimes, the

[00:28:00] supportive partner almost wants

to be a midwife themselves,

Yeah. he's usually one of the girls, right?

Yeah. exactly. there's very little in

between. So I haven't found my balance.

Yet with that

I've been married a couple times,

had a couple marriages fail, and

I just think it's hard, especially when

it's hard dating someone here that's grounded

because I have such wanderlust and

that sense of adventure,

it's hard to have a partner meet that.

Or you just find a really supportive partner

that lets me go and do that.

That's also kind of where I'm at now.

Maybe I don't need somebody

that's gonna follow me

around the world. But I need somebody

that will support me, in that sense of adventure too.

It is such a unique [00:29:00] proposition.

I find people as they get older,

they want somebody for dinners.

They want to be around somebody all the time.

Especially men. Men need

somebody around them more.

And women as they get older,

they just wanna, and we're doing this.

Yeah.

I read an interesting statistic

that married men live the longest but single women live longer

and doesn't that make sense?

Yeah. My solution is to have several supportive

partners in different locations, so I'll just drop in

when I need that partner experience.

Yes, that could be, a potential.

But also I think that you're always missing someone too. Right.

Same as the friend problem.

It's such a conundrum to be this adventurer, wanderer, traveler. What's the word you use?

Wanderlust.

What do you [00:30:00] use?

Adventurous spirit. I guess my family would say

never satisfied.

Always looking for something better, you know?

Never wanting to settle. I hear that a lot. Yeah.

Yeah. And I, I just don't, yeah. I think that

I just wanna fit as much into this life as I can

nobody has to understand it but me.

Still learning and kind of figuring it out as I go.

I mean, that is life. As soon

as you have it figured out,

you're probably done. Right.

That's right. Given this truth, I feel the same way.

I'm still learning every day and

I still have so many adventures to go on.

And I, from a very small child

had this concept that it,

like time was running out. I had to go do it or else

it was gonna be gone. I had that really clear feeling.

What else can I fit into this trip? You know,

Spain is right next to Portugal,

so I could go to Portugal too.

but [00:31:00] given all of that, like what's next for you?

Because like we've also addressed,

there's this clear aching for home,

for stability, for connection.

What's next? What's next for you?

So now I am kind of settled here with a home.

My daughter lives with me,

so she's financially independent,

but she lives at my house.

and then I can leave the dog with her

and I can travel. So I think that right now

I have that balance that I've been looking

for for a long time. That's cool.

What's the next travel location for you?

Oh, well I was just looking into Maldives, so just diving.

I'm a Revo diver, so

I try to fit in as much diving

in one year as I possibly can.

That's really important. Yeah.

And then sailing.

Yes, probably a sail trip. My kids are at the ages now where they

just wanna really work and, you know,

save money and try to

better themselves.

So [00:32:00] I don't feel like I have to bring them

along on those travels

with me anymore. yeah, so just getting '

and seeing as much

as I can

when you have a healthcare background and

you've been sailing off

and on for a lot of years,

and you're a good cook, like they

want you on their boat. That's right,

yes. We often looked for a cook on our boat.

I'm like, oh, I can't do this anymore provision.

And I'm not

22. You know, so like, you know.

I'm a desirable crew member.

Yeah, for sure. I can make,

provisional lists and

menus for weeks I was a professional chef in college to put myself through college, so.

So that's on the top of your sailing resume?

Provisioning is one of

those things that's so crazy.

For that trip I did all of our

meals, like frozen

in our freezer

just all of the meals

were done before.

So I'd pull 'em out, put it in Insta Pot,

you know?

That's smart.

That was the best thing that I did.

[00:33:00] I did that. That makes

sailing a lot more possible

because especially

for those long passages,

you can't be down, in the galley,

trying to cook in the middle.

Yeah. That's really hard.

Do you have any, final thoughts

or questions or

anything to kind of

bring us home in this very

random adventure

focused episode?

Have you met other

midwives that are

kind of doing the same

sailing thing as you?

No, I haven't yet.

Oh. I haven't, that's

why I was so excited

to get your message. Like I said,

I know some midwives

who do van life or bus life.

Yeah. And they live mobile,

you know, on the land.

I know of one midwife in, gosh, I think

she sailed out of Galveston, Texas,

but maybe it was Florida.

Mm-hmm. I had

been in touch with her.

She had just started

sailing catamarans,

but I believe it was

her husband's love and he

died very unexpectedly, and so

I don't think she's [00:34:00] continued.

Yeah. I don't know too

many sailing midwives.

Hmm.

But I know one now.

Yes, you do.

I'd love to sail together someday.

We'll figure it out. I'm headed towards,

boat life myself.

I am inspired by your story

and just jumping

into the wild yonder.

I love that.

Well, if you ever need someone

to babysit your boat

that knows how to

sail that's right. I

would love to get back out on the water.

It's just not gonna be

within the next two or three years.

That's what I'm kind of looking at.

I wanna get all of this

career stuff out of the way.

Yeah, I get that. I get that.

Yeah.

Well, if there are any

sailing midwives who

happen to watch this and you're

on the YouTube version of this,

please comment below

because we wanna

hear from you and we

wanna find you so

we can all sail together.

I would love to do a

crossing with all women

that would be like,

you know, they'd have to be all

really [00:35:00] chill women to

make that work.

But I find sailing women in general

are really easygoing

to get along with on a boat.

Yeah, I agree.

I've found that as well.

It's a special thing.

And the sexes get even more.

I don't know, like, I don't know.

Men, sailors are a whole breed

in of themselves, aren't they?

Yes, I do have a definite dream

To get a bunch of women together,

That would be amazing.

That'd be epic. So epic.

We just need to find somebody

with a big enough

boat so everybody

can have their own space.

Well, here's to getting back

out on the water for both of us.

And then here's to an

all women's, crew.

Maybe we'll make it happen.

Yeah, put it out there.

Well, Allison, it was a

total pleasure to

just chew the fat

with you tonight and today,

wherever we are in the world, and

I'm really glad that you reached

out and congrats on,

all that [00:36:00] you've

accomplished i'll definitely

be following your story.

Yeah,

Definitely. Let's keep connected for sure.

It was great to meet you.

Likewise. Bye, friend.