future decisions.

One of my friends just finished doula training!
For those of you not in the know, a doula is a person who attends birth and the post-partum period as a non-medical support person. This is the person who remembers that you didn't want an episiotomy after you've been in labor for several hours and can only focus on the process, and the person who takes responsibility for making sure that you've heard and understood what's going on. An advocate for the mother during the series of events that make up bringing a new person into the world. Someone who may use massage, positive reinforcement, encouragement, nurturing, (pretty much all the stuff that wikipedia says that they do) to support the little family.
For her, it's also an important first step to becoming a midwife.

I've thought long and hard about becoming an N.D. midwife for a few years now.
The program doesn't take anyone until after they've completed basic birth classes, and then- once admitted to the birth program, more classes are taken and a number of births are attended, both in an observation role or as actively participating in the birth, with a number of births being delivered by the student before the (additional) boards are taken and the student becomes a full fledged midwife. 
It also usually takes a full extra year, on top of the 4 year ND program.

Then, for the rest of the obstetric life of the ND in a rural area, you can't travel. You're always on call. It's hard to be covered by malpractice insurance, because the state doesn't recognize obstetrics as part of the scope of practice for an ND.

Especially in some of the areas that I'm looking at, it'd be me or a hospital birth, which is a lot, a lot, a lot of pressure.
(By the way, did you know that the United States only has one single hospital that lives up to European standard of care for maternity? It's in Grant's Pass. No wonder our neonate mortality rate is so much higher than say...Germany, France, Singapore, Switzerland, or the other 20 countries that rank above us.Yet we spend more money on health care...)

So I'm on the fence. Would it be easier to choose, if I was already on the 5 year track? If malpractice insurance wasn't so hard to obtain? If I knew that classmates were considering the same area, so that we could trade on-call months? If babies only happened between 9am and 5 pm? If our hospital system wasn't so far behind on ethical and reasonable birthing practices? (Did you know that the average hospital's induction rate spikes on Friday (so doctors can go home for the weekend) and that the average hospital has a cesarian rate of 30%, compared to a midwifery center's 3%? And that unnecessary surgery really ups the neonate and maternal mortality rate?)

The life of a midwife is a hard life. But deferring that responsibility is also hard.

True to form, I'll put off the decision until I have more experience/until I really have to make a decision after the basic birth series.