In September 2003 at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, I gave birth to my second baby following a far from great experience with my first birth.

My midwife, Georgia, was amazing. She advocated for my wishes and guided me through birthing a 4.5-kilogram newborn.

Georgia did this with amazing skill, despite the complexity of my son getting somewhat stuck.

The experience I had that day made me think being a midwife would be an amazing career path. But I was at the start of a very different career in law and policy, and now had two young children. There was something about midwifery that I couldn’t quite shake; something I kept returning to.

I did my RN training part-time once my kids were in high school and over the last year, I have now finished my graduate diploma.

Recently, I also became a registered midwife. I finally feel like I am in a career that I love and feel passionate about, despite the big pay cut. I just wanted to say thank you to Georgia, who worked at RPAH 20 years ago. Wherever you are – thank you.

Thank you for being the kind of midwife I want to be.

Thank you for inspiring me to make this career change, even if it did take me 20 years to get here.

Dominika Rajewski, RN and RM