From hustle and grind to finding flow in business with Nicole Garratt

In this conversation with Nicole Garratt, Nicole shares with us her personal story of how she  went from being an exhausted shift working mum of 4 with little support to flowing in her first year of private midwifery practice. Nicole shares her story of when she first thought that things could be different to the practical steps she took to start thinking about her business, how she started and how she has been changing things along the way to bringing her to a flow that works for her and her family.

You’ll hear us discuss:

• How Nicole's life looks now vs when she was a hustling hospital worker
• Nicoles love of instagram and how it is helping her to grow her business
• Nicole's shares her toolbox that keeps her life sustainable and nourishing
• The lessons Nicole has learnt in her first year in business as a private midwife
• How Nicole set her business up to be sustainable and nourishing for her and her family.
• What Nicole's favourite thing is about being a private midwife
• Nicoles advice to other women and other mothers who want to leave a job that's maybe no longer in alignment, or one that is just way too much in that patriarchal hustle and grind culture and start a business

MEET NICOLE GARRATT

Nicole is Mama. Midwife. Tea drinker.  Book reader. Having worked in both the public and private hospital environments, Nicole recently made the move into private practice and has consciously built her business in a way that supports her family and herself.  She has swapped shift work and constant hustle and grind, for alignment, flow and joy.  It doesn’t all go smoothly,  but there’s more room for flexibility and peace and it’s blooming wonderful.

"I'd always wanted to be a private midwife. I think that imposter syndrome of, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not whatever enough to do that got in the way. But it was always there in the back of my mind. So then I'd sometimes hear people doing similar things, even if they were doing it part-time, and I'd think, oh, that'd be so cool."

Connect with Nicole via Instagram @bloomingmidwiferygc

Connect with Rachael Rose

Instagram: @the_rachael_rose

Website www.rachaelrose.com.au

"I would have moments where I was hyperventilating going, oh my God, I cannot keep this all in the air. And it felt really scary to feel like you are on a slippery slope of how the hell am I gonna keep this shit together. Whereas now, I have days where I'm busy and I have days where I didn't fold the washing, but tomorrow's a new day and I've got space in my day to do that."

Full Transcript attached
Music by Edwina Masson 'The Feminine Spitfire'

Transcript

From hustle and grind to finding flow in business with Nicole Garratt

Rachael Rose: Together is a podcast where women share their real and raw rights of passage stories in life, motherhood, and business. I'm your host Rachael Rose, a women's circle facilitator, mother, mentor, and community maker. I have seen firsthand how storytelling can be shame melt. I hope you leave these conversations feeling less alone and more connected to yourself, your inner wisdom, and to a circle of other women.

Today I speak to Nicole Garratt of Blooming Midwifery Gold Coast. Nicole is a mama, a midwife, a tea drinker, a book reader. Having worked in both the public and private hospital environments, Nicole recently made the move into private practice and has consciously built her business in a way that supports her family and herself.

She has swapped [00:01:00] shift work and constant hustle and grind for alignment, flow and joy. It doesn't all go smoothly, but there's more room for flexibility and peace and it's blooming wonderful. If you are looking for a private midwife, Nicole works in a one hour radius from Southern Gold Coast, South Brisbane, Mount Tambourine ,Northern Rivers.

She offers full home birth packages and antenatal postnatal continuity of care for women who choose to birth in hospital. Now I want to admit that Nicole is the first ever guest interview that I have done. So she is my first pancake, which means I might be a little rough around the edges, but it's still gonna be really tasty. Hahahaha.

I hope you forgive any transgressions that I make. I am learning and I will continue to learn as I put these [00:02:00] podcasts out there. The whole point is to share real and raw stories. And so sometimes that might look like me fumbling my way through as well. But I loved this conversation with Nicole today, especially as a fellow mother in business.

I love how she talks about. Basically her body just saying, no more. Nicole, I cannot work 20 hour days. Both in the hospital system as a midwife, but also a mother of four with very little support. I love that she shares about the leap and leaving the safety of the system and being employed to what it takes to start your own business.

The imposter syndrome that might surface the fears that you might have, and doing it anyway. And celebrating one year of business and seeing that business thrive and also the flow on effects to her life and her family's life [00:03:00] is just really beautiful to listen to. So I know that you'll get inspiration from Nicole's story, and I thank her for being my first pancake.

Hi Nicole. Welcome to the show today. How are you going?

Nicole Garratt: Good. Rachael, thank you very much for having me on.

Rachael Rose: I want to talk to you about opting out of hustle and grind culture. This is something I'm really fascinated with. It's a practice for me. I wouldn't say I've nailed it yet but I do want to build my own business in a way that is sustainable and nourishing for myself and my family and my clients.

And I feel like you're an example of that, so I'd really like to pick your brains.

Nicole Garratt: Oh, thank you. I dunno if I'm nailing it either. Some days it feels amazing and some days it feels like a shit show. So I'm, I'm the same. I'm still working on that. So I think it's a work in progress [00:04:00] for me too.

Rachael Rose: So can you take me back a few years to when you were working as a midwife within the hospital system and what did life look like for you?

Nicole Garratt: Absolutely. So I have been a midwife in the hospital system for about seven years. For about five of those years. My husband was incredibly unwell, so we are talking probably in bed 20 hours a day. Five to six days a week. So I was doing shift work, but I also didn't have a lot of support at home just because of how unwell he was.

So in that time I had four small children who were, from around three, up to about nine. So I was working shift work. I was doing what is known in the system as 0.8. So that's eight shifts of fortnight. So some weeks that might be, Five one week and three the next, or four and four, sometimes I'd do six in one week and two in the next.

So it was really, I guess random, but I always had my rosters quite far in advance so I could plan, which [00:05:00] was a blessing. So I guess working shift work, I was often up early, so we're talking like 4 30, 5 o'clock in the morning on the train to work and only getting home at 4:30 in the afternoon if it was a day shift.

So often, I was spending a lot of time. Awake in terms of I wasn't going to bed until quite late most nights if I wasn't at work because I needed to prepare for the next day for school and daycare and all the things that everyone was doing as well as being on top of where my husband was at because.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't rely on the fact that he would be able to help. So sometimes he was capable of that, but a lot of the time I had to get used to the fact that I just didn't rely on him because it may be that it was a day that wasn't a good day for him, and then all my plans that I had made would turn to hell.

So I had to, I guess, make other plans. So basically what that looks like, I would be up by 4: 30 in the morning on the train to work. I would then be calling the house to make sure that my mom had arrived. She lives up the road [00:06:00] from me. So she would come at about six 30 in the morning just as everyone was waking up and get them up, breakfasted fed to the bus.

By the time I finished work at. 3:30, I had an hours train ride home. And I generally got home. At the time my kids were getting off the school bus, so the older children would wait for the younger children to get off the bus. And then we would come home. You know, we had dinner, homework, which I don't do, but that's a story for another time.

And you know, dinner, the bath. The shower. I had kids who did after school activities, so sometimes we were packing up the dinner that I'd made the night before to eat in the back of the car while we were at soccer, and then coming home and putting everyone to bed by a reasonable hour. To get up and do it all again the next day.

And sometimes in terms of shift work, you know, if I'd work the night duty, which was common, you know, we have a certain number of night duties that are part of your contract. You have to work. So I would work all night while either my mom stayed here with the kids or my my husband would be here with them and then I would get.

Take [00:07:00] everyone to school, come home and sleep until two 30 when I had to go and pick up my youngest from daycare and then get up and get everyone sorted and hopefully get a nap. At, you know, 7:00 PM when I put them to bed before having to get up at 10 o'clock to leave for work. So it was full on and in amongst all that, you know, you've got the regular life things.

You've got, you know, permission, notes that need to be filled in. You've got sports days, you've got remembering that it's so-and-so's birthday and they need to take something in for, to share or there's just, there were just all the little things that I can't even articulate because half the time I felt like.

They weren't in my brain. I had to write everything down. I still do, I keep a very strict, I guess, diary or a whiteboard of who's where, when they're getting there, when they're getting home. Because there was just no real other way to keep on top of everything. But over time that really started to.

Burned me out. In fact, I started to feel like I was going to work for a break. In terms of away from what was happening at home, there [00:08:00] was a lot happening here, not related to the children. That was very difficult. And so I needed that time away where I could be the midwife and the woman, not just the mum.

And, you know, I could go and chat to my colleagues and I could chat to the women. And I often found that really fulfilling, having a really lovely day, even though it was busy. And then coming home, I found that sort of helped me. I guess mental health wise, I felt fulfilled having a really busy day and coming home, but it was still exhausting.

You know, on my days off, I spent all my days off catching up on the things that I just didn't have time for. You know, loads and loads of washing, making sure that people had new shoes, all of the things that you need to do doing meal prep for days in advance, and all of those little things. So my days off.

Were never very restful. They were always a task list. And usually by 10:00 PM I was like, oh my God, I'm not gonna get all this done today. And then feeling, I guess, not beating yourself up, but feeling like my best just isn't good enough and I can't do it all. it was. [00:09:00] 

Rachael Rose: I mean, it sounds exhausting. Just listening to it. I, I can't imagine having to feel so switched on all day. Like it just, I can't imagine that there was any time where you sat down on the lounge with a cup of tea in your hand.

Nicole Garratt: Yeah, it was, it was rare. And the times that I did, to be completely honest, I felt guilty. I felt like I have better things to do and by better things that might be reading my Child a story before bed, I might be like, oh, not tonight. Or it might be, you know, putting on another load of washing because tomorrow, like future me will thank me for being more organised.

But you are right. My brain was always on and at the time I felt. Sometimes I felt really good. I felt, you know, organised and energised and I felt like I was on top of everything. But then I've learned over the last few years that that is actually a form of over-functioning, which stems from anxiety and other things, like I don't feel like an anxious person, and I certainly didn't at the [00:10:00] time, but when I've sat down and picked apart what was happening over those years, I've realised that really high level of functioning, having to be always.

 All over everything is actually not healthy and not a good thing.

Rachael Rose: Yeah. So what were some of the signs that your body and mind was showing you? And I also just wanna say like, your job being a midwife within the hospital system, it's not, Easy. And I imagine you would've been exposed to you know, internal politics, but also intervention heavy births that might have, you know, rocked you.

And you kind of have to shake that off before you come home. You might have been experiencing vicarious trauma in some ways just as a health professional in a busy health system. So your work was not necessarily like a break from stress. Either, so what was your mind and body? What was it saying or screaming to you at the time?

Nicole Garratt: So there was lots of things [00:11:00] happening in that time and I actually employed, I dunno if you'd call her a life coach, but something popped up on my Facebook feed on a day where it was all coming undone and I was like, I need help. And I got on the phone to this woman for a discovery call and I think I burst into tears within the first 10 minutes.

I was like, right, this is a problem.

Rachael Rose: mm.

Nicole Garratt: So when we sat down together, one of the things we talked about was how I could manage stress, because obviously there weren't things I could take out of my day. I couldn't take out four children that needed their mum. I couldn't take out my shift work that was paying the bills, and I certainly couldn't take out a sick husband.

Like, what could I do? There was nothing there that I could give. Like it's not like I had. You know, hours of the day that I could, I guess, swap in other things. So what we did is we sat down and we talked about ways that I could find just the 10 minutes. You know, we talk about self-care and for some people that might be an hour in the afternoon or whatever it is, but for me it was literally 10 minute blocks because that's what I could get.

So little things like the train ride home, it's 45 minutes in the morning or [00:12:00] maybe closer to an hour in the afternoon. So we talked about doing meditation or mindfulness in that space on the train. Often I fell asleep, but that's great cause then I got home and felt refreshed.

Rachael Rose: Yeah, 

Nicole Garratt: Yeah, but often it was something as simple as I've walked in the door, I've put my bags down, I would make a cup of tea and I would sit out the back or the front, depending on where I was on the day and say to the kids, do not come out here 10 minutes, like literally 10 minutes.

I don't want to know what's going on., unless someone is on fire, I'm not interested in. What's happening. And they were very respectful, considering they were still quite small. They'd often be looking through the blinds, like to be like, is she coming yet? But I had to say to them, I just need 10 minutes.

And often I was just staring off into space. And, and we talked about strategies about mindful breathing and all of that stuff. And it did help, even though I wasn't having. Big chunks of time. I would take 10 or 15 minutes, sometimes twice or three times a day. So 10 minutes in the morning before he rushed off out the door to school.

It was as simple as sitting in the bathroom, which sounds so lame. Closing [00:13:00] the door, I'm in the toilet, I'm not talking to you. You know, you just give me this five minutes, or sometimes sitting out the front. But I did find that that definitely just gave me space to sometimes integrate. The day. Over time, I've built that up now and I do have much more of a, I suppose, set self-care practice, but at the time it was literally bite size chunks.

And this particular woman that I was working with said to me, you know, it doesn't have to be three hours at a day spa, because that's not. Achievable. You need to have little things that are actually achievable. And that's, I found that advice really helped coz I felt like if I wasn't taking bigger chunks of time, that I wasn't doing it properly in inverter comments.

Like, you know, so having those little chunks of time over time, like in the first couple of weeks of doing it, I was like, this is bullshit. It's not working, but.

Rachael Rose: I want immediate results. Thank you very much.

Nicole Garratt: I was like sitting outside for 10 minutes while literally bombs are going off inside. You've got small children, you know what that's like.

There's fight that need to be broken up. There's stuff happening. But being [00:14:00] able to tune that out. At the time I was like, this is ridiculous. This is doing nothing. But over weeks of doing it, and a couple of weeks have been very mindful and, and absolutely making it a non-negotiable. I did notice that my.

I guess my level was down. My vibe just wasn't as high. So it felt good to be able to have that space, to take a breath and to see that, I guess, in other areas of my life. But around that same time, what started to happen for me is I actually got really sick. So I found that I had some issues with my kidneys, whether they were stress related or not.

I Don't know, but because of that, I needed a couple of surgeries and I was on antibiotics, and I actually lost a lot of weight very, very quickly, which made me feel. Disgusting. Like, you know, everyone's like, oh wow, you look so great. And I'm like, I feel like I'm dying because I just lost so much weight so quickly.

And that was my wake up call. I suddenly went, you know, if I was actually sick and I mean, I was sick at that time, but I mean long-term sick, like I actually had a real problem. Like some people [00:15:00] do chronic illness or whatever. We'd be fucked. Like, excuse the French, there's, there's nothing that, you know, my husband's unwell.

I'm carrying the load of the financial load and the parenting load. Like if I was unwell, we'd be screwed. And that was the real wake up call for me to go, okay, well what do I need to do? To take care of myself. And some of that was, like I said, mindfulness time. Some of that was joining a gym and getting healthier, not from a lose weight perspective, but from a strength perspective.

Some of that was dropping shifts and taking mental health days if I felt like I needed to, like if I looked ahead and was like, Oh my God, there's so much going on with the kids and my husband in that fortnight, then I would not feel guilty about going, sorry, I just can't work Friday or Thursday or whatever day.

And they were aware there were things happening at home that, you know, so they weren't. There was never any pushback, but it was just a, I was, I felt guilty as a team member coz I've been on shifts where people don't show up and it's hard. So being able to say, you know, I need today, even if it's just to sit at home and catch up [00:16:00] on life and children and things like that, you know?

So being able to take that and not feel guilty was a big one. 

Rachael Rose: Mm. And when did you decide, you're now in private practice as a midwife, so you're no longer working shift work, you're no longer working in the hospital. When did those niggles that you wanted something different for yourself start to appear around that time? Or had you always held onto the hope of becoming a private midwife?

Can you talk us through that?

Nicole Garratt: Yes, certainly, I'd always wanted to be a private midwife. But I think that imposter syndrome of, you know, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not whatever enough to do that. But it was always there in the back of my mind. So then I'd sometimes. Hear people doing similar things, even if they were doing it part-time, and I'd be like, oh, that'd be so cool.

And then when I was working in the hospital, I actually had the opportunity to do community visiting for a while, which I absolutely loved. So getting to see the women in their home environments. And sometimes shock horror, getting to see the same [00:17:00] woman two or three times in a row you'd be thinking, oh my God, this is amazing.

Like, you know, I get to see her, I get to see that the plans that we've chatted about and what she's wanting to do come together for her. So I found that really fulfilling. And that was something that made me go, well, hang on. Like I could totally do that. And then I started, I guess the process of reaching out to people.

Who were doing it to get a bit of a feel of what that would look like. In the hospital where I worked, there was a group practice, so you know, a whole bunch of midwives working in teams of four or five who were doing the continuity of care for women and being on call for their births. And it was something that I thought, Oh, that'd be nice.

Like I could apply, they would occasionally put out expressions of interest to cover leave or maternity leave. So they were short-term contracts, like six to 12 months and I'd be like, oh, I could seriously start thinking about doing that. The tricky part was obviously being on call, but also I live 45 minutes away from where my hospital is.

So at the time I was like, Ooh, is that really doable? Cause it's not just up the [00:18:00] road. Over time, and I was working in another role in the hospital at this time where I was overseeing the healthy hearing, like the hearing screening component. And these midwives would pop in to see me to pick up paperwork or to, you know, ask questions.

And one of the things that I noticed with these group practice midwives is that I would see them when they first joined and they were. Excited about what the future held for them. And I was like, yeah, maybe I'll have a turn. It's gonna be great. And then over weeks and months, those same midwives coming to visit me every couple of weeks.

And they just looked exhausted and they looked burnt out. And some of them were coming to the end of their six month contract and being asked to renewed and they were like, Hell no. I do not wanna keep doing this. And so that actually put me off private practice because I was like, well gosh, if they've got all the support of the hospital and their midwifery colleagues from the hospital, how the hell am I gonna do that on my own?

Like they looked so burnt out and so tired. But what I realised later is that actually the model that they use in the hospital system isn't, [00:19:00] very women centered for the midwives. It's women-centered for the women, but not for the midwives. So once I started branching out and I guess meeting midwives who were actually in private practice, I realised that private practice is nothing like working in a group practice model and a hospital.

And sort of, I started to really put my feelers out into what that could look like for me. Like, could it be financially viable? What, would it look like being on call? Those types of things.

Rachael Rose: Mm. And had you already done your hours, like in New South Wales, I know there's a certain amount of hours to become a private midwife. Had you met all of those qualifications or did you have to do further study?

Nicole Garratt: Yeah, so I had met all my hours, and it's the same in Queensland, so it's, it's Australia wide where you have to have done your 5,000 hours. So I was really lucky because for me that was one thing I was able to go, okay, tick, I've done that. I had to do the. Prescribing course, which is like a second uni course, it takes about three or four months to do.

So [00:20:00] I had to do that in order to be, able to move into private practice. So I'd taken some leave from the hospital. It was around the time that my husband and I had actually separated. So I just felt like with all the years of stress leading up to where I was at, I needed time to, I guess, integrate what separation looked like, but also just to support the kids with that as well.

And in that time I was like, well, I'm at home, so now's probably the time. If I'm gonna study now, now's the time to do that. Cause time to do it. Around shift work seemed like a hell. To me,

Rachael Rose: Well, you had no extra time. I don't know where you would've fit that in. You'd just wake up at three in the morning and start studying. 

Nicole Garratt: I was like, I would've been doing it and thinking, what are you doing, you idiot.

Like why are you doing this to yourself? So that's when I started going down that road of, you know, doing the online, cuz it was all online, the online course that I needed to do through uni to get my prescribing number and all of those things. And through that, I guess I had been following women.

[00:21:00] On Instagram, just when I was in the deepest holes of everything being hard, I found it really wonderful to follow women who had really uplifting messages in relation to what they were doing with their family. Some of them were like, Big family blogs, you know, they had 7, 8, 9 children. I'm like, well, if they can do it, I can do it with my four.

You know? But also women who were working either from home or women who were homeschooling, like, not that, was ever my intention, but it was just sort of to get a feel for what else is out there. Like what else are people doing that is different from what I'm doing? And so that's where I sort of started going down that rabbit hole of going, you know what, there are other ways of doing things and maybe.

I need to start having a look at what's out there and maybe, you know, and that sort of just, I guess, lit the fire, I suppose. And that's when. When I started doing the endorsement course that I needed to do, I actually reached out to birth workers here where I live. So photographers, doulas, midwives, and, basically saying, Hey, I'm looking at getting into private practice.

Do you wanna meet [00:22:00] for coffee? Is there any wisdom you could share? Is there any information that you think would be really valuable to me? So when I sat down with some that were. Open and willing to share their time. One of the things that came up the most for me was that their businesses looked all very different and they all worked very differently.

But. They all, I guess, and no shade to them, but they were no better than me. They were just regular women doing regular things. Some of them had partners, some didn't. Some had very young children. Some had older children, you know, some had had corporate jobs before. Some had never worked in a corporate space, like there was just so many different types of women.

That made me go well. I could do that. Like, you know, if this woman can do it, and she's got a two-year-old and she's on call, and I can absolutely do that with my seven-year-old, you know, so it just sort of picked their brains about what that would look like and how I would make it work.

Rachael Rose: Yeah, I mean it's the number one question I get from just people about my own business, but [00:23:00] also in women that I, mentor, like how do moms make work work and. The, the answer to that is that there's a million different ways and it looks different for every family and set of circumstances and context.

But it can be really inspiring as a starting point to, talk to other women in business and particularly mothers and just ask these kinds of questions. When I think about you jumping out of the hospital system though, one thing that comes up for me is, It must have been frightening because at at least within the system.

There's this sense of safety in the work that you do. You know your role, you have a start and an end time, and you are there to perform the role of midwife. When you start your own business, you are not only a midwife, you're a marketer, you're an accountant. You need to run your social media page, you need to do all of the backend and the admin, and it's like wearing 15 different hats.

So how [00:24:00] did you kind of overcome that fear of taking the leap from , not that the role was easy as a midwife in the system, but there was some safety in being employed. 

Nicole Garratt: Oh Absolutely and that was one of the things over the years that I guess I'd put off starting private practice because it was easy. It was easy to. Shifts four to six weeks in advance, know exactly what I was doing and when be able to plan my life around them. Sometimes I'd have my shifts and I'd go, oh, I've got five days off in a row, the kids and I could just nick off and go down the coast and have a few days away, you know?

And you're right when you're there, you've got colleagues, you can bounce things off. You work as part of a whole team so that it's never just you. And so you're right when, this all happened I was very lucky, I was on leave, so I was being paid. Whereas I suppose some people come to a new business from the point of, holy shit, I need money and now I have to start something, and then they have months of waiting to be paid.

So I was being paid while I was doing my course, and I did have that, I guess, breathing space to not have to stress. But you are right to say that [00:25:00] I was shitting myself is an understanding because I went from a certain wage. Every fortnight in my bank and it went up or down, depending on the shifts that I did.

You know, if I did a Sunday, over a Friday, whatever, so then I had to sit down and work out, right, what does that look like? How am I gonna earn enough money to feed the humans that live here? And all of those things. And I mean, I did have. Some knowledge around business. My husband and I had run a business for many years before he became unwell.

So I was, I guess, familiar with paying my tax and how do I start an ABN and how do I like do G S T? Although midwives, we don't have to pay G S T for our services. But you know, how do I do all those things? But what has changed significantly since that business is Instagram. So for me, one of the other things I spent many hours doing when I probably should have been asleep is following people on Instagram .

I guess talked about business marketing and what that looked like in terms of how do you put yourself out there? How do you build a name for yourself? So one of the things that I did[00:26:00] as I started my course, I have these epiphanies usually late at night where I'm like, right, this is what I'm doing.

So I sat down, I started an Instagram page, I chose a business name, I lodged an ABN, and then I sat back and went, oh shit, I'm doing it.

Rachael Rose: It's real now.

Nicole Garratt: And then I was like, oh no. So then I had to sit down and really think about what that would look like, because obviously the women that are having babies now between 18 and 45 or whatever they are big on Instagram. And I knew that in order to, I guess get my name out there, I needed to be on a platform where a lot of the people were. So that was one thing that I was really mindful of, and I suppose I didn't have the benefit of the other midwives in my area who've maybe been doing it a long time, where there's a lot of word of mouth.

And , if someone was looking for a home birth, they'd be like, oh, hey, I live here and I'm looking for a home birth. And they might have a physio or a GP or someone say, oh, hey, go and see, speak to so-and-so. I didn't have that, so I had to create something for myself. And one of the things [00:27:00] that I started to do, Was to reach out to businesses that, I guess do things for moms.

Like one of them close by here is literally a hub for women. Whether they're pregnant, breastfeeding, have just had babies are trying to conceive where they have, you know, kinesiology and acupuncture and they run,, mums and bubs, yoga and all of that. So I reached out and said hey, Private midwife on the Gold Coast, I'd love to run some question and answer sessions.

Do you think that's something your community would be interested in? And she said, yeah. So then by the time we did a couple of those and she marketed me on her page, that sort of drove, you know some of the insight onto my page. I would go onto pages of other birth workers, you know, and leave comments and, share their things so that, they're would see my name around and get a bit of an idea of like, who is this person?

Like what is she doing? So I have like, I don't have a huge following by any means, but I know that in the area where I'm working no one uses Instagram the way that [00:28:00] I use it. And like I said, I wouldn't even have a thousand followers, but the other midwives just don't really use it. And I think that's because the.

Regulations around social media are really tough for midwives. And I think a lot of them have just put it in the two hard basket of like, oh God, I dunno what to say. I dunno what's gonna not get me in trouble. So I'll just say nothing. Whereas I spent a lot of time really picking through those and doing some real research into like, what can I share?

How can I share it? What's the best way, you know, making sure that my. Very careful because we have to be really careful as private midwives about what we share and how we share it. So I think that's why a lot of midwives perhaps have foregone social media to a degree because there's just too much room for factious reporting.

So I guess they've thought, well, it's too hard. I don't wanna get myself in trouble, so I just not gonna do it. 

Rachael Rose: Yeah, that's hard because you know, if you want clients to really connect with you and you want the right clients, To find the [00:29:00] right midwife. You kind of wanna know who the midwife is. Like for me, in choosing my home birth midwife, I had met her in social occasions and had chats with her and got a feel for her personality and her warmth.

And that's one of the reasons I chose her. And so it can be really hard in, in a space where we don't know who our care provider is at all. But totally the vexatious reporting, I'm mean the modern. Witch hunts are real. , I know that with APRA you can't even kind of share testimonials and talk about how people find your work, which is just ridiculous because I, see lots of obstetricians getting around that one on their Facebook pages.

Nicole Garratt: And a lot of people do it, but I think it's a case of if they decided to. Call you out on it. It can just make your life hard. Because yes, there are lots of people who probably don't do it properly in, in verticals, but they get around it or they're just not noticed. It's only if you make enough noise to get you noticed in other areas.

They go, [00:30:00] oh, let's go and look at everything, 

Rachael Rose: Yeah. Do you feel like as a private midwife, you've, been able to, to be who you are and really draw on your own gifts and skills and personality? Like, are you who you are in your practice now?

Nicole Garratt: Yeah, I would say so. And I agree. Going back to what you said before, I completely agree about being able to see a person, like I know when I am looking. For anything. I see what they're like on social media. I might look at their website, I listen to them do a live, and I think, yeah, they're, for me, they're my vibe, you know?

Whereas I suppose traditionally women would just call around, they'd call and speak to three midwives and they'd go and interview them, I suppose. And then they would pick out who they felt the most affinity with. Whereas I feel like the presence I put on social media, women can see who I am. They can see if I'm for them or not.

And so it doesn't waste their time having to interview dozens of midwives if they don't want to. They can see who I am and go, yeah, she's a fit for me. And one of the things that I have [00:31:00] been, I guess most proud of is I have had women reach out to me and go, Hey, you know, I've seen you on Instagram. I'd love to book in with you.

They've never met me. And that is the biggest, I guess pat on the back for myself because in the moments where you feel like you don't know what you're doing or that it's not working or that maybe you've made the wrong decision working for yourself, having that there has been really. I guess amazing to have these women reach out and go, Hey, I've seen what you've posed and it seems like you're on the same wavelength as me and I'd really love to work with you.

So that in itself has been really nice, I guess to re confirm that I am on the right path and that that women are. I guess aligned with what I'm sharing. And I definitely feel that I'm able to be myself in my practice now as opposed to having to fit in with what's acceptable. Like I still was myself, but I think you have to sort of hone it down and be a little bit more covert in a, in a system that doesn't always support that type of thing.

Rachael Rose: [00:32:00] Yeah, I was reading through your 2022 stats

and you were talking about how, you know, length of gestation, weight of babies, that kind of thing. And I just loved that you wrote, I caught zero babies. Because, you know, especially in kind of mainstream media, whenever a woman has a baby or you know, she has a baby on the side of the road, she's always.

Saved by someone else, they always catch her baby and they take away that power. And I love in home birth spaces where that power is handed back to women. Or women take that power back by catching their own babies. I mean, sometimes midwives catch babies if they're in an awkward position and you're in the birth pool and like, you know, it's, it's totally fine.

But I just loved. That you are not taking or staking claim over the process in midwifery. It's there to support women, to be with them and to witness them and to watch them. And it doesn't matter if you don't catch any babies. That's not [00:33:00] what you're there for.

Nicole Garratt: Yeah, you've taken the words right outta my mouth. You're right, because recently I've seen some stories shared on social media about women who've birthed on the side of the road, or they've birthed in a hospital car park, and all the comments have been, oh my goodness. You're so lucky that X, Y, Z arrived.

No, , no, she's not like , she did the work. She birthed her baby just because some random nurse happened to walk by and catch her baby. Like, why are they being thanked? Like, I just, I don't, I mean, I get it. I know if it was me, I'd be saying Thank you so much, you know, I needed help and you were here to give it and that, and I'm not taking away from that, but this idea that women need someone.

Like, you know, even women I know who've chosen to free birth and that someone's like, but who's gonna catch the baby? Like, that's the valid question they get asked and I'm like the woman. You know, who was catching our babies before? Before, like in a hundred years ago, who was catching our babies 200 years ago?

You know, it was either women and their families, their sisters, [00:34:00] their mothers, their cousins, you know, so this idea that women need someone there, absolutely. I'm there to give support and to reassure them and to observe what's happening and make sure that. Days in a healthy, safe way. But at the end of the day, my role is to stay out of her way and to let the birth her baby.

And yes, if she looks to me for a, I don't know what's going on, I need help kind of look that women get, I can offer a solution in terms of how about we try this, how about we try that, you know, let's move to this position. Maybe you'd like to try this position. But at the end of the day, That choice is still hers.

It's not me saying, okay, get outta the pool. Let's do this. You know, occasionally, very occasionally that might be needed. And I'm lucky that's not been a, situation I've found myself in. But there are times where we need to help women in birth. But the majority of the time, the women look to us if they feel they need guidance or support, and we give it them.

You know, we're not telling them all the way through their labor. I'll get up. Okay, go here, go there. Go sit here. Go sit [00:35:00] there. Unless they're asking for that. You know, and they'll, they'll know if they need that.

Rachael Rose: Yeah, I love that. So what does your day or week look like now as a private midwife?

Nicole Garratt: oh, it's so different. It's, it's almost chalk and cheese. And this is one thing I've had to really work through, and I was actually chatting to a good friend of mine. She's very insightful about the fact that I now feel like I'm not doing enough and enough in inverted commas because I've gone from working. And by working that includes children life, you know?

Sometimes it felt like a 20 hour day getting, you know, four to five hours sleep a night to work in what would be classed as probably next to nothing. But, I still work, but it's in my own time. Like, so for example, today I got up early when my partner left for work, but then I went back to bed and then I got up and took the children to school.

I have four kids in three different schools because I'm insane

Rachael Rose: Yeah,

[00:36:00] that's an interesting choice.

Nicole Garratt: Yeah. And then coming home to sit down and chat with you. Then I'm gonna have coffee with a friend, and then I'm going out to visit two clients who have had their babies in recent weeks. So I will go and visit them, and then I will come home and do some paperwork, like, you know, my notes from those visits.

And then I will cook dinner and I will either do some online stuff. Sometimes I do some online work in the evenings, depending what everyone's doing. Or I drive my older kids around to work and to martial arts, and then I'll come home and go to bed in a decent hour that most humans go to bed at, at like nine o'clock.

That is like, a complete 360 from where I was even a year and a half ago. And most of my days are like that. I try and structure my week so that I have three. Full work days. So that is a clinic day where I see clients then a home visiting day for the clients that have had babies and I don't get them to come to my clinic.

And then I have a paperwork day where I spend catching up on Medicare claiming and [00:37:00] hospital bookings and chasing up blood tests and blah, blah, blah. All of those types of things. And then I sometimes have a half day where I meet new clients, and that can be any. That I want it to be

Rachael Rose: Yeah.

Nicole Garratt: so I can catch up with them sometimes by a phone.

Sometimes I go and visit them in a cafe and hang out, like it just feels so. Like, I don't know, flowy. It just flows. And yes, I do have days, you know, if I've been to a birth and then I've got home and I've got appointments the next day and I bang them out and I have a day or two where I think, oh, I've got a bit of catching up to do, but it's two or three days and I feel like my life's back on track.

Not like at the hospital where I'd be like, right, well I've got eight weeks and then I can have a break. You know? So it feels like there's more room to shuffle, or if one of my children. Sick and needs to be picked up from school. I can be like, great, I'm coming past there. On my way to my next appointment, I will pick you up.

Not a case of sorry mate. You have to stay there until the bus can come and pick you up because I just can't come and get you, or my mom [00:38:00] isn't available to come and get you. So, you know, it's nice to be able to feel like I can still be around for them. You know, we eat dinner together every night. Which was unheard of, like, you know, we would eat dinner as much as we could, but it wasn't an every night thing, maybe two or three nights a week.

So being able to eat dinner every night together. The fact that I can drive them to school, which sounds so silly, but I don't think I'd driven them to school in years, you know, because I was never here. So being able to just drive them to school and have those chats in the car that we were missing out on, the little things like that to me are the, the big things.

Whereas to them, they probably just find it convenient that they didn't have to get up an hour earlier to get on the bus. But for me, it's those little moments because we never had, we didn't have that for years. They weren't catching the bus. It's going from school. If, if I was home when they got here, I was usually on my way out the door to work anyway.

Or if I wasn't home, then by the time I got home, they'd already left. Been picked up to go to martial arts by someone else, like there just wasn't that time. And you know, [00:39:00] I guess I've learned over. The last year or two that the kids, you know, the first time they see you in three days is not when they're gonna blurt out what's bothering them.

You know, that takes time for that to sort of simmer and for that to bubble up to the surface. So being able to have that time to share with them is much more important to me. And I didn't realise I was missing it either. I thought everything was fine and I thought everything was lovely and we were keeping it together beautifully, which I suppose we were, but it's just the, those little things that I didn't realise we were missing.

Rachael Rose: Yeah. Coming from such over functioning and overwhelm and stress. How did you set your business up in this way? Like was there resistance? Have you found yourself sometimes overbooking yourself or have you got a pretty solid idea of what you can and can't do now?

Nicole Garratt: To be honest, it was something I was really conscious of when I started. I was really mindful of the fact that burnout is massive for midwives and especially even midwives [00:40:00] in private practice. A lot of the things, there's a lot of research into burnout for midwives, even working in the hospital, there's a lot of talk about burnout for midwives and.

Doing clinical supervision so that you can not be burnt out like you talked about at the beginning. You know, the vicarious trauma, all of the things that come with that. And being mindful. So I guess when I was speaking to different people, when I first started my business, I was like, what do you love about what you do?

What don't you love? You know, there was some midwives that would happily. 4, 5, 6 more or more clients a month. And then others who were doing two and they had younger children and going, no, this is a good balance for me. And all of them said, do a few different things. Do one client a month, do three clients a month, do two clients a month, and then get a feel for what feels good, in terms of space and time, but also financially.

I had to be mindful. What that looked like. But yes, I was really mindful and I was following women on Instagram who did a lot of talking about the balance. You were one of them. But there's another lady I followed too [00:41:00] where she would talk about, like, her analogy was, you, you are always juggling and.

Some of the balls are glass and if you drop them it's more catastrophic than if you drop say, a rubber ball. So I was really mindful of, you know, the rubber balls being like the laundry or if you forgot to pack the dishwasher as opposed to the glass balls being that you didn't turn up to your kids' assembly.

Which has happened to me enough times that, you know, it's something I'm really mindful of. 

Rachael Rose: love that. Yeah. 

Nicole Garratt: So being able to go, okay, well if I didn't get a chance to get something out for dinner, the world hasn't ended, I'll just go to Woolies and buy something and cook it fresh, you know? Whereas in the past, because I was so tightened, something as simple as that for getting to get something out for dinner.

I was like, ruined. I was like, oh my God, that's it. The day is ruined. I, you know, how am I ever gonna be organised? I thought I was organised and it's all turning to shit. So I found like little things felt really catastrophic or you know, my daughter would come home and I'd get an email to say she got an award at assembly and I'd be devastated.

I'd be like, where was the original email to say that she was getting an award so that I could go, and then [00:42:00] I'd find it through my emails a week ago and be like, I missed that. You know? And that was really hard to be able to, I guess, Manage that and go, okay, well there were some things that I missed or couldn't avoid and I have to, I guess, forgive myself for that and go, that's where we're we were at at the time, and that's the life that we were leading, and that's okay.

But then going forward, what do I want that to look like? And so some of, you know, listening to podcasts about being mindful with your time not being I guess you're right. When you work for yourself, there is that opportunity where you can get carried away to work all the time. But if anything, I've actually sometimes found the opposite.

I've been kind of flowing along where I'd be like, oh, I've spent three days. Really only working half days and I wonder why I'm behind now. So there has been some more structure into the way I do things. And I started quite slowly. And by that I mean I started taking just a couple of clients a month for two or three months to see how that felt.

And when that felt like a good [00:43:00] balance, I was like, okay, cool. So maybe I could take an extra client a month if I needed to. There are some months this year where. I say accidentally taken four clients. And that's because I just had a few inquiries all quite close together, and those women all booked quite close together.

And then when I sat down and went, okay, who have I got? I went, oh, oh, shit. But the thing is, there are other midwives who regularly do that. So when I chatted to them and said, Hey, please talk me off the ledge, I'm gonna be okay, aren't I? And they were like, of course you can easily do that. I do that every month.

And I'm like, but for me, that felt like. Big Step to take on more women. But it feels good and it feels like I have the right supports in place now. Whereas if I just started, I might have thought that was too much, but it's something that I'm mindful that I won't do every month. So I have a busy month in June, so I'm mindful that by May and my July are a little bit.

Quieter like, and by that I mean back to two women a month. So that I've got space. I didn't want to do that month after month after month, and then find myself in the same position of being [00:44:00] burnt out and run down. And, you know, we, you can't, it's not like you can say to women halfway through their pregnancy, sorry, I took on too much.

It's not the same as shift work where I can go, oh good, I'll have a mental health day today. It's not the same.

Rachael Rose: Yeah, absolutely. You've gotta really be conscious of the impact that you are having in such an intimate relationship with

clients. 

Nicole Garratt: Absolutely and you know, some of my clients, have come up from down the coast and they may have had home births elsewhere, and one of the things that came up for a couple of them was, oh, you know, I felt like my midwife was really , at times it felt like. You know, she couldn't get to me because she was busy, which, you know, no shade to her. She probably was very busy. But that was one thing is I didn't want my clients to feel like, I was too busy for them. They're paying me a good amount of money , for a service that I love to provide and like as much as I'm being paid.

To do the work. I genuinely love it. I would probably do it for free, like, you know, so the fact that I don't want my clients to feel like, oh, I don't wanna bother her [00:45:00] because she's too busy, or she took four days to get back to me, or, you know, stuff like that. It was really important to me to build relationships in a way that my clients all feel special because they are like, they are special to me.

So it's really important that I had that space and I didn't want to overbook myself and then be going, oh, okay, how do I then, Provide the best of me to so many people, like, you know, spreading yourself too thin. I know what that looks like and it's awful.

Rachael Rose: Yeah. And I mean, re we repeat the patterns until we learn it, but it looks like you've learnt, learnt your lesson 

Nicole Garratt: I have moments, but I, I do often bite off more than I can chew. It's something my friend and I always laugh about. I'll be saying just in conversation, I'll say, I think I've bit off more than I can chew. And she's like, again,

Rachael Rose: When will it stop?

Nicole Garratt: Like this is not like you at all. But the joke is that, you know, I always say, you know, you bite off more than you, than you can chew, but then you've gotta chew like hell.

And I often do, but then I have moments where I can go, okay, I need to reign [00:46:00] that in. But I am mindful of the pattern. Now, as you said, I have moments where I feel stressed and I notice that when I feel stressed, I like to do more and control more and be on top of more. Whereas I'm sort of learning to lean the other way that when I feel stressed, I need to let go of more.

I need to chill out more, you know, whereas that's not my go-to normally.

Rachael Rose: So you've just celebrated your first year in business without naming numbers or anything like that. Are you getting your business to a position where it's kind of replacing your income as working in the system?

Nicole Garratt: That's a really good question. I think the one thing that I was mindful of is, You know, I think everyone thinks that when they see what midwives charge, that it's really , But once you sit down and take out tax and the exorbitant amount of insurance we pay, we're probably only getting half of what we charge. 

, In a way that I thought, I guess when I started like all people thinking, oh, okay, well if I do, you know, two or three women a month, that's gonna be great cuz that's gonna like, [00:47:00] Be double the income that I was working at the hospital, which is not the case at all. So you know, because by the time you pay all those things, you're actually probably only making about the same.

 Which is fine, I guess there are the midwives who think, oh my gosh, if I was only making the same that I'm making here, but with all of the responsibility and the headache in inverted commas of. The rest of it, then no thank you. I'll just stick with what I'm doing. But I feel that perhaps I'm earning very close to what I was earning at the hospital.

Sometimes a little bit less. But that being said, I feel from a perspective of where I am in my life, that feels like a good swap for me in terms of. What I was doing before, yes, the money was coming in and yes, I was doing the things, but I realised now that if I had continued in that way, I would've been really unhappy and probably would've had a nervous breakdown somewhere in there, because there were times where I literally felt like I was coming apart.

I can't think of a better analogy, but I literally would have moments where I was like, [00:48:00] hyperventilating going, oh my God, I cannot keep this all in the air. And it felt really scary to feel like you are on a slippery slope of how the hell am I gonna keep this shit together, Whereas now, yeah, I have days where I'm busy and I have days where I didn't, fold the washing, but I'm like, tomorrow's a new day and I've got space, space in my day to do that. 

Rachael Rose: Yeah. That's worth a lot of money really, when you think about it. Yeah. So what's your favourite thing about being a midwife?

Nicole Garratt: Oh, that's a really hard question. Cause I wanna say everything. I think for me, what I love the most is the relationships, and I think that's what I was missing in the hospital. Yes, I'd build a relationship with a woman for the eight hours I was there, but you never get any follow up, you know? Did she end up going on to feed?

Okay? Did she end up having a really great birth that she wanted? Like you just have no idea. Sometimes you'd hear what happened, but very rarely. So for me, I think. What I love the most is the relationships. The fact that I have women come to me [00:49:00] sometimes very, very early in their pregnancy journey. So by the time that they've had their babies and we've hung out together until six weeks post-birth, well, I've been hanging out for 10 months.

They're like a friend, so it's sometimes really hard to say goodbye. But it's also beautiful because I can see that they have come full circle. They've gone from this. Woman who was probably a bit unsure. She didn't really know what she wanted or what her choices were or how she felt about any of it. To by the time we get to the six weeks, they don't need me to come over, you know, anymore.

They, they don't need someone coming to see them in those last three or four weeks. They've got it. You know that we just follow up to make sure that all is well, but they've got it. And it's so lovely to see that and to see that they've come into their own and to be like, whether it's their first baby or their fifth, they've just integrated them into their lives or that, you know, if they've had challenges, whether it's breastfeeding or things from birth, that they've.

I guess worked through those and they feel that they're in a good place and that's the bit that [00:50:00] I love the most. Being able to see them, I guess, integrate everything into their family life and to have a good experience with , And especially when that's not the norm that we women here in society.

So that's always really lovely.

Rachael Rose: Oh, that's lovely. Can you remind me of your tagline? Is it supporting women to blossom into Motherhood 

Nicole Garratt: Into mothers. yeah. 

Rachael Rose: And that's what you're doing. It's that unfurling, it's, it takes time. Right. And yeah, I can just imagine. You could have these beautiful connective experiences with women within the hospital system, and likewise they with you, and you have probably stuck in many women's minds, but they might not remember your name.

And you don't get to then have that ongoing like, oh. I got to see the outcome, and I got to see them become a mom. And that's the real richness that we. We wanna see in a rite of passage for a rite of passage to feel complete. We need to have people witnessing our journey. And so that's what I love most about [00:51:00] continuity of care and private midwifery.

It's that midwife, that doula, that birth keep. They saw the before and they see the after and they get to reflect back all of that transformation to that woman. And so that woman doesn't feel crazy because. You know, she will have gone through so much to become a mother and to have someone that knows that journey intimately, it's just worth its weight in gold.

Nicole Garratt: Yeah, absolutely. And you're right because that's one thing that when I started midwifery was really what stood out for me. I read a quote somewhere, probably in one of the textbooks , women won't remember your name, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And that was something that really stuck out for me because having had, I had three of my babies before I became a midwife and then one sort of during, and I remember what those midwives made me feel like.

And there were some that were lovely and there were some that even though I'd had a couple of babies before, there was some that I felt. Were not nice. They just were not kind and I felt belittled by them, or I felt unseen by them. Now of [00:52:00] course they're made, they're not bad people. They might have just had a really busy day or they, whatever the case is.

But that was something that really stuck in my mind is that I wanted women to feel, and you know, I worked in a busy hospital, sometimes you'd have six to eight like on a night shift, and then they've got six to eight babies with them. So that's a lot of people to be trying to. Juggle cares for. So you are running around and then when the buzzer goes, often midwives are like, oh my God, what now?

Because you've got so much to do, but being mindful of the minute you open that curtain, you better do so with a smile on your face. Because at the end of the day, she's got no one else. Like, there's no one else to care for her. There's no one else to support her. And if you go in that room looking like with a, a look on your face, it's like, oh, what do you want?

Now that's what she's gonna take. Even if it's five seconds, you know, you might have had a lovely journey and relationship with her that whole shift or the couple of days she's been there. But that five seconds where you walk in with that look on your face will be imprinted on her brain forever and she will feel like a burden.

Rachael Rose: Yeah, I've got [00:53:00] goosebumps because I just know so many women that have experienced that and it, you think about it forever. You do?

Nicole Garratt: Yeah, absolutely. And I think in some ways that's beautiful. Cause if you've had a beautiful experience, you'll be a part of that family's beautiful experience forever. And that's not an ego thing, that's just how it is. But if you've not had a good experience, those women remember that midwife.

You know, I have my grandma telling stories about the way she was treated and how they shushed her and how they told her she was silly. And you know, her youngest baby is 60 years old. you know, we often joke when I say, oh, my baby's so grown up now. And she'll be like, my baby is 60.

So I'm like, fair enough. You know? So she remembers that. She remembers how she felt, and that was a long time ago.

Rachael Rose: Hmm. Yeah. So rounding out our conversation, if you could offer any advice to other women and other mothers who want to leave a job that's maybe no [00:54:00] longer in alignment, or one that is just way too much in that patriarchal hustle and grind culture and start a business, what advice would you give them?

Nicole Garratt: Firstly, I would say do it cause you won't regret it. But then I also am realistic and I know that for some women that's, it's not as simple as that. And it certainly wasn't for me cuz like I said, I was the sole income earner. So I would say to them baby steps in terms of what. If you sit down and work out how you're gonna get from A to B, like, do you need to do another course?

Do you need to do some volunteer work in that area? Do you need to do whatever you need to do, but start the steps because the day will come, like it did for me when all of a sudden I was like, pushed. It felt like I, I'd been taking the steps and by the time I felt pushed into it, I was suddenly like, oh my God, I'm not ready.

But I just jumped and was. I guess I'm a bit woowoo, so I just had faith that the universe would catch me and that it would work out, and it has, [00:55:00] you know, that that doesn't mean there hasn't been some months that it's been hard and that the money hasn't been there. And I'm thinking, oh my God, was this the right choice?

But from a family perspective and a mental health perspective, yeah, I might look at my bank account some months and think, Oh, this is gonna be a hard one. But then from the rest of the perspective, I feel good. You know, I can take the kids for a walk on the beach in the afternoon. I can take that time that I need.

And that's something you can't buy. Like I can't buy back those years where I wasn't here.

Rachael Rose: Mm. Yeah. Oh, thank you so much, Nicole, for sharing your story and for your wisdom and.

Nicole Garratt: Thank you. You're inviting me on. It's been lovely to share.

Rachael Rose: Thank you for listening to together. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider sharing that you are listening on social media or rate and review. This weaves a web of connection and makes a huge difference in getting these stories out to the women that need to hear them.[00:56:00]