Soon after, I decided to take a new career path and joined the amazing women and men who are able, after years of study, to call themselves midwives. As a midwife, I've been blessed with the trust of women and their whānau through the best of times and the worst of times. I've seen life at its most beautiful and ugly. I've seen the unmitigated joy on the faces of new parents, perhaps after years of infertility. And then I've seen young people pregnant and traumatised by years of abuse, the empty cupboards that greet a new family returning home, the bruises that a mum can't hide, the pain of addiction across the spectrum of rich and poor, the kids that I sneaked into the hospital to get their first hot shower for months—their parents couldn't afford to turn the water heater on, ever—and the baby being admitted to hospital with a preventable respiratory infection caused by the mould and damp in their home. Moving home was not an affordable option. These are all things that are not too far away from the stories that my mother told me of her experiences as a midwife 60 years ago. 