u/CalendarThis3912

I am a current BSN student and to be totally frank, the only reason I’m in nursing school is to become a midwife. I have some limited doula experience and training but I fell out of it in 2022 because I had a second kiddo, have another full-time job, and got into nursing school full-time. However, I do assist a CPM with prenatal appointments, postpartum appointments, and births 1x-2x a week.

Those who have experience at Frontier - I know that they generally want 1 yr of L&D, with case-by-case exceptions for doulas, LCs, childbirth educators, etc,. Would assisting a CPM at the frequency I do be sufficient? I’ve been scouring this sub and haven’t seen much about it, and the limited info I have seen has been a bit conflicting. Again, to be totally frank, I didn’t really sign up for nursing school to become a nurse and work med-surg or something. And I would love to work as an RN in L&D during CNM school and wouldn’t mind doing so, but I’m very eager to start my CNM education ASAP after graduation instead of hoping I can get immediately hired post-grad onto an often-competitive L&D unit (I live in a large midwestern metropolitan city) and spending a year there prior to even starting CNM school - or maybe longer if I end up having to work my way onto L&D. I’ll have to do what I have to do regardless, but trying to get an idea of what route I should expect.

TIA!

Backstory:

My (27) daughter is freshly 5. She was born at 28 weeks. 60 days in the NICU. She has a speech delay and a speech IEP but is improving rapidly, just struggles with some end consonants - otherwise no issues.

I left her father (36) when she was 9 months old due to mental, emotional, and lots of physical abuse, coupled with alcohol abuse and substance abuse. Made sure to move out when he was at work to the secret apartment I got, for safety reasons. I still let her see him (supervised by a family friend who he was on decent terms with) for the next 9-ish months, until got drunk and went off and blocked me and genuinely (I know it’s not a lie) didn’t remember it and thought I blocked him. However, he never asked any of the dozens of mutual people we know or the family of mine he still had on socials for an update or how to get ahold of me. When he blocked me, she was about a year and a half old. He also moved to an off-grid farm about 5 hours away in some mountains.

When she was about 3.5 in 2024, two years later, he unblocked me. She saw him twice in 2025, both times with me there - once because I was in the area camping with her, and once because a girl he was seeing brought him to a concert in the large city I live in - so never to any effort of his own. I’m very cordial with him, think of it like a business-relationship - my opinions don’t matter as long as everyone is safe, so I leave them at the door. He’s not on the birth certificate, was always a habitual drifter type, no family or car or anything, and is still living on someone else’s farm off the grid. He has zero income, he works their farm for food and housing and has for years. He says he’s sober, but who knows. He also has no phone to this day, just an Amazon tablet that he stole from a friend of mine in 2020, he admitted randomly to me one call. He sometimes uses it to video call her. Calls average 0-2 times a month, usually 0-1. He can go a couple months without calling easily. He’s asked to call before and then not called. He often asks past her bedtime, or when I’m at work, and when I tell him to call my mom’s phone because she’s with her while I work nights, he says no because it’s “awkward.” She gets excited to talk to him but she’s kind of just excited to talk to anyone ever. She gets bored after a few minutes and tells him she’s done talking and hangs up, but it doesn’t seem to really bother her. No hard questions or emotional distress. She calls him “pops” instead of “dad” when they talk. Never really brings him up.

Okay, backstory over. At this point, I’m wondering if it would be best for her to stop allowing the random sporadic calls and go no contact, or if I should continue to allow them. Anyone have any knowledge and evidence based opinions? I don’t think she’d notice if the calls stopped, but I’m more worried about longterm pros vs cons.

(No one roast me please lol I had extremely delayed prefrontal cortex development and am forever shocked at my own decision making by reproducing with the person described, genuinely so confused at this decision making that it doesn’t even feel like my own insane decision making when I reflect on it, but she’s everything and my entire universe and lives a wonderful life with great education and extracurriculars and vegetables and glitter and financial stability and all the attention and emotional nurturing and evidence-based parenting, and I have a bachelor degree and am healed and normal now so please spare me any judgement because I will be forced to agree with you.)

Backstory:

My (27) daughter is freshly 5 years old. She was born at 28 weeks. 60 days in the NICU. She has a speech delay and a speech IEP but is improving rapidly, just struggles with some end consonants - otherwise no issues.

I left her father (36) when she was 9 months old due to mental, emotional, and lots of physical abuse, coupled with alcohol abuse and substance abuse. Made sure to move out when he was at work to the secret apartment I got, for safety reasons. I still let her see him (supervised by a family friend who he was on decent terms with) for the next 9-ish months, until got drunk and went off and blocked me and genuinely (I know it’s not a lie) didn’t remember it and thought I blocked him. However, he never asked any of the dozens of mutual people we know or the family of mine he still had on socials for an update or how to get ahold of me. When he blocked me, she was about a year and a half old. He also moved to an off-grid farm about 5 hours away in some mountains.

When she was about 3.5 in 2024, two years later, he unblocked me. She saw him twice in 2025, both times with me there - once because I was in the area camping with her, and once because a girl he was seeing brought him to a concert in the large city I live in - so never to any effort of his own. I’m very cordial with him, think of it like a business-relationship - my opinions don’t matter as long as everyone is safe, so I leave them at the door. He’s not on the birth certificate, was always a habitual drifter type, no family or car or anything, and is still living on someone else’s farm off the grid. He has zero income, he works their farm for food and housing and has for years. He says he’s sober, but who knows. He also has no phone to this day, just an Amazon tablet that he stole from a friend of mine in 2020, he admitted randomly to me one call. He sometimes uses it to video call her. Calls average 0-2 times a month, usually 0-1. He can go a couple months without calling easily. He’s asked to call before and then not called. He often asks past her bedtime, or when I’m at work, and when I tell him to call my mom’s phone because she’s with her while I work nights, he says no because it’s “awkward.” She gets excited to talk to him but she’s kind of just excited to talk to anyone ever. She gets bored after a few minutes and tells him she’s done talking and hangs up, but it doesn’t seem to really bother her. No hard questions or emotional distress. She calls him “pops” instead of “dad” when they talk. Never really brings him up.

Okay, backstory over. At this point, I’m wondering if it would be best for her to stop allowing the random sporadic calls and go no contact, or if I should continue to allow them. Anyone have any knowledge and evidence based opinions? I don’t think she’d notice if the calls stopped, but I’m more worried about longterm pros vs cons.

(No one roast me please lol I had extremely delayed prefrontal cortex development and am forever shocked at my own decision making by reproducing with the person described, genuinely so confused at this decision making that it doesn’t even feel like my own insane decision making when I reflect on it, but she’s everything and my entire universe and lives a wonderful life with great education and extracurriculars and vegetables and glitter and financial stability and all the attention and emotional nurturing and evidence-based parenting, and I have a bachelor degree and am healed and normal now so please spare me any judgement because I will be forced to agree with you.)