Calvary John James Hospital maternity unit midwife Cheryl Guthrie cuts the cake. Photo: James Coleman.
It’s what Cheryl loves most about her job – seeing the excitement new life brings and then seeing those same babies years later, all grown up.
“I remember one day at Costco, two people came up to me, and the mother showed me a 10-month-old baby in the pram,” she says.
“She had remembered me at the birth, helping.”
Cheryl Guthrie is a midwife at the Calvary John James Hospital in Deakin, and this month, she joined her colleagues in marking the 30th anniversary of its maternity unit.
Still the only private unit of its type in Canberra, it provides for high-risk pregnancies from 32 weeks across 24 postnatal beds, four birth suites and a 10-bed special care nursery.
Over the past 30 years, more than 31,000 babies have been delivered there.
General manager Daniel Wood says, “The fact people return to have their second, third or fourth baby here is a reflection of the care we provide”.
“We are incredibly privileged to provide a service that is central to when a couple becomes a family.”
Cheryl, coming from 10 years of prior midwife experience in the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, has been there since the beginning and had the honour of delivering the unit’s first baby on 6 September 1994.
Calvary John James Hospital maternity unit midwife Cheryl Guthrie. Photo: James Coleman.
“We got the call that mum Marianne was on her way in, and I was straight on the phone to the doctor to let him know to start making his way to the hospital quickly,” she recalls.
“Marianne was in good labour and had already had six boys, so we knew it was going to be quick.”
Marianne’s seventh was a girl – Donna Davis.
Donna is now a police officer in outback Queensland and describes the Canberra maternity unit as “a part of my identity in a way”.
“I moved to Queensland when I was about six years old, so being the first baby born in the maternity unit at John James has been a foothold for me in Canberra,” she says.
“It is always my claim to fame and my personal fun fact.”
Midwife Vera Meisel-Dennis, Gerard Davis, Marianne Davis, Donna Davis, and Cheryl Guthrie. Photo: Calvary.
While Donna couldn’t make it to the 30th-anniversary event, she and her parents, Marianne and Gerard, visited a few years ago out of the blue and were “gobsmacked” to find Cheryl still there.
“Our delightful midwife has always been part of our wonderful memories,” Marianne says.
“We were incredibly lucky to be greeted by Cheryl on a visit a few years ago when we were taking Donna back to where it all began. It was such a delight for Donna to meet her.”
Cheryl moved from Perth to Canberra in 1989, when the Royal Canberra Hospital on Acton Peninsula was shutting.
Management’s priority was to transfer existing midwives to Woden, so Cheryl could only work as a nurse for several years, at least until she heard of Calvary’s plans to open a brand-new maternity unit.
“I was thinking of actually leaving midwifery, but then I walked in here and they presented me with the job,” she says.
Cheryl says nearly every birth still brings her tears of joy; especially those hard ones.
She remembers one case in the middle of the night when a birth went badly and the baby needed immediate resuscitation. The boy survived and was transferred to the special-care nursery. What happened next? It was a mystery for 18 years until a young man came to the nurse’s desk, asking for her.
“I’m just visiting my wife,” the man began, pointing to the young man next to him – Cheryl recalls him as “big, tall and strapping” – “and this is my son.”
“That was just mind-blowing for me because I had remembered everything about that time in their life when the dad and mum were so vulnerable,” Cheryl says.
As she’s just celebrated her 71st birthday, Cheryl concedes it’s time to slow down and pass on the midwife baton to someone else. Her granddaughter, maybe?
“My granddaughter, who’s doing nursing, sent me a gorgeous text the other day, saying ‘I’m looking at midwifery, so I can do what you’re doing, but I want you to teach me how to do it’,” Cheryl says.
“And I said, ‘Well, you better hurry up because I don’t want to be around in 10 years’ time, trying to get you through’.”
Loading ...
