AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Renard Teelucksingh and I’m Trinidad and Tobago's third male midwife.

I came from the deep south. Cedros is where I grew up. I am pleased to hear I am the first Trini to the Bone from there.

I went to primary school in Cedros and secondary school in Point Fortin, half an hour away from home.

It is only when I started university that I ever left Cedros. And came to St Augustine, where I have been living since.

Even in Cedros, I wasn’t one to go out and party or go to the bars. I was always at home. Or I would probably do some gardening, which I started at a young age. Even up to today I still do kitchen garden, ornamental plants, anything like that.

I probably got that from my mother, from being by her side when she was pruning and watering her whole lot of bougainvilleas on the porch.

Right now I have a forest outside my place in St Augustine.

My dad is still with us, but my mom passed in 2010.

I’m the middle of three siblings, a brother four years older and a sister one year younger. I accept BC Pires’ proposition that I don’t have proper Middle Child Syndrome because I was the baby son. Not a middle son.

And I was spoiled by my mother!

But I did have to work harder to get my parents’ attention. For example, neither of my siblings are into gardening at all.

[caption id="attachment_980946" align="alignnone" width="1024"] "I have delivered over 70 babies in hospital and three home deliveries," says Renard Teelucksingh. -[/caption]

At the moment, I’m not involved with anyone.

Mostly, my career is what I’m focusing on. I want to be able to provide for my family if and when I do have one.

I was one of the last standard five classes to do the Common Entrance exam at Cedros Government Primary. I did CXC and A-Levels at Point Fortin Senior Secondary.

I liked school most times. And I

always liked sciences.

I did a year of natural sciences at UWI and then transferred into nursing at COSTAATT.

All the way back, as far as I can remember, I remember myself wanting to be in the medical field. That’s the only thing I saw my (adult) self doing as a child.

I wasn’t successful in getting into medical school to become a doctor, so the next best thing was nursing.

But I’m

not

a frustrated doctor.

I believe, like my mother said, that things happen for a reason and nursing and midwifery was supposed to be my path in life.

I am a believer. I was raised Hindu by my dad’s father, but when he passed when I was about nine or ten, we stopped following the Hindu tradition, although we still celebrated Divali.

I can’t remember why my mom sent us to church one morning, but every Sunday after that, we kept going. And I just understood what was happening in church was where I wanted to go.

I was baptised P