here is my title!

mark II of the title;

Miscarriage: women’s experiences of treatment in a hospital setting.

I am hoping that really says it all! Do you like?

second verse, same as the first...

Yes,

I still sit here - trying to finish off my ethics application - it is due to my supervisor tomorrow and I still have this to finish;

• think of a title - though atm I have 'Miscarriage: Women's experience of hospital treatment' or maybe 'Miscarriage: how do hospitals respond' -though I think the second one might cause us a bit of an issue.
• explanatory statment - this is a biggie
• finish 4.2 (c) of the consent form
• finish 4.8 and 4.9 of Form P
• and complete section six (6.1-6.6) of the actual form.

Considering I had 8 tasks to do yesterday - I am happy with the rate of work I am completing. And this is just the first draft, that goes to Cathi. The actual form isn't submitted to the committee until the 23rd of April, but that is 3-4 copies plus all the other crap associated with it.

I have been a busy about the research. I rang SANDS last week and spoke to a lovely lady there who has happily accepted me to place them as a support network for my participants if necessary. She also offered herself as a potential participant if I was interested. Heck I really could have interviewed many women over - so many people are interested in this research. Scary, I hope I can do it justice. I have also been gratned permission by the administrator of EB to place a recruitment advertisement to seek participants, but i have to wait for ethics approval first. Which Cathi tells me, might take UNTIL JUNE!

Another important note to make, is that this is only Honours, I need to stop stressing so much about getting it all perfect. This is a big subject area, and not a lot is known at present, I need to be mindful of this as the first step in scratching the surface. If I so chose, I could go on to critically analyse the hospital procedures in place for this event. But we'll see what comes out of the research first.

In other news; I am back at the gym with vengance! I have a new form of attack - heavy weight lifting with a boxing circuit on either side on my resistance training days. Because lets face facts, I hate the treadmill and find the cardio room quite boring, but I know I have to keep up the cardio for weight loss, so I am hoping that boxing ticks all the boxes for me in that regard. I am also mindful of my food intake again (though I will just add here that on sunday I made a banoffee cheesecake and dear lord it was delicious!).

My mum flew up to Darwin last night because my brother is in ICU with a collapsed lung, hope everything is alright up there A? My mum flies back on thursday morning and then she is out again on sunday afternoon going to Paris and Slovenia/Slovakia. Lucky woman! We do get to borrow her car for the time she is away though, woot! No bogan mobiles for us.

We are incredibly busy here for the next couple of weeks. As I mentioned mum is leaving, as well as that - I have a couple of friends arriving in Melbourne this weekend - and a group of us are getting together to wine and dine and I cannot wait, I am so very excited. Especially considering these people were the unfortunate witnesses to the dirtiness played out the other week at the V, and we've managed to reconnect anyway :). Then next weekend, James' sisters are coming to visit our children for the weekend, so that will be good for the boys and them as Jude hasn't seen his aunty H for almost 3 years and Noah has never met her. Yet Jude asks about her all the time and wants to send stuff to her. It will be a lovely weekend for them all.

Anyway, enough procrastinating. Must get back to this blasted work. Gee I hope it is all worth it.

Updated question

`How do (Melbourne) hospitals respond to women who experience a miscarriage in the first 2o weeks of pregnancy? '


Updated. at at 2.30pm. I think this could be the one?

Hello from the bogs of the ethics submission...

Ok,

So it seems right about now it is time to get serious about my thesis. So here we go.

The question is as follows;

How do (Melbourne) hospitals respond to women who experience early miscarriage?


Now that the wheels are beginning to turn I now have less than 2 weeks to submit a 30 something page ethics application for approval! So now, I am sitting here trying to work out explanatory statements, questions and topics I will discuss with my participants - how to make sure they aren't harmed in anyway! Dear god. Yes I'm floundering a tad, can you tell?

Exercise is going well again. Back at the gym yesterday and I did a full 30 mins of boxing followed by another 30 minutes of weights. My body is feeling it today! I'll get there again today when my headache subsides a bit.

My weekend

I went to a divorce (or freedom) party last night. I think I might have celebrated the divorce a little too much.

I'm still struggling to write this damn essay being critical about myself with regard to confrontation and challenging. But I take heart that it is only 1000 words and there is no need for academic references.

I'm still thinking about my thesis topic and hoping my supervisor sees the same glimmer that I do. Hopefully she replies tomorrow with her opinion. Putting two very emotive, taboo, women centred subjects together for research, am I insane?

James has pulled into the driveway with the kids, I have to sign off so it looks like I am working.

Hope everyone else has had a nice weekend (hey I can live in hope someone may come across this, right?)

Confessions from a lazy fat arse who eats her son's chocolate

Gymming - 7am for program re-write (and I told them to make it harrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd, what the fuck was I thinking?).



Chocolate - Yes today stealing little bits of Jude's. Sorry Jude.

What I think about on the treadmill...

Today I went to the gym. Woohoo! And yes, I ate chocolate too. But most importantly, whilst on the treadmill I had a moment of clarity;

See I've been at a dead end, so to speak, for the last couple of weeks with regard to my Honours topic. I know I want to know about Women's experiences of miscarriage, but how to define it. Something which I keep coming back to (and am having difficulty with processing given that I am very much pro-choice) is the differences between what occurs for a women when undergoing a miscarriage and when having an abortion. See if you have an abortion, it is mandatory that you receive counselling before making the decision. So you have to have counselling to help you decide if you want to terminate a pregnancy, yet when you miscarry a baby that you actually want - to my knowledge there is no mandatory counselling. Why is that? I'm sure given the numbers of miscarrying that economically the answer is not to provide counselling sessions for all. But from a feminist perspective, does forcing people to submit to counselling before their decision to abort is accepted show that women are not to be trusted with their decision making. Likewise, why is the possiblity of women experiencing grief after suffering a miscarriage seemingly ignored.

So yes, I thought considering this is on my mind so much - the intersection btw miscarriage and abortion, why not change my topic somewhat to examine and contrast women's treatment experiences of miscarriage and abortion? So I might shoot off an email to my supervisor and see what she says? She'll probably say... 'Alexis, great idea... for a PhD!'.

I don't know.. I just think it is an angle worthy for discussion, you know. Because there are a lot of similarities. D&C for mc and D&C for abortion are given the same medicare number, and the medical terminology uses abortion for both of these things...so it might be an interesting concept?

The other thing I have noticed is that this topic is quite taboo. Not many people talk about it. Almost every single person I have told about this topic has come forward and had a story, either their own or someone they know. Women in particular have felt this affinity with this topic, which has reinforced the importance of it.

Anyway. Lets hope I get that bloody question sorted, hey?

Todays study effort...

• 400 words of a critical reflective essay. My excuse is that I have already been criticised enough in the past few days to have to do it to myself as well! Incredibly tough.

• 2 emails where I have had to explain why I have been so silent to my Honour's supervisor. EEK! Must pick that up and run with it.

• 1 chocolate easter egg (yes, yes failed miserably in that department!)

• No gym. Hmph.

But upside, am playing with flash new computer. That has got to be something, right? Yes! OK with this procrastination dealt with, I'm back on to look cluelessly at my essay and wonder whether I will ever complete it?

and now for something a little lighter

Well that wouldn't be me. I'm still not there with the weight loss. I try, but I try - but chocolate is the devil.. taunting me and teasing me. And I can't help but give in to temptation. Oh well, today I will try again from scratch.

So what else is happening (apart from bad re-runs of bold and the beautiful as evidenced below)?

I am now in final year. I have been offered to do Honours for Social Work which I have accepted with great fear and trepidation (but also a swelling chest of pride - hmm perhaps it is always swollen he he). So busy doing that.

James is so freaking busy with his Masters degree that it is not funny! Always busy, the poor bugger - but we just keep saying - one more year, one more year. December this year - it will all be over!

So yes, we are happy. Desperately broke, but happy!

when realities come crashing down...

You know I'm trying to write about something very hurtful that has occurred recently to me. I just don't have the right words at the moment. I'm feeling maudlin and I thought this would be a perfect moment to do some navel gazing. But, I am having great difficulty in finding the right words. I am tired, I have been sleeping terribly every night - tossing and turning - wondering what has been said, why I am being targeted and yes I will admit, crying myself to sleep on some occasions.

I hold loyalty and honesty right up there in my most important traits in friends. To find out that I have been exisiting with some alternate universe out there mocking, judging and whispering about me is devestating to say the least. I try to be a good person, I know that I have a strong personality and I have opinions, but was all of this necessary for this?

For the last year and a half I have been contributing on a closed board administrated by what I thought was a friend. People were chosen to join the board on the strengths that they showed on another larger and public board. I'm not sure why I was chosen, but I can only assume that my attributes also pleased at one point. These attributes that got me noticed, apparently are the same ones that were the undoing. Over the past few days I have been accused of bullying, intimidation, scaring people, eating babies and taunting cats with sticks (ok the last two might be stretching the truth a tad :) ). Now I like to fight my battles to the end, but yesterday I lost the fight. I had too many sleepless nights, too many tears and to me they have pretty much been who? The people who have been whispering and pointing at me, but not to me.

So? Lessons I've learned:

1. Try not to join a private site where there is one person as 'boss hog', it is far too easy for them to become a little power hungry.

2. Be beige in approach. It is much safer and the only person you will be in danger of offending is yourself.

3. Don't trust people on face value. If they say they like you and love reading you, they probably think you are a fucking nasty bitch who pokes cats in her spare time for fun.

4. Opinions rattle and intimidate.

Me bitter and twisted? No, never.

I think I might need to get some more exercise and work this all off.