My attempt to work on my health aspect this past few weeks has not been great, but I worked hard at turning that around this week by making myself go to the gym more this week. I have noticed that I need to make sure that I reward myself occasionally with a soda or ice cream in order to keep myself motivated to keep working on myself. I originally tried to cut out everything which made it so much easier to fall into my bad habits. By giving myself a treat here and there I am telling myself that it is ok to eat things that I like as long as I am also working towards my goal. I made it to the gym four days this week which is huge for me because I have been having trouble with my time management lately. I have worked in times in my schedule after work, class or my internship to go to the gym and some days I may only go to do cardio and leave within 30 mins, but the fact that I got myself there and made time to work on it is a big step for me in the midst of the chaos that has been my life lately.
Since this chapter is mainly about contraception and pregnancy, I could not help but to think of a few of my friends. One of my best friends from childhood went through a very traumatic child birth that is related to the chapter and that I believe is an important that people know. I am not going to use her real name for her privacy, but I will call her Lizzy for this blog. Lizzy went to the hospital a while ago because she was in a lot of pain, she thought she had an ovarian cyst, so typically the doctors would prescribe her a painkiller for that and send her on her way. This time was different though because it turns out that she was pregnant and was giving birth to a beautiful baby girl who was 4 months premature. Lizzy was not showing at all and no one had any idea that she could have been pregnant. She had an ectopic pregnancy, so the baby grew outside of the womb. Sadly the baby only lived on her own for 10 minutes because she was so underdeveloped. “One of the most traumatic events a couple can face us a stillbirth” (Donatelle, 2019, p.123). I can’t imagine the pain that they are going through. For Lizzy and her boyfriend to have no clue that they were pregnant, then have their baby in their hands, only to have her last breaths 10 minutes later. My heart goes out to them. I thought about not including this into my blog because it is such a sad story, but after talking to Lizzy, we decided it’s important for people to be aware that things like this happen all the time and she wants her baby to be remembered. I’m not religious but god bless their souls.
On a brighter note I have another friend that is currently six months or so pregnant. I believe she is almost in her third trimester so she is showing her baby bump off and loving the pregnant lady attention that she is getting. Although her and her boyfriend did not intentionally get pregnant, it is a very exciting time for them. She said the moment that she knew she was pregnant was when she cried over a cookie at the grocery store. She was trying to be healthy and wanted a cookie so bad that she broke down to tears. Emotional upset was listed as one of the early signs of pregnancy on page 118 of the book and is a common symptom among pregnant women.
I am very proud of my friend for taking excellent care of her body while she has known she has been pregnant. She has been smoking cigarettes for years, but once she found out she was harboring a child inside her, she has yet to pick up another cigarette. She has only had a glass of red wine every once in a while and is very cautious about how much is in the glass. She has done a great job of improving her own health so that he baby will be healthy.
One thing that struck me while reading all of this was the section about contingency planning. I have not heard my friend talk about a plan for if anything happens to them and who would take the baby. I am not the babies parent so obviously I do not know nor need to know everything about what they plan to do, but I like to be there to help when needed. She has been very responsible about the whole pregnancy and this being her first child, she has done a bunch of research, so I would not be surprised if she has a plan in place. This is something I will talk to her about just to make sure she has a plan because, like Donatelle(2019) says “A prearranged plan of action can smooth their[the kids] transition into new families; without one, a judge will usually decide who will raise them [the kid]” (p.117).
This blog was a bit different than others due to the fact that I have little personal experience on this topic, so I had to take my second hand experience and relate it to the book. I think that even relating the material in the book to my friends experiences makes the content of the book much more understandable and interesting.
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