Pregnant and Unheard: Women's Fight for Better Care

um as far as you know what the

professional say should

happen I can help you okay hold your

finger like

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this now you can talk you say hello

hello my name is

pandaa well with my students they'll

remark you know Miss Brown you're all

belly you know you're all belly and then

they'll say my L you get like 50 pounds

or you know and

so since they're struck by that I think

it would be more memorable if I speak to

my experience and I tell them well this

is how I eat and then they see what I'm

snacking

on and so I would be very deliberate in

reinforcing those things and talking to

them about what I do because I want the

young ladies to know that you too can

have a healthy pregnancy experience you

don't have to gain 60 or 70 pounds you

know it doesn't have to be this

traumatic experience that ends with

medical emergencies and more

prescriptions put it in the

back you don't mind being on theat

I don't believe that race has an impact

on my health

choices my physiological Health but I

know that among the students that I

teach it's

cultural you know I it's mostly black

Caribbean Hispanic students and their

diet is cultural you know it's this is

the way my grandmother Cooks this is the

way my mother cooks this is the way I

will cook so being from a different or

having a different

mindset being black but just culturally

having different experiences my mother

being a

nurse and making certain choices with

our diet and what we were and were not

able to eat it has impacted me and I

want to pass the same thing along to my

students

I believe the American dream of the

earlier part of the 19th century had

more to do

with finances you know can you own a

home can you as a man provide for your

family can you as a woman be that

motherly nurturing domestic figure and I

believe that has shifted more toward

everyone having this personal sense of

success an individual sense of success

but I would like to extend the American

dream to mean am I balanced you know

within my

community you know am I contributing to

it so that's how I Define the American

dream using what you

have to not just benefit

yourself but to benefit the communities

that you're

in I

was surprised at how quickly things went

and how I ended up on the other side and

I realized well hold on I'm a medical

professional I have knowledge about this

I've worked in the field at that time I

had been working in the field 10 years I

was a mother so I had experience from

the other side of being a woman having a

baby all of these things had happened in

my life life and so I could not

understand how did I get there so fast

and be so helpless and it was that point

that helped me to move

towards go back to what you know because

you doing that can help other women you

have a complete understanding now of the

system and how it works and even why it

works this way you can help change that

for other people you can support other

women in ways that that maybe right now

they are not getting the support cuz I

know that if I had had support and

understanding of what was going on I

wouldn't have gotten myself into that

position so I realized that I could make

a difference because if it was happening

to me this way then it was obviously

happening to other women particularly

black women and that was a real pivotal

moment for me a changing point in my

time here because within the year this

happened and I knew I have to go back to

who I am and what I am and what I can do

in order to not only Empower myself but

to empower other

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women building from there I opened back

up to seeing patients began to build the

foundation for what I'm doing doing now

and as I over these years over these

past 25 years I've got to a point where

I know exactly what I need to do can't

wait to see his face he's going to be so

cute women in this country have very

little opportunity to speak and be heard

I can see how the way I practice the way

I do my work already opens up an

opportunity where there may not have

been one afforded before for women to

express themselves to to share what's on

their heart and to talk and to be heard

creating space

creating safety around that time when

we're in interaction on a health issue

is more important than just that

specific health issue and it helps us

both to share in a way that's authentic

and is open honest and is Meaningful

because usually what happens after that

sharing is the woman becomes empowered

to do something one little thing or many

things but it's certainly the beginning

of a new way of thinking and a new way

of being around her health and her

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empowerment well with this pregnancy I

started out feeling confident and that I

was more informed because I've already

had the different experiences before so

I felt like I knew what I wanted

and even with that it's been very

frustrating because it's just been

roadblock after roadblock after

roadblock I was referred to a high-risk

Clinic where at first it was okay

because they were actually very lenient

on me wanting to deliver vaginally you

know they were on board with it I spoke

to the head the head physician and he

was fine he was like you know it's fine

for you to do that we just recommend

that you do it at the hospital

but I start going over there and it

really

felt like I was just a chart I don't

know who anybody is nobody knows who I

am they just read you know the sheet on

my chart real quick before they come in

the room there's no follow-ups it just

felt like I wasn't getting any attention

at all I was left in the dark there was

no information being given I wasn't

getting any answers even medications

that were prescribed to me that I had

bad reactions to nobody was held

accountable for anything I I really

didn't feel safe at all every time I

went for an appointment it felt like I

was being treated like a medical

condition it feels um you feel helpless

very helpless and even me you know I I

do my research outside and and I come

prepared with questions but when you do

you get like a kind of

a a push back from the doctors like if

you're somebody that's asking questions

that wants to like that's inquisitive

and wants to know what's going on like

they expect it just to like move in and

out they'll just check you do what they

have to do they don't tell you what

they're doing how you're measuring

anything you know they they measured my

you know to see the size of the baby and

I had no idea until I came here that I

was actually measuring a little smaller

than I should be so I didn't know there

no there's no feedback and if you ask

there's automatically like you you feel

like a wall coming down and they get

defensive like they don't want to

explain you feel helpless and you feel

you don't feel safe