| Doula-ing, Part II |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|03:42 pm] |
|
The second birth I attended was even more difficult to process than the first one. I don't often lose sleep due to emotional disturbances, but I did after this birth, which is saying a lot.( Read more... ) |
|
|
| Doula-ing |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|01:02 pm] |
|
I have a couple of pretty hard doula experiences behind me... ( Read more... ) |
|
|
| Dilemma |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|11:25 pm] |
So.
Zsuzsi's kindergarten closes for 5 weeks in July.
Vivi's daycare closes for 3 weeks in August.
Back to back.
So basically I have 8 weeks during which one or the other of my children will not be in their various institutions.
I have a problem.
Should I attempt to shove my kids off on other people and backup institutions? Cos my schedule is pretty damn tight these days, and I can't even imagine giving anything up that I've worked so hard and so long to build up... not to mention the fact that we need the money, so the activities I'd most readily give up are the things that we live off of, so those are the things I probably SHOULDN'T cut back any further.
On the other hand, I'm definitely getting the message from people whose opinion I value that I should be taking time off to just be with my kids. And I can certainly see the value in that, and it would be kind of tempting to take a break from this insane pace I've set myself and reorient a little bit. And the idea of foisting my kids off on other people in suboptimal ways makes me feel terribly guilty and like a bad mother. And the idea of having to add "what to do with my kids on a daily basis" to the list of things I have to plan and coordinate gives me a headache.
Sigh.
Also, just got a text msg from one of my doula clients that she's having intermittent contractions, so what I should REALLY be doing with my time right now is SLEEP. |
|
|
| On evidence |
[May. 10th, 2009|11:32 am] |
One of the things that attracted me to lactation consulting, then doula-ing and midwifery, aside from the huge thrill of helping mothers, was the fact that the skills we are taught and the guidelines we are expected to follow (by international accreditation organizations) are evidence-based.
Conversely, one of my biggest pet peeves with the breastfeeding management and birthing practices followed by the majority of the medical establishment is that they are plain simply wrong. Erroneous, not based on evidence, mired in "this is the way we do things at this hospital" kind of thinking. Drives me up the fucking wall.
( Read more... ) |
|
|
| More career thoughts |
[May. 6th, 2009|06:03 pm] |
I hate, hate, HATE translating these days!!!
I also hate, hate, HATE doing administration like invoicing and collecting money.
On the up side, I've managed to squeeze these activities into as little time as possible, and now do non-paying, but far more enjoyable work the rest of the time.
Mondays, I do prenatal care with the midwife I work with.
Tuesdays and Fridays, I'm at the hospital doing lactation consulting. Have I mentioned that I got a volunteer position at the hospital? This was the plot that involved my obstetrician. It is SO awesome. I get to wear all white and even have a nametag. Best of all, I have access to women in the last couple of weeks of pregnancy coming in for their NSTs as well as women who have just given birth as well as women who are coming into the breastfeeding clinic with specific problems. It is COOL. One of the reasons it's cool is because *fingers crossed* this will allow me to accumulate the 500 hours I need before I can take the IBCLC exam. If they approve my plan, I could take the test next summer! Yay!!!
Wednesdays I have my mommy-baby group.
That's the regular volunteer (read: non-paying) work that I do. I also attend a fair number of workshops and case study groups, in terms of money, that's even worse because not only am I not making money, I'm spending money. Oh, yes, and I'm also doing the certification program for becoming a childbirth educator. In my spare time, you know.
As for paying work, I have a varying number of psychotherapy clients. Right now, just one. Doula clients come and go, too, totally unpredictable. If I do doula work through the midwifery practice, I don't get paid for it because I'm technically just an apprentice there, and I offer my services in exchange for being taught. If it's MY client, then I get paid. But so far, I've only had one paying client. I also get paid for making house calls for lactation consulting, but I ask a ridiculously low rate since I'm still not officially certified.
I squeeze my other paying work (that actually constitutes the majority of the money I make) in around these activities. I still have one student, and I still have one steady translating job, plus incidental work comes in now and then. I try to finish on any given day by 2-3 pm, so I can go pick up the girlies between 3-4 pm.
I think I have a pretty sweet thing going on. I'm making more money than the average person does in this country by spending relatively few hours a week on things that generate this income, and the rest of the time I can devote to doing things I'm passionate about. Hopefully, down the line, the things I'm passionate about will also make me more money, but that depends on building up a practice, and building a practice works best through word of mouth, so it takes time.
I'm happy with the way my life is going, even though I've recently had to cut back on the number of extracurricular things I sign up for (like doula groups, workshops, etc) because it was cutting out too big a slice of my time with my family.
And this is why I'm a bit befuddled that my mother has been making snide and snarky comments about the work that I do. Near as I can figure, she thinks I'm wasting my ivy league education by doing what I do. First of all, I don't think that I am - I still do psychotherapy, and I still work with sexuality and reproductive issues. I also make good money, have a flexible schedule and spend most of my time doing things I love and care about. What's there to be snarky about?
I keep asking her if she'd be more satisfied that I'm taking good advantage of my ivy league education if I had a 9-5 government-funded psychologist position for near-minimum-wage and no flexibility. (Even jobs that sucky are hard to come by for psychologists, but even if I could get one, why would I want to?)
So I'm a bit baffled why she's so hostile to my perinatal work. Yeah, perhaps it's not prestigious to educate women about childbirth, or support them through labor, or help them breastfeed, or show them how to wear their baby... but it's hugely fulfilling and I think very important. So it's not glamorous... though I happen to think it is. It still bugs me though that she doesn't think much of it. |
|
|
| Take your shots |
[Apr. 4th, 2009|07:34 am] |
I've signed up for a childbirth educator certification program. (Yay!!!) One of our assignments calls for identifying effective communication skills in doula and/or childbirth educator work and evaluating whether I'm any good at any of those skills.
And then asking trusted others how they perceive my performance on these communication skills.
So, my dear audience, I'm asking you to judge honestly (but constructively), which of the following communication skills am I good at, and which are the skills I need to improve:
Express ideas clearly
Express key concepts in everyday, non-jargon language
Create a comfortable/safe environment for communication
Listen well
Give feedback that communication was understood
Provide empathetic (rather than sympathetic) responses
Build rapport
Identify and respond to the motivating hope behind fears
Ask mainly open questions
Allow the other to talk more
Focus on and respond to the other person
Avoid shifting conversation to own experiences
Thanks! |
|
|
| Szilvia Vivien |
[Mar. 6th, 2009|01:52 pm] |
Vivi turned 2 on February 28th. She continues to be a little delight: impish, happy, cute. She does have a temper, but when she loses it, she rapidly recovers, flashes me one of her grins and declares "Vivi happy!"( Read more... ) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 7th, 2009|01:36 pm] |
I know I asked this question before and for some reason can't find the reply, so please humor me.
What good books would you recommend for someone whose partner was sexually abused as a child?
Thanks! |
|
|
| Health update on the girls |
[Nov. 26th, 2008|10:21 pm] |
|
As you know, Zsuzsi has two lines on her upper incisors, brown lines which appeared exactly during the period that she was getting cow's milk in her diet. The portion of the teeth that grew out before the cow's milk was added to her diet is white and healthy, and the portion that grew out after we removed cow's milk from her diet is also white and healthy. ( Read more... ) |
|
|
| Kids |
[Nov. 25th, 2008|11:34 pm] |
Sadly, I have no recent photos of the kids, you'll have to make do without.
Both Zsuzsi and Vivi are going to kindergarten and daycare, respectively, pretty much full time now. The process of getting them acclimated was much more painless than I originally feared. Of course, after our failure putting Zsuzsi in daycare at age 1, and then at age 2, I think I had good reason to fear her reaction to kindergarten. ( Read more... ) |
|
|
| Stuffity stuff |
[Nov. 25th, 2008|11:03 pm] |
|
So my restlessness of late has given way to a certain resignation and a grim determination to take care of any and all unresolved business we have in our lives (of which there is plenty, as both of us have been following an ostrich mentality about most of our administrative obligations). David's been complaining that I'm unliveable-with recently, being all irritable and glum. It may be true, but I feel more focused and determined than anything else, to clean up this mess that we live in. I suppose dealing with all the bullshit with a smile on my face is the next step.( More rant behind the cut ) |
|
|
| Dumb financial question |
[Nov. 11th, 2008|11:17 pm] |
When my father died, I was left in charge of investing the family's money.
I did not do a very good job of it, apparently, because now, almost 10 years later, most of those investments have significantly lost value... I know right now is a particularly bad spell, but even beforehand... it took 6 years for the family's money I invested to come back to its original value after some particularly bad market crash.
I did everything by the book, though, I invested in funds, I spread the investments over various industries and types of funds, I researched the funds' quality and performance, and chose the ones that had proven most stable over long periods of time, even the riskier funds.
And still, most of those funds have lost money.
Did I just invest at a particularly bad time? As best I recall, I probably invested in 1999, and I think there was some sort of bubble happening then. Which burst, leaving our investments basically halved.
So this is what I don't get. All the "books" on investing say that stocks are long-term the best investment, beating any other form. I've now left the money in there for almost 10 years, but contrary to expectations, it did NOT gain value, most of them have lost value. What was my mistake?
Was it that I invested one lump sum at one particular moment in time (that happened to be at the height of a bubble?)
Is investment meant to be a process, not a single step like I did? Cos the only way I can figure I could have done anything differently was to have spread out my purchases, so as to "sample" both high and low prices as the market heaved about. Then the low prices could possibly have compensated for the high ones.
Was that my mistake? |
|
|
| Your regularly scheduled bout of dissatisfaction |
[Nov. 6th, 2008|09:35 pm] |
I've been feeling pretty grumpy about our life here in Hungary. I'm dissatisfied by most everything about it, from people's general attitude ("Hey, if you can only donate us 80 ml of breastmilk a day for which you have to sterilize yourself from head to toe and pass several annoying health checks, then don't even bother, it's too much trouble for us." type of attitude), to the way we make money, and the way we spend that money.
It all started when I realized that I'd have to scrape together our monthly income from something like 8 different sources. Yes, that means doing 8 completely unrelated types of activities for 8 completely unrelated entities. I don't actually know whether it was 8, but you get the idea. It may have been more.
I'm annoyed by the fact that we never know how much money we're going to make, or whether the money we make will be enough to cover our bills and expenses. Most of the time it is, sometimes it isn't, and then we just have to pay extra in fines the following month. Argh.
I've been resentful of the fact that I'm not doing something that offers too much perspective in the long term. The money I make comes mainly from translating and teaching - again. My clients have proven to be way too unreliable, right now I have one. I used to have 5. I could live with 5.
I want a job, a job that's also professionally fulfilling, pays me a salary that's high enough to support my family, pays me regularly and on time and once a month, offers me health insurance and a retirement plan. Is that too much to ask?!?!
Apparently, it is. At least in this country, there doesn't seem to be too much out there for me. Seriously, if I bother to get my license in clinical psychology, I'd have to go to school for another 4 years during which I make basically minimum wage, only to find at the end of the tunnel that there are no, read NO jobs for clinical psychologists, and I'd have to go into private practice, which I already do anyway. So why bother?
So I started looking towards the States to see what kinds of jobs I'd be qualified for with a Masters degree in Psychology (plus a certificate from a Hungarian university in Cognitive and Behavior Therapy which likely no one will care much about in the States).
Not much. I run into the same problem - I'm not licensed. I could become licensed at the Master's level (Licensed Professional Counselor or LPC) - after I complete 3000 hours of supervised work. Most of which apparently happens in UNPAID internships. What the fuck? I'm supposed to take out loans for my family to live on while I work for free for three years?!?! How exactly did they think people would do this?
I could go to graduate school and get a PhD (and live on a 14 000 a year stipend IF I'm amazingly lucky and get into a program that actually offers a stipend and tuition remission). That of course has appeal due to the snob factor, but after perusing some graduate programs, I was forcibly reminded of why exactly it was that I left a PhD program with just a Masters... I don't LIKE academia. I want to actually do something tangible and productive and work with people. Ideally pregnant and very small people. :)
But assuming I actually complete a PhD program this time and live like a starving student for 5 more years, I still won't be licensed, because licensure at the PhD level ALSO requires something like 3000 hours of supervised work.
So stay tuned. I have no idea what it is that I want to do. I just know what it is I *don't* want to do. |
|
|
| Need help |
[Sep. 30th, 2008|09:06 am] |
Is there any way to set up a site that collects signatures for a petition?
The background story is way too long, the gist is that there is an open letter to the head of the Hungarian pediatric association concerning this dubious formula-supporting campaign the association is promoting. We have two versions of the open letter: one with signatures from doctors and other "important" people, the other should be something that's accessible to anyone who wants to sign it, concerned parents, laypeople, etc.
Is it possible to set this up with a webpage and a form? Is there some automated thingie anywhere online that would make this easy? |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 18th, 2008|11:20 pm] |
One of Zsuzsi's favorite things to do these days is to go through our pockets in search of change.
We hate this game, since we are slobs, and most of our cash usually hangs out in our various pockets, which Zsuzsi goes through with great glee and enjoyment. She knows we hate this. So in a preemptive strike, she comes into the room with a wad of cash in her hands:
"Don't be angry, Mommy. Don't be angry with me about the money."
or, running off to the bedroom, the haven of all cast-off clothing:
"Don't worry, Mommy. I'll find Daddy's money."
It's funny in a way, but it's also annoying, and we fear we're not being Responsible Parents if we let her play with money as if it were ... well... a plaything. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rokica's journal