In the waiting room
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 17: Staying Alive
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Sarah Kanowski
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Tanya sits at the side of the couch, her head resting on her hand. She smiles when I say "hello", but her two-year old daughter has been sick with a cold and Tanya's caught it. A headache and a blocked nose add to the usual discomforts of pregnancy, but she's made an effort for the appointment: immaculately dressed in silver hip-hop pants, dark hair tied back, clear olive skin delicately made up. Carol Dorn, the midwife, guides her to the scales and then sits her down to take her blood pressure.
We all turn at the sound of small footsteps pounding down the hall. A toddler appears at the doorway, followed by a cry of, "Ryan! Wait for me!" then a tall woman pushing a pram who takes a seat on the couch next to Tanya. Joanne tries to restrain Ryan from pushing his pram into the computer desk while she listens to Carol. The midwife explains that it's time to test for gestational diabetes, and hands her a sugar drink which I know from experience tastes foul. Joanne swallows it but her focus isn't on the baby inside her, nor on Ryan, who is intensifying his efforts to crash test the pram.
She is talking about an older son. "He's getting into fights and bullying, and I've had all this trouble from the new doctor. He had me in tears when I saw him. He says he's not ADHD and taken him off his medication but now he's worse." Joanne cracks her knuckles distractedly, each etched with a letter: L O V E. Carol puts out a knee to block Ryan, and suggests that the most important thing when dealing with behaviour is consistency. Joanne continues: "Now the counsellor says she won't see him again until his medication's sorted out." Carol offers to arrange a meeting with her and the counsellor and the doctor. Joanne consents but isn't calmed. "The other day he said if another baby dies he's going to kill himself."
"You see, that's not normal for a kid to say that," Carol says quickly. She takes a breath. "You've got remember he's had a lot of difficult things happen, he's had a lot of grief in his life."
"Yeah," nods Joanne, turning towards Ryan now. "Like him. He asks, ‘Where's Gracie?' And he looks at her ashes." Ryan gives up on the stroller, throws a crayon, and moves to an all-out grizzle. Joanne picks him up and says she'll take him outside for a run.
"Come back in an hour," Carol says, "and we'll do the diabetes."
I AM OLDER THAN BOTH THESE WOMEN, but this is my first pregnancy. I had never planned on this age to start having children. It was simply that by the time I finished doing the things I wanted – the things that I took for granted as normal – travelling, studying, starting to build a career, and trying various relationships until discovering a partner I could be excited about parenting with – there I was: thirty-one, average age for a first-time white mother. It's an unnerving feeling to reflect the zeitgeist so perfectly. If, like Tanya and Joanne, I was Aboriginal then my "normal" would be very different. The chances are I would have started having kids earlier and would keep having them for longer. It is also likely that my pregnancy would have been complicated by the kind of maternal risk factors which are all significantly higher among Australia's Indigenous population.
In one New South Wales study, more than half the Aboriginal women reported smoking during pregnancy, compared with 14 per cent of other women, while foetal alcohol syndrome has been estimated to be a hundred times higher in Australia's Aboriginal population. The consequences for Aboriginal women and their children are clear. Nationally, Indigenous children are more than twice as likely to be born with low birth weight or prematurely. These babies suffer health and developmental disadvantages for the rest of their lives.
Rates of stillbirths and neonatal deaths for babies with an Indigenous mother in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory are about twice those for other babies, while in South Australia the rate is three times as high. The rates of infant mortality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australia is more than double that for Native American or Maori children in the United States and New Zealand. Although it is now rare for any woman to die during labour in Australia, if you are black than you are three times more likely to die while giving birth to your baby.
SHE MOVES SO GRACEFULLY AND QUIETLY, I don't notice her come in. Tanya has seen the doctor and left, and sitting in her place is a very beautiful young woman, maybe sixteen or seventeen. Her smile is soft and open but she doesn't say a word and shakes her head when offered a cup of tea or a slice of cake.
Carol is busy on the phone and then Minna Huorata, a child and family nurse, walks in saying that Kerri-Lea hasn't turned up for her appointment and isn't answering her mobile. "I'll drop round," says Minna, "and see if she's there."
Carol turns to the new arrival, Lena. "How's it going, love?"
Lena answers so quietly that Carol leaves the desk to sit next to her on the couch. "I been getting drunk every night," Lena repeats.
"Have you?" Carol asks, taking Lena's hand. "How do you feel after?"
"Not good," Lena continues after a while. "I was at my sister's the other night and she says I pulled a knife on her boyfriend, but I can't remember."
They sit there quietly together. Finally Carol says, "You've got so much grief inside you, so much anger. Do you think you'd like someone to talk to? Yes? Because the drinking might help at first but then you'll just feel worse.
There's a nice new young counsellor in; she's young, she's really nice. Should we make a time to see her? Yes?"
Lena nods.
Carol continues, "Because we've got to be careful with this new generation, got to make it strong – we can't have the same problems as the last. That's right, isn't it? You'll have to come in another day to see the counsellor but let's get you to see Wendy while you're here today, okay? And I'll give you something to read."
The door opens and a receptionist wants to know where Minna is because someone is waiting for her outside. Then the GP, Wendy Thornthwaite, appears, saying that the ear specialist is in her consulting room so where should she see the antenatal patients? Carol answers their questions while sorting through a filing cabinet. A few minutes later, I look over at Lena and she's leaning into the couch holding a blue booklet titled Miscarriage and You. Carol is back on the phone, another woman with a big belly walks in, and Lena says quietly to no one in particular, "Because it's the third baby I've lost."