Armenian Pregnancy Chronicles #3: Prenatal Care

It is 4 am and I can’t sleep. I was turning and turning in my bed, trying to relax, finding the right position to relieve my sciatic nerve pain, then emptying my mind of all the thoughts of yesterday’s stressful moving experience (we are moving the women’s center to a new location and it seems my present condition is making it harder for me to cope with it. But nothing is helping and it seems that my body, 7 months pregnant now, is preparing for waking up in the middle of the night and adapting to the future baby’s schedule.

Republican Hospital - Birth Center

I went to do my routine tests this week. The Republican hospital where I will be giving birth this time seems trustworthy. Some parts of the building were renovated with the help of USAID and some parts need more work. But overall it is a decent place although it lacks a little bit of a friendly ambiance, colors, nice soothing posters…I will visit soon the operating/delivery facilities and post delivery rooms as well and keep you updated on that.

Armenian Pregnancy Chronicles #2: Women Solidarity!

I am traveling so much during this pregnancy. And I feel that my baby is enjoying it very much, since she/he is not giving me any hard time, sitting quietly in the warmth of my belly. From time to time kicking vigorously to remind me that he/she is there when I get caught up in a heated discussion during my seminars.

I am now in Shushi, just came back from a dynamic meeting at the Women’s Resource Center here. Gohar and I started this branch of the Center 3 years ago with the help of Gayane that I met in Shushi during the summer of 2001, when I was volunteering with Land and Culture organization. Since then, Gayane and I bonded immediately. At that time her children were very young and I used to visit her with my daughter on my back for coffee some homemade sweets and long discussions. She used to tell me about her life in Karabakh; the war, how she met her husband and then her experience as a young mother in a war-torn city. We used to think together of different ways to improve the life of women here and what were some of the important issues they were dealing with.

Women's Resource Center of Shushi

I wouldn’t imagine that 7 years later we would be working together on developing a women’s center in Shushi. So much changed since then.  It was a real challenge to bring together women and create this unique space where they were accepted fully and given the opportunity to voice their concerns and talk endlessly of their dreams and losses for the past years.

During this trip, I realized how much the center has evolved and how important it started to become to all the women using it. Many contributed to this over the years; Briony and Julia provided the space for free, Tamar gave up her life in Paris to spend a couple of months in this harsh town to help the staff organize, Ani taught English and gave hope, Hasmig introduced non-violent communication, Lusya implemented video workshops, Tatevik, Anush, Gayane, Shushan, Lucine, Nina and other volunteers made endless trips back and forth from Yerevan to help with programs and activities. And many more contributed in different ways. Today the center is open 4 days a week, provides many services to the women in Shushi and surrounding areas. It is also a safe haven for those needing a space to talk and share their problems and find solutions for different issues they are faced with.

Active volunteer discussing with guests from Martakert

Tonight 5 young women from Martakert (border region of Kharabagh) came to visit. The Center is trying to outreach to the regions gradually.

It takes lots of effort and dedication to sustain a women’s center in a conflict region. Resources are scarce and motivation is low, we face many challenges. But it seems that something is changing, years ago it was difficult to find any local volunteers, today Nelly and some others come over after their University classes to help and want to do more.

Many times I was close to losing hope that anything will happen in this town. But today I left the meeting with a huge smile on my face. I felt so good to see how warm and energetic this center has become and how much the women are trying to do things with so little resources. 

to know more about the women's resource center in Shushi go here.

Armenian Pregnancy Chronicles #2: Women Solidarity

I am traveling so much during this pregnancy. And I feel that my baby is enjoying it very much, since she/he is not giving me any hard time, sitting quietly in the warmth of my belly. From time to time kicking vigorously to remind me that he/she is there when I get caught up in a heated discussion during my seminars.

I am now in Shushi, just came back from a dynamic meeting at the Women’s Resource Center here. Gohar and I started this branch of the Center 3 years ago with the help of Gayane that I met in Shushi during the summer of 2001, when I was volunteering with Land and Culture organization. Since then, Gayane and I bonded immediately. At that time her children were very young and I used to visit her with my daughter on my back for coffee some homemade sweets and long discussions. She used to tell me about her life in Karabakh; the war, how she met her husband and then her experience as a young mother in a war-torn city. We used to think together of different ways to improve the life of women here and what were some of the important issues they were dealing with.

I wouldn’t imagine that 7 years later we would be working together on developing a women’s center in Shushi. So much changed since then.  It was a real challenge to bring together women and create this unique space where they were accepted fully and given the opportunity to voice their concerns and talk endlessly of their dreams and losses for the past years.

During this trip, I realized how much the center has evolved and how important it started to become to all the women using it. Many contributed to this over the years; Briony and Julia provided the space for free, Tamar gave up her life in Paris to spend a couple of months in this harsh town to help the staff organize, Ani taught English and gave hope, Hasmig introduced non-violent communication, Lusya implemented video workshops, Tatevik, Anush, Gayane, Shushan, Lucine, Nina and other volunteers made endless trips back and forth from Yerevan to help with programs and activities. And many more contributed in different ways. Today the center is open 4 days a week, provides many services to the women in Shushi and surrounding areas. It is also a safe haven for those needing a space to talk and share their problems and find solutions for different issues they are faced with.

Tonight 5 young women from Martakert (border region of Kharabagh) came to visit. The Center is trying to outreach to the regions gradually.

It takes lots of effort and dedication to sustain a women’s center in a conflict region. Resources are scarce and motivation is low, we face many challenges. But it seems that something is changing, years ago it was difficult to find any local volunteers, today Nelly and some others come over after their University classes to help and want to do more.

Many times I was close to losing hope that anything will happen in this town. Today I left the meeting with a huge smile, I felt so good to see how warm and energetic this center has become and how much the women are trying to do things with so little resources. 

LGBT and journalists: a journey through tolerance and mafia game!

Tolerance, a very hard word to digest, specially if you are living in a small nation constantly struggling to keep its identity, to live, survive and exist.

Tolerance was a very hard and critical word to gasp during our weekend seminar in Tsaghkatsor, where 6 journalists and 6 LGBT community members were stuck in one remote place for 3 days to rethink all that ---

During the numerous discussions “hamaseramol”/“arvamol” was constantly defined – one part was blaming the other for writing homophobic articles and inciting hate speech in society, the other part, feeling under attack was criticizing the latter for being so closed, unorganized and not having adequate communication skills with the media and others. The ambiance was tense in the beginning, people were there with all their beliefs, stereotypes and prejudices and we had 2 and half days to work with all that.

But the real change happened at night…

Once the sun was down, nobody cared who was gay, journalist, hotel worker, diasporan, or hayasdantsi. At night something different happened which deconstructed for a moment the whole dynamic of the group. Yes, it was Mafia Time! And in that room gathered players regardless of their background, sexual preferences and social status.  Two days in a row we played the game choking of laughter. And believe me when you spend 2 nights playing mafia with someone, it is very difficult to hate that person or ignore him/her. And a whole new kind of relationship starts, building a strong base for a long lasting tolerance.

The second day, journalists were ready to protect their gay game partners when hotel workers were threatening not to clean the latter’s room or got angry when a bunch of Armenian men were making fun of them and saying homophobic comments.

The last day, journalists teamed with a gay partner and prepared amazing articles and pieces to share with the rest of us, some of them are already published, other will soon. The most important thing is that communication is always possible even when the situation seems impossible.  And change starts with those participants who had the will and the courage to face their deepest fears and challenge their most important beliefs.

You can read some of the articles here:

http://www.radiovan.am/arman_tolerantnost/

http://jenkasblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post.html?spref=fb 

Armenian Pregnancy Chronicles #1

I can say I am feeling much better.  This pregnancy was a little more stressful in the beginning because of my age.  When you’re over 35, you need to go through the worries of the health of the baby, triple test and the amnio. But the most nerve-racking experience was the wait. Thank god I was occupied with my work and travelling for conferences and meetings to keep my mind off of things.

The experience was even more interesting in Armenia. This is my 4^th pregnancy in general and my 2^nd in Armenia. My mom had almost a nervous breakdown once she heard the news over the phone. For her, one was enough and having more kids was just limiting myself as a woman and bringing hardship on myself. She is not the typical Armenian mom or Grandmother, too independent, she told me from the first day: “I did my share and raised my kids, don’t count on me for babysitting, I want to have fun with my grand-kids but not devote my entire life to them.” I appreciated her sincerity and decided to have 4 of my own and enjoy each one of the experiences. 

So when I found out that I was pregnant, I was happily surprised and thought little about age and problems, until I came back to Armenia after a long vacation in Montreal.  I went to my doctor’s office at the Hanrapetakan Hospital (Republican hosp.), same doctor who delivered my 3^rd and a wonderful one, one of those rare doctors who will not scare you uselessly and will listen to your needs (which is very rare in Armenia).

He advised me to take the triple test and directed me to this new and high tech lab in Gomidas, DIAGEN. They were very professionnaly and I recommend it for any type of blood tests you need to do in Armenia.

After a week I went to pick up the results with my husband and went directly to the doctor, he looked at the numbers and expressed his concerns immediately.  I had a little over the average risk to give birth to a baby with trisomy (down syndrome).  I didn’t know what to think, I was under the shock, what next? That’s the hardest question you could ask yourself in these circumstances. We left the clinic depressed and had to wait another 2-3 weeks to pass an amnio to have the final results. The doctors explained to us the options: either to keep the baby, which in his opinion was a very difficult options, since Armenia unlike Canada doesn’t have the opportunities and services to support parents with children with down syndrome.  The other option was to do an abortion after the amnio results that would take me to almost 4-5 months of pregnancy and would be very hard for me to take.

On the day of the amnio, I was even more stressed, although I was trying to not think about it a lot, trying to relax as much as possible, but I was worried about the intervention and doing it in Armenia. So I went that day, the doctor prepared everything, checked the baby and started. The first 2 attempts were unsuccessful, I was trying to hold my breath, not move, concentrate my mind on other things.

I was feeling the needle entering deep in my womb, but nothing, not a single drop of amniotic fluid was coming out. He tried for the 3^rd and last attempt and finally was able to succeed. I was almost ready to cry from worry; mostly worrying if this was going to harm the fetus or result in a miscarriage. I had to rest for 2-3 days, take it easy a little. So I spend a couple of days at home, in front of TV, writing and reading like crazy all kind of info I could get on the internet.

The wait was horrific and stressful. Then the results came when I was in Istanbul for a conference and my husband called me to say that everything was ok and I was carrying a healthy baby.  You couldn’t imagine my joy! I was finally going to enjoy the pregnancy.