June Community-Based Research Reflection

¡Buenos días/Good morning! I hope you all are doing wonderfully on this lovely Friday morning. A lot has happened this week in terms of insights and interviews, but since I have one more shift tomorrow, I will update the blog Sunday for a more holistic view of the week. This post will be devoted to reflection on my research and fellowship thus far in response to questions that APPLES, which administers the CBR (community-based research) portion of the grant I have received, has sent to the seven CBR-SURF fellows. The questions are below, along with my reflections, and some pictures from Mesilla, New Mexico and outside the back of the birth center. More to come on Sunday, though!

Please share surprises or challenges you've encountered with your fellowship project thus far.

While I have noticed a distinct shift in my internal happiness and comfort being here this week, one of the biggest challenges of the beginning stages of my fellowship was getting used to living alone and coming to a new place and part of the country I have never been to before. Even though El Paso is in the U.S., it doesn't exactly feel like you are in the U.S. Since I have never been to Mexico, I am not sure if it feels quite like that either, but the culture, food, and people certainly appears more Mexican. One of the professors I will have next semester who is a native El Pasoan told me before I left that El Paso feels neither like the U.S. nor Mexico. This ambiguity was strange and unsettling at first, but as I became more used to it, I realized that it's full of opportunities for blending and sharing in a very unique way. I read so much about the border and Southwest in my English class last semester, but to truly understand and absorb the way a border town feels, you have to live in it yourself.

Mixed with this uncertainty was the extreme loneliness I was experiencing becoming used to living alone for the first time. While I had been planning for months to live alone in the casita, yet again, it did not truly become real until I arrived and Sam left. Coping with those first two weeks was extremely painful and different. Doing most of your errands, eating, and reflecting alone (at least for a person who likes to process and be in the company of others) in a place that already feels a bit ambiguous is/was challenging. It was not until my shift on Tuesday that I finally clicked in and felt completely present at the birth center and in El Paso. I'm not sure what changed, but as I was lying upstairs after documenting a special birth (I will write more about that Sunday, but it was the first one I have ever been to in which we remained completely silent as the baby was born, allowing the woman and her family to experience this transition and introduce themselves to their new family member without interference checking heart tones or blood pressure), all of these thoughts began flowing into my mind. I listened intently. Some of the lessons I had learned that day about reading people's energy and meeting them halfway in interactions flooded into my mind, reiterating the importance of being completely present. Of course I miss my family and friends, but I realized that pining away for or thinking about what I was missing at home did no good. I was in this place, these challenges, these joys for a reason and I needed to immerse myself in them to get the most out of the experience. I felt like I was finally awake and aware in a way I hadn't been before. I have noticed I feel more like myself again and am trying my best to hold onto that significant lesson and incorporate it into my daily life. Living alone is hard and lonely at times, but allows you to live in a heightened sense of awareness of yourself and all that's around you if you let it.

In terms of the research itself, I never anticipated how difficult it would be to keep up with detailed fieldnotes and how my focus would shift from client's experiences to those of the staff and students. Even though I keep a small notebook with me at all times on shifts and write notes in it frequently, my desire to transfer these onto my computer and embellish them was pretty minimal. I believe this was due to two factors. I didn't want to feel even more lonely by writing in the quiet for hours on end and I wanted a way to feel separated from the intensity of my experiences from the center to have time for self-care and reflection. Communicating with Karen (my research adviser) and my family has really helped me understand the discipline it takes to do research and that it must be balanced with time for fun and relaxation. While I am feeling better about working through these notes now, I am not sure if writing them will be my favorite part of the experience. The birth center is a truly transformative place and I like to let what I learn and feel just be for awhile before writing about it. The insights about the scope of my project and interviews leads nicely into the next question.

Talk about the scope of your project. Has it changed? Become more focused?

While my research proposal had a distinct focus on the experiences of clients and reasons they were crossing the border to access care and give birth at MLL, I have realized the various limitations on their time. They spend so much time waiting at the border and birth center and have families and their life to get back to once they're finished with their cita or parto (birth). I respect what they go through to get and stay here (once a woman is "in dates" at 36 weeks, she will often stay here with a family member or friend until she gives birth to ensure she can make it to the center in time) and feel that adding one more thing to their trip here could be both stressful and disrespectful. There is also an interesting dynamic in my role as a care provider and researcher. I feel like I am walking a thin line with these two roles and that my desire to interview clients could seem confusing or odd to them. I have observed and accepted the challenges of doing interviews with clients and will only do them if it feels right. Therefore, my project has become more focused on interviewing students and staff, but especially the students. Being here has also helped me see how crucial the relationship between the center and school is and how important it is to understand the dynamic between those two places. There are many power dynamics at play, as well, among the students/staff and clients in terms of race, class, and educational opportunities and the students/staff are very cognizant of those. While my research is always evolving, I would say my interview focus has shifted more to students and staff. Some important themes that have emerged in my fieldnotes (Karen really emphasized these for me) include the apparent divide between the emotional and clinical aspects of being a midwife and the challenge of blending those into one's practice, the many forms of "family" at the birth center, and the concept of time and how staff, students, and clients are experiencing that in similar and dissimilar ways.

Well, it's time to write up and think about my fieldnotes from Tuesday and go to the laundromat to do some laundry. I have my fourth shift at the clinic tomorrow and am excited that a fellow Women's Studies friend from UNC will be visiting me on Sunday on her way out to Arizona. I will be sending out this week's update on Sunday. ¡Cuidense/Take care!