Tag Archives: Parks and Recreation

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day: Tracey’s Story

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The following post comes to us via Tracey Sands, a graduate student at Arizona State University’s West Campus studying communication as it relates to advocacy. Tracey believes dialogue is an act of love and strives to empower others to find and use their voice. She is an education outreach intern at Planned Parenthood Arizona.

It was a Monday. It was just like every other day. I went to work, ate lunch with my coworkers, went home, ran a few miles, watched a few episodes on Netflix (Parks and Recreation, of course), and went to bed all cozied up in my warm, winter-themed footie pajamas. It was just like every other day. And then it wasn’t. On Monday, January 13, 2015, I had a miscarriage.

At 11:30 p.m., I woke up screaming and in the fetal position. I was in so much pain, which came out of nowhere. I couldn’t process what was happening. I went to the bathroom to change my tampon and blood was everywhere. My gut already knew what I couldn’t let my mind or heart accept: I was having a miscarriage.

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Let’s use this day to share our stories.

After coming to my senses, I went to the emergency department. I was brought into a room within five minutes of my arrival and was given an IV of morphine. The pain didn’t go away. It came, and it went. I was having contractions, yet my head and heart still did not want to accept the fact that I was (1) even pregnant and (2) having a miscarriage.

After experiencing what may have been the most excruciating physical pain of my life, the existential questions that scarred my mind afterward were of a different, much deeper type of pain. How ignorant am I not to know my own body enough to realize I was pregnant? How do I mourn the loss of my baby when I didn’t know I was pregnant? How do I mourn the loss of my baby when I didn’t even want one? Due to the intensity and confusion of the feelings surrounding my miscarriage, these distressing thoughts had nowhere to go, staying within the walls of my own experience, ultimately creating a vacuum of shame and guilt. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Sexually Transmitted Infections and Seniors

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For a while now, seniors plus sex has equaled a surefire route to punchlines and nervous giggles. Take, for instance, an episode of Amy Poehler’s old TV show, Parks and Recreation, titled “Sex Education.” In the opening scene, Poehler’s character Leslie Knope sets up the premise of the episode:

Soon, Knope and her team of public servants find themselves giving information about sexual health to an audience full of elderly citizens, which attracts the attention of abstinence advocates, who accuse her of moral depravity. Hilarity ensues. Funny stuff!

Funny, but based on a not-so-funny reality: Baby boomers and other older people are facing rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), both here in Arizona and nationwide, as well as across the pond in Jolly Old England.

Earlier this year, the Arizona Department of Health Services released data showing an increase in STD rates among people 55 years of age or older. For example, in Maricopa County, this population more than doubled its gonorrhea rate, which climbed from 6.1 cases per 100,000 people in 2012, to 12.7 per 100,000 people in 2014. That’s still much lower than the overall rate for Arizona, which was 97.8 cases per 100,000 people in 2013, but the fact that the rates of gonorrhea and other STDs are spiking among the 55-plus population is alarming nevertheless. Continue reading →