AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY on an EMBODIED EXPERIENCE of PREGNANCY, CHILDBIRTH, and DISABILITY by Heather Kuttai
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MATERNITY ROLLS/ROLES: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY ON AN EMBODIED EXPERIENCE OF PREGNANCY, CHILDBIRTH, AND DISABILITY by Heather Kuttai Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science College of Kinesiology, University of Saskatchewan Copyright Heather Kuttai, February 2009. All Rights Reserved. ABSTRACT As a woman with a spinal cord injury who uses a wheelchair, my thesis is an autoethnography that is based largely on the journals I have written in over the last twenty years, and in particular the journals I kept while I was pregnant and giving birth to my two children. Disability is a pervasive ideology that informs many of our cultural ideas of self and other, what constitutes acceptable and celebratory bodies, political stances, public policy, and language. Much of the literature that examines the female bodily experience excludes the stories and experiences of women with disabilities. Because the body with disabilities is often seen for what it can not do, taking on the role of mother can give the body a different value, status, and worth. I feel that my lived experiences as a woman with a disability experiencing pregnancy and childbirth offers insights and understanding into what it is already known about women’s bodies. I display multiple levels of personal and cultural consciousness while connecting to the larger understandings of the culture of pregnancy, childbirth, and disability. i DEDICATION To Patrick and Chelsea For giving me a story to tell And for Darrell Because this is his story too 143 ii ACKNOWLEGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Donna Goodwin, for her tremendous support and unrelenting faith in this project. I would have given up many times if it had not been for her ability to say all the right things at just the right times. I would like to acknowledge my committee members, Dr. Kent Kowalski and Dr. Louise Humbert, who gave me their time, attention, feedback, and good ideas. I also want to recognize SSHRC for the funding that I received. To Dr. Rodney LiPiShan, I give my deepest gratitude for listening to me during my second pregnancy and for trusting my words when no one else would. To Dr. Roger Turnell, I offer my thanks and appreciation for guiding me through my first pregnancy with humour, confidence, and an open mind. I want to thank my first coach, Finn Petersen, for teaching me how and why to have confidence in myself. I owe him a great debt. My appreciation includes Dr. Vera Pezer, who continues to be a mentor for me long past our professional work together. She continues to teach me a great deal about leadership, being strong, and doing the right thing, even and especially when, it is most difficult to do just that. Those lessons helped me a lot during my writing. I owe a debt to my parents-in-law, Lois and Raymond Seib, for their willingness and abilities to drop everything to help me and my family when we need them the most. Thanks goes to my niece, Tanya Norman, for providing my daughter (and sometimes my son) with a second home and happy times when I needed to write my thesis and for going above the call of duty many times. iii My gratitude extends to two good friends, Jacki Andre who offered to read my first draft with an exceptional attention to detail, and to Frank Kusch, who, during one of our many intense conversations over glasses of red wine, helped me come up with my thesis title. I also want to thank Dr. Lesley Biggs and Dr. Pamela Downe for their support, encouragement, and faith in me. Thank you, Sharon Haave, for the letters, light, and love. To CBC Radio for both keeping me company while I wrote, and for providing quality music to creatively inspire me every day, thank you. I would be remiss not to recognize the women with disabilities I have “met” through the literature they were brave enough to write. I found a community of women through their words. In particular, I want to recognize the late Audre Lorde, a self-named “Black warrior lesbian post- mastectomy feminist poet”, who wrote: “For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us” (1997, p. 22). It is this declaration that I kept posted above my computer and read every day to keep myself both motivated and grounded. I want to express my love and profound appreciation for the sport of target shooting. The experiences I had with the shooting sport gave me invaluable opportunities to learn how to be a better person. Acknowledgement and profound gratitude goes to my husband, Darrell Seib, who was the best possible person to accompany me through this writing journey. I know for certain that I could not have completed this project without him. He also knows more about Microsoft Word than anyone I have ever met, which admittedly was very convenient ☺. iv Lastly, I want to acknowledge my good parents, George and Betty Kuttai, for expecting great things from me and for being positive, hopeful, and unconditionally supportive. Without their profound perseverance and formidable strength during difficult times, life could have turned out very differently for me. At least in part, this story belongs to them too. v PROLOGUE The word was born in the blood Grew in the dark body, beating, And took flight through the lips and the mouth… (Neruda, 2001, p. 5) vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................... i DEDICATION............................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEGEMENTS ...........................................................................................................iii PROLOGUE................................................................................................................................. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... vii LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................................................. ix APPENDIX A Certificate of Ethical Approval ............................................................................. ix APPENDIX B Consent Form ........................................................................................................ ix APPENDIX C Application for Ethics Approval ........................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................................... 1 My Story ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Girl, Interrupted: The Accident................................................................................................... 6 Where’s the Girl: Lowered Expectations.................................................................................... 7 Home Girl ................................................................................................................................. 10 It’s a Girl Thing: Longing for Long Hair.................................................................................. 11 It's a Girl Thing: My First Bra .................................................................................................. 14 It's a Girl Thing: Dresses .......................................................................................................... 15 Shooting Like A Girl ................................................................................................................ 18 Girl Meets Boy.......................................................................................................................... 23 Not the Girl Next Door ............................................................................................................. 24 Finding my Inner Girl ............................................................................................................... 25 Big Girls Don’t Cry .................................................................................................................. 31 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................... 32 Rationale for Qualitative Research ........................................................................................... 32 Autoethnography....................................................................................................................... 33 More than Just a Story .............................................................................................................. 33 Bodies ....................................................................................................................................... 34 Looking Inward/Looking Outward........................................................................................... 35 Data Collection ......................................................................................................................... 37 Journals................................................................................................................................. 37 Music Lyrics.........................................................................................................................