hospital and advanced terms

[Brandon+Roslyn 4]

Ok... This is for the part about the aswang. My fiance still believes in the aswang or the wok wok and all her friends/family do too. I laughed so hard because when I was there last month the neighbors had a newborn baby boy. According to superstition the wok wok loves the smell of newborns. Well she called up her best friend who is a bakla, and he lives in the house with the newborn too. She called him and told him that she heard the wok wok outside and he should be careful on going home. Needless to say she was joking but her friend believed her and didn't go home but slept at a friend's house.

But my mahal is exactly the same as jena. She loves to walk behind me so she can dart in somewhere to look at stuff. Because she hates me coming with her shopping hehehehe. My fiance was a nanny for 3years in qatar, and she took care of a Western family baby. She had to learn all the European/American techniques of raising him. When she came back to the province she actually showed people new things on taking care of babies. They were amazed at some stuff. My fiance is Bisayan and from the province, she knows English pretty good but some of the finer points get lost with her until I explain them out.

Yeah I know about that too.. when my wife was pregnant she had to sleep in one of m dirty shirts every night so that the Aswang or Wok Wok would get the scent of me instead of her and the baby, becuase they prey on pregnant girls and babies. Or so I was told. But yeah that happens a lot over here, whenever one of my sister-in-laws husbands have to leave the barangay for work or something, they stay here because they are afraid of Aswang with no man in the house.

So far the only thing i have found that is very foreign to them, is burping the baby. My wife about freaked out the first time I made the baby burp. I had to explain how its good for the baby so that she doesnt get really bad gas or colic and such. Now that I have showed her she always makes me do it, but she wont let her Nanay see. She makes me go in the room to do it because she thinks her Nanay will get angry. But none of them know or have heard of burping a baby.

[kev_n_jena 89]

Kevin...

Darren did not say that Gretchen answered any questions on the form the opposite way of how she was feeling during her pregnancy. According to Darren's story, Gretchen's only misunderstanding was that she thought the form covered the duration of her pregnancy rather than the past seven days. That gives the impression that she had been depressed during her pregnancy. Maybe that explains why Darren said "this is something she did not want me to know."

As usual, it's easier getting a tooth pulled than it is getting a straight answer from Darren.

I know we all choose to interpret statements in our own way. The way I read this statement:

The form is looking at the past 7 (SEVEN) days. My wife thought it was SINCE THE BEGINNING of the pregnancy (hence coming to USA)

is that his wife had a bit of depression at some point after arriving in the states. From what I've read on VJ and in my own experience, many people, my wife included, emigrating to a foreign country experience similar feelings. If Gretchen had a brief bout of depression after arriving here because she was homesick or for whatever reason, her answers may have been misinterpreted by the reviewer as depression related to pregnancy.

That's just my take on the comment. I'm trying to give Darren the benifit of the doubt here.

In any case, it's something expectant couples should talk about during the pregnancy.

[B_J 2,752]

I know we all choose to interpret statements in our own way. The way I read this statement:

The form is looking at the past 7 (SEVEN) days. My wife thought it was SINCE THE BEGINNING of the pregnancy (hence coming to USA)

is that his wife had a bit of depression at some point after arriving in the states. From what I've read on VJ and in my own experience, many people, my wife included, emigrating to a foreign country experience similar feelings. If Gretchen had a brief bout of depression after arriving here because she was homesick or for whatever reason, her answers may have been misinterpreted by the reviewer as depression related to pregnancy.

That's just my take on the comment. I'm trying to give Darren the benifit of the doubt here.

In any case, it's something expectant couples should talk about during the pregnancy.

I understand what you're saying but here's the parts that really bother me.

hehe.... the "nightmare" of the whole ordeal. This issue brought her to tears.

What's with the little "hehe" If this was an ordeal that brought your wife to tears and caused both the CPS and a chaplain to get involved then how in the world is "hehe" an appropriate way to begin the explanation?

What happened is she was given the "yates test" as I call it. It is a postpurtem form to check for signs of depression. The form is looking at the past 7 (SEVEN) days. My wife thought it was SINCE THE BEGINNING of the pregnancy (hence coming to USA) I did not review it with her to make sure she understood the form. It really raised issues. She scored high on the form from not understanding, PLUS just coming out of recovery from c-section surgery. I had to step in to help the situation. They wanted to put her on anti-depressants.

I would still like to know if this is a form similar to the one Tahoma linked. The questions were about how often the person felt a certain way. Like question number 8 in the link: I have felt sad or miserable a)yes, most of the time b)yes,sometimes c) not very often d)no, not at all; to me the misunderstanding about the time frame makes the answer more alarming. To have felt miserable most of the time since arriving here is worth looking into.

So we had to talk about the issues. I had to find out what was going on. This is NOT something she wanted me to know.

Her response is definitely understandable. If she has been seriously depressed since arriving in this country then I can understand her not wanting her husband to know. I could understand this whether it was Darren and Gretchen or someone else. I would expect the depressed person to not want their spouse to know

Nor was she expecting the re-action from the form. It created a whole HUGE ordeal with CPS even being involved because of the score on the form. Even the family does not understand the blowup at the hospital from the high score on the "yates form" We had a visit from the chaplain, and several visits from Filipina nurses. We were assigned a filipina nurse on Saturday who was not even scheduled for the section.

It seems like he was able to step in and convince everybody that she was fine. Or did Gretchen just see his reaction from her honest answers and decide that she needed to give different answers to the filipina nurses in order to keep him happy? It is easy to imagine him going nuts in the hospital, reminding everybody who is paying the bills and they need to listen to him. I can imagine Gretchen seeing his response and she feels that she caused all of the problem because of her answers. So, when the filipina nurses are called in, she gives them different answers. Now Darren is happy, the hospital is happy, but Gretchen is still depressed, like she's been since she got here, and she isn't getting any help. I don't know what really happened, none of us ever will, but it does make me worry.

The other thing I think about is that Darren has come back online and posted elsewhere but not here. I find it odd that he started a thread of us to discuss the issues that occurred at the hospital but has now no longer replies to the thread.

Why? I'm starting to think that he starts these controversial discussions just for his own amusement. I actually find that thought more disturbing than his actual posts. To post awful things about your marriage, embarrassing and personal things about your wife, private issues that should be kept within the family - to post these things online to total strangers, just to start angry discussion?!?! If that is what is happening, then there is something really, really wrong.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

I truly hope if Gretchen does actually need help, she receives it. I can't imagine what it would be like to not be able to talk to my husband about something so serious.

[B_J 2,752]

I truly hope if Gretchen does actually need help, she receives it. I can't imagine what it would be like to not be able to talk to my husband about something so serious.

That is really the scariest part of this whole soap opera.

[GaryKO 49]

The OP is sometimes funny, but all the arm chair psychologists crack me up with the answers

[Calypso 464]

The Cycle

1. Darren writes something preposterous that presents himself a hero while showing the world how helpless, naive and clueless Gretchen is.

2. Posters flock to belabor him and invalidate his supposed fine points of wisdom on dealing with a Filipina promdi or not, growing the thread to at least three pages.

3. The hero becomes overwhelmed, runs out of ammo and stops replying while his thread continues to expand.

4. He takes a few days off then opens another topic of the same theme and the cycle begins askew anew.

Sometimes I wish that Darren would stop making himself the center of ridicule and disdain and for other posters to just ignore him instead of feeding his buffoonery. Yet, considering how he disrespects Gretchen endlessly, a fellow Pinay, and his very own WIFE, I'd rather sit back and watch the whole charade come full circle.

[aaydrian 479]

Slightly confused. Why would Darren need to be the middle man when the fluent English speaking doctor is asking the passable English speaking Gretchen questions? I thought there were Filipina nurses brought in for this specific purpose?

[Mogambi 96]

You're slightly confused about one of Darren's posts? I'd be slightly confused if I ever WASN'T 'quite' confused at one of his posts...

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I am sure all this new fangled medicine seems a little different from what Doctor Granny practices back in the hill country.

Edited July 10, 2012 by ☼

[Darnell 8,479]

Why? I'm starting to think that he starts these controversial discussions just for his own amusement. I actually find that thought more disturbing than his actual posts. To post awful things about your marriage, embarrassing and personal things about your wife, private issues that should be kept within the family - to post these things online to total strangers, just to start angry discussion?!?! If that is what is happening, then there is something really, really wrong.

Glad you noticed the pattern. I noticed it whilst he was reporting on his 'actions' in the PI, and mostly started to ignore him then.

I feel sad for his wife, truly.

[PhilAmTx 14]

"I FEEL SO SORRY FOR GRETCHEN"

[Hank_ 9,174]

+ 1 on that.

[DavenRoxy 1,073]

I know Darren seems to have issues with using English to express himself clearly, I think it's just the way he thinks/types. While I cannot support/condone much of what he says, I DO see some validity in a few of the things he posted. He's just a favorite target for some on here, and so gets berated quite often. Surely most of us can see the validity in his points, and just ignore the generalities that aren't even close to the mark?

While we have not been in a hospital having a baby, I HAVE had to step in and answer questions because Roxane doesn't understand what they mean. Sometimes, I wait for a moment, to see if she is able to comprehend the question, and I either 1) Re-state the question, perhaps slower than the nurse, or 2) Answer for her. This even happens at home sometimes, and the silence that ensues as she tried to process what I have said does not become awkward like it sometimes can in public. I feel if I answer for her, then I am leading the convo. But it's hard not to do something when she looks at the nurse with a blank face, then looks at me with her eyebrow raised, as if to say, "Can you help me with this? What is she saying?" And I might add, Roxane's grasp of English is VERY good, particularly her grammar and spelling. But hearing the spoken word is much different than reading, of course, and then there are speech patterns and dialects that make it challenging, too.

And often, she asks me what I will order at a restaurant, because she is unfamiliar with the food, and wants to know "what's good?" in my opinion. Sometimes I tell her, and sometimes I don't, just to get her to browse the menu and select on her own. If she makes a selection I have known to be bad, I will say something about it. But it's not uncommon for her just to order what I am having, perhaps because she feels my knowledge of the food makes it a safer bet.

Roxane does not often walk behind me, most of the time we are hand-in-hand as we go places. But when she IS behind me, I like to think she is checking out my butt, not looking to dart into a store and check out a purse or a pair of shoes!! (and while on the topic of who walks behind, I actually prefer to be the one in the rear )