D#15, HW#2 -- final WP#1 w/suggestions for revision

Suggestions for revision:
If I were to revise this paper for resubmission I would make my plan clearer; this was pointed out to me by my instructor. I paid a lot of attention to making this paper relatable. I included a lot of personal narrative to show why this topic could interest my audience. Unfortunately, my research plan was lost in my story. I would organize my paper into two parts: first, why my paper was important and second, what research would help answer my question. I would also make my research question clear at the beginning. I think this adjustment would help me to achieve my course competency of organizing my writing to support a central idea through unity, coherence and logical development appropriate to a specific writing context.

Eng. 102 Section#24271 10/03/09 WP#1 final draft
Family Planning
When is the right time to start planning for a family? Some people always know that they want to have children at some point in their lives. Other people don’t realize that a family is what they want until later in life, when they meet their partner, or after achieving career goals. A lot of women are waiting until later in life to conceive. In theory, this appears to be a good idea, later in life you could be more mature, financially stable, and settled. Due to technological advancements and progress in medicine our bodies are staying healthy and active, well into our 60’s for some people. This observation leads to my question: Should a pregnancy be termed as “high risk” based on a maternal age of over 30?
Doctor’s have expressed that pregnancy for women 30 and older is considered a high risk. A hospital-based study found in the Journal of Women’s Health states “In the United States, fetal, anomalies, delivery prior to 34 weeks, and stillbirth have been reported to be twice as common in advanced age women as in young or mature adults…..” (Ph.D., Brabin, Loretta, 965) Any pregnancy under the age of 20 is also considered a high risk. The concept of a risky pregnancy in any woman under 20-years-old is because their body hasn’t had a chance to completely develop. On the other hand, a woman in her 30’s is old enough that her body has matured, but is definitely not old enough that her body is deteriorating. Yet doctors are more concerned about diabetes, maternal weight, still births, and chromosomal diseases in older pregnant women and their babies. The medical term for this age defined high risk is “advanced maternal age”. Women in their 30’s are just as capable as women in their 20’s and in some cases even more healthy. I would like to know why pregnant women in their 30’s have to endure extra testing during pregnancy and extra pressure to start families at a younger age.
Pregnancy is a topic that has always interested me, because it’s such a unique and interesting process. I was pregnant with my daughter when I was 17-years-old, which technically made my pregnancy a high risk. The doctor never even addressed this issue with me, which is why I’m not sure if it is something to worry about. Since I was so young when I had her I never thought to ask questions regarding high risk and I never thought about having any more children soon afterwards. My life revolved around caring for my daughter and making a life for us. It has been just the two of us since she was a year old and being a single mom can be a struggle. Keeping up with our life was busy and hectic, but fulfilling enough that I never considered having anymore children. I was always very happy with life being just the two of us.
Around the time that my daughter was turning six and in kindergarten; my biological clock slowly started ticking. My daughter was also starting to ask questions, and wonder why she didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Then both of my sisters became pregnant, and my internal clock started blaring instead of quietly ticking. I started doing the math on how much time I had to have more children. I knew that after 30-years-old pregnancy was considered a high risk. This gave me six years. “Yikes!” I had six years to meet a guy, possibly make a relationship out of it, get engaged, get married, get pregnant, and have a baby! This plan was clearly unrealistic and a little crazy, since you can’t plan life that way. So I started to wonder if maybe my life was supposed to be just me and my daughter, and maybe I was never meant to have more children.
Now I am down to four years until I turn 30; I know I’m not going to make that deadline. My purpose for this research is to find out if a high risk pregnancy after 30 is more of a precaution, or is it serious enough to believe that I am out of time. I want to inform readers and myself on the realistic expectations of pregnancy at a later age. I want to understand what the options are in family planning for older couples. I also would like to inform women of what to look ahead to concerning the risk on their own bodies; as well as, the risks presented to their baby. My audience should expect many statistics exploring these questions, and as much research as I can find regarding both sides of the issue.Women are the main focus of my audience because pregnancy is something they personally go through. However, I understand that the class as whole is my audience and I believe that men can also benefit from this research. Pregnancy might not be a primary thought in anyone’s mind right now, but at some point, everyone is going to think about if it’s something they want, or when is a good time. If pregnancy isn’t something my audience is concerned with personally; everyone has a family member or a friend that will want to become pregnant at some point. I think this information could be useful when considering family planning for the teacher and the entire class.I recognize that in order to give my audience as much accurate information as possible it will take time to research. My limitations in research are finding new information, so I plan to do a lot of internet research. Medicine and science change so frequently that I believe the internet will have the most updated research available. I would also like to do some investigating on chat boards specifically created for moms, and find out what their opinions are of “advanced maternal age”. I want to know their personal experiences, and find out how high risk pregnancies differed from an optimal pregnancy. Pregnancy can always be a risk, and every mother has her own story.Citation Delpisheh, Ali, (2008). Pregnancy Late in Life: A Hospital-Based Study on Birth Outcomes. Journal of Women's Health, 17(6), 965-970. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier Database.