HW 36

I talked to my mother about her experiences with birth. She gave birth to three children including me. Each one of the three births were very different. My oldest brother was the only one that had some complications with his birth. My mom was having pains when she was pregnant and her midwife was getting upset with her and told her that she was doing too much physically and not treating her body like she was pregnant because she was walking around a lot and straining her body. She gave birth to my oldest brother two and a half weeks early. She read a lot of books about birth so she knew what to expect and when to go to the hospital. She started to panic a little when she had to go to the hospital because she thought she wasn't going to make it in time. After she gave birth to him the placenta didn't come out so she had to give the baby to my father and the doctor had to get the placenta out which she said hurt like hell. But she didn't mind it at all because her baby came out with 10 fingers 10 toes and everything was fine with the baby. That was my oldest brother's birth. My other brother was born 10 days late and he was the biggest baby in the nursery. She said giving birth to him was very painful but it was quick. She also said that it can be very painful but after you're done you kind of forget about the pain and want to have more children. When my mother gave birth to me she had pneumonia, from this she was very exhausted and dehydrated but I was born fine with no complications and my mother was out of the hospital quickly.

During the interview I picked up a lot of insights. One was how different people take pregnancy and giving birth more seriously than others. For example I saw how my mom read a lot of books and tried to understand the process as much as she could, she changed her diet, and she didn't drink alcohol at all while she was pregnant, just in general she seemed to really care a lot and want to do as much as she could to have a healthy birth. Another was reasons for giving birth. My mother said at first she wanted to have six children, she said some reasons were that she felt like she was very close with her parents. She saw how much her mother appreciated having children. Also she said that her sister had children and she didn't agree with how her sister was raising her children, so my mom wanted to have her own children so she could see if she could do it. She said she realized it wasn't easy because she had all these plans for how she wanted to raise us but then she realized very early that it wasn't just about what she wanted and her children had personalities and wouldn't just do whatever she wanted. My mother said she loved being pregnant and when she thinks back to giving birth she only has happy memories and remembers the joy of having children. She feels like the way birth is viewed in America is very bad, she feels like it is viewed as scary and everyone wants to be drugged up so they don't feel the pain. She was not yelling while giving birth she was very calm and said it was not that bad. She feels that it is important to feel the pain and then be able to relax between contractions instead of being on drugs not feeling anything. She said it's important to learn how to relax yourself and be able to endure what is happening. She believes that a lot of it has to do with the power of the mind. Lastly there was one more thing that she told me about. She said that it is hard for the male (my dad) to get interested until the baby is actually there and they are far into their pregnancy, so it has to be concrete, the baby actually has to be there and they have to feel the baby for them to be interested. But in the females case it is very different. She woke up and the first thing she's thinking is she's pregnant, she's in a meeting at work and she's thinking wow nobody knows I'm pregnant I can't concentrate on this meeting I'm thinking about this baby. This was very interesting to me and made me realize how the experience is completely different depending on the sex of the person and why.