HW 36 - Pregnancy & Birth Stories

When considering whom I would conduct this interview with the first people that I thought of were my mother and father seeming, as they would be the two easiest and most logical choices. The third person I decided to interview was a family member who is very close to me. The first person I interviewed was my mother, I asked about my own birth out of curiosity to which she responded with a very interesting story. I was born during an emergency C-section because the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck and chocking me (she says I move around too much cause i wanted to get out and play with her). I asked my mother what was the emotional change during the process of being pregnant up until giving birth, specifically the emotional connection with the baby (me). She said that at first there was no emotional change other than the obvious "oh my gosh I am going to be a mother", she went on to say that she became nervous that when I was born that I was going to get hurt, not necessarily through child birth but some other way as well. I asked about her maternal instinct, whether there was one or not and if so what was it like. She said that there was a connection between her and that she could almost feel what I felt, both emotionally and physically.


My mom’s story of my birth allowed me to really be thankful for today’s medicine and the skill of those who delivered me. It also helped informed my understanding of my own birth and birth in general. I feel that birth is the closest thing that we experience to death in our lives. The barrier between the two is so thin that you could easily breakthrough to death while in birth. This also helped me question whether or not there is an easier way to give birth, one that causes no pain to both the mother and the fetus and what places in the world is death during birth more likely and why?


Next, I interviewed my dad. I asked him about my birth to see if there was any sort of common aspect about birth that my parents share. To see if there were any similarities I asked my father the same questions. When I asked him whether there was an emotional change during the process of your wife being pregnant up until giving birth, specifically the emotional connection with the baby; he gave a surprisingly honest response, one I didn’t expect. He said that he honestly had no emotional connProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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tion with me specifically but he had an emotional connection with the idea of me. When i asked him to explain it further, he said that his emotional connection was with him being a father and at the time he was more concerned with his ability to be one rather then me. He aid however he felt a very strong emotional connection with me when he held me for the first time, it gave him the realization that i was real, living, breathing human who he has to care for and not just this idea of "son" or "child"


This story defiantly gave me insight into the role and emotions the father/partner experiences when they are going through this process. I think that the reason this is could be because there is no physical connection like there is with the mother. This also helped me wonder whether or not there is paternal instinct? And also is there a real emotional change within the father during the process of pregnancy and birth? which also led to the question of is there a stronger emotional response/connection when the baby is born compared to when it is still in the mother.


The last person I interviewed was a family member whose name I am not revealing at her request. I chose to interview her because she has gone through an experience in which her died before its birth and was one of a pair of twins. I asked her about the emotional connection between her and her fetus (whether there was one or not). She told me that she did have an emotional connection with the twins and that she could feel that there was something wrong before she went to the doctor. She began to talk about her connection with the twin that was living and how she felt as if she was missing a piece of herself. She said that she felt like an unfinished puzzle. I pitied her but she told me not to look so sad she lives a happy life knowing that her fetus didn’t die while it was a baby. I asked her why she says that? And she responded by saying it didn’t get to experience life so death wasn’t a painful thing for the fetus.

This story had the strongest impact on me just because of the sadness of it. However what really gave me a strong impression was the strength the mother had to think about it that way. Most people wouldn’t have the courage to analyze the death of a loved one with such detail and to be able to move past it is something I haven’t been able to do yet. Her story helped produce the question of whether a fetus dying is really death since it technically hasn’t been alive yet?  And also whether or not there is an emotional toll to pay when a mother has had a miscarriage or abortion?

 The topic I want to explore during this unit is death during birth; specifically how these two completely different things exist so close together.

HW 35 - Other Peoples' Perspectives 1

For this blog i interviewed 3 people who are close in age to my own, my younger brother sammy (11), my younger sister Nadia (14), and my friend dean (16). I interviewed them in ascending order by age. My younger brother knew basically what you would assume an 11 year old boy would know, i asked various questions that he didn't really understand like "what is abortion?, or What is the birthing process like for women and what roles do men play in those processes?" however something i found interesting was that he referred to a T.V. show, where the female actress gave birth to a baby, which is when i began thinking about a common theme between the people i interviewed. I then interviewed my who surprisingly answered my questions with some depth. An example of a question i asked her was "how do women usually prepare for the process of giving birth?" and "What do you think maternal instinct is?" she responded with this, "usually women prepare for birth by going to classes where they practice breathing techniques, i saw it on a T.V. show one time, for some reason the guy really iddnt want to go even though it was his baby too." Now that this theme of T.V. came up again i had noticed a pattern, which may have just been coincidence because they both live in the same house and may have seen this show together.

The next person i interviewed was my friend dean who was able to answer my questions with some thought not just bubbles. I asked the same question i asked my younger sister which was "What do you think maternal instinct is?" to which he responded as "the way a mother connects with her child". I then asked "what do you think the birthing process is like for a woman?" to which he responded as "painful" but then posed the question "why isnt it as painful for the father, are they not as important to the birth." i asked him what makes him think that? to which he responded "well, i saw on T.V. once this women giving birth and the husband feeling emotional pain but nothing physical and why is it that women always give birth so quickly on T.V.? I saw on another show during my health class that sometimes giving birth can take hours."

Dean mentioning Television helped me reach the realization that most of our generation get our ideas from electronic screens like T.V.'s and computers. All 3 of Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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e people i interviewed mentioned it and when i think about it the first thing that comes to mind when i think about birth is the mental image of some women on T.V. giving birth or the health class video i sawe last year. most of the knowledge that i have acquired comes from an electronic screen of some sort whether it is my phone, computer, or television. My question is why do we allow ourselves to gain this knowledge through the electronic screens we have, instead of watching a show on T.V. about a women giving birth why haven't i seen one in real life. I think that we explore too much of the world from our chairs or couches at home and yes, sometimes it is because of the fact that we can't all go to Egypt and see the revolution happen or go back in time and see the assasination of John F. Kennedy first hand so the only way to stay in contact is by watching it on T.V. or on the computer but maybe instead of watching basketball on our T.V.'s maybe we can go outside an play it instead and instead of watching that cooking show about how to make pasta you can try it yourself.

HW 34 - Some Initial Thoughts On Birth

When thinking about birth one of the more key bubbles that pop into my head is this idea of it being very beautiful, its something we all experience (when we are born) although you probably do not remember but some of us have also witnessed birth happen and i guarantee you that the last thing on your mind is beautiful. I feel that this idea of birth being beautiful comes from societies perception on the idea of a babies innocence which i think is a bit misguided, you assume that something so clean and peaceful couldn't come out of a 9 month process where at the end of that 9 month period the women undergo an extremely painful process where her body is put under mass amounts of stress that is not very beautiful.

When thinking about birth i fear how this could also cause death. These two things are complete opposites yet could happen in rapid succession. This idea of having something that we claim is completely innocent, lose the life that it has had for only a short amount of time is almost unbearable. When i think of death during birth i stated before the idea of innocence, which leads me to this question are we all born innocent? Were people like the zodiac killer or the infamous Ted Bundy born innocent? This also comes back to the idea of Nature V.S. Nature. Does being born to a different financial, social, environmental situation at birth have an effect on the type of person you become and the decisions you make.

Questions-

• Why do we consider birth a natural/innocent experience?
• Are we all born innocent?
• What is the experience of giving birth really physically and mentally like?