Homework 36- Pregnancy and Birth Stories

For this assignment I interviewed two women and a man about their experience with birth and pregnancy. One of the women I interview had birth related complications, while the man was a product of a complicated birth.

The first woman I interviewed has given birth twice. She told me that the second birth was much easier for two reasons, one was that she knew what to expect from the first, and two, her second labor time was only a few hours; compared to over 24 the first time. She said that while pregnant for the first time that she was nervous, that she never had felt a change like that before. She was always very active and loved to work. When she got pregnant at first, not much changed. As time passed and her pregnancy progressed she just felt really drained. After a while she couldn’t go to work anymore. Without work or anything she was bored all the time. She said it made her depressed. Not only did she have to deal with the physical sickness and other woes of being pregnant, she lost the life she had. She was limited from doing a lot of the things she enjoyed.  She did say that she had a lot of support from her husband, friends, and family. Which was the highlight of her pregnancy, because she got a lot closer with the people around her. She said it was hard for her to go through, especially the first time because she didn’t know how it was until she actually went through it.

The other woman I interviewed said that her one (and only) pregnancy wasn’t terrible. She said it gave her a lot of free time to do things that she had wanted to do, most notably, relaxing. She said being pregnant makes you think a lot, and if you can do that without becoming overwhelmed it is enlightening. She said she didn’t physically enjoy being pregnant, but mentally it helped her.  She said that she had complications when she gave birth, but she didn’t want to go into it. Which of course I wouldn’t push for her to talk about but it did make me wonder how scared she must’ve been about that (See end of post, this what I built off of.)

The last interview, which was with a man, who is a father of two, isn’t worth giving a whole paragraph, because there really weren’t that many good insights. But there were a couple. He talked about how hard it was to help his wife try to cope with pregnancy birth because he couldn’t even imagine going through it. He also said that he was a lot more stressed out during the process, but he doesn’t regret having children at all.

I don’t know how these stories will fit into the unit, because I have nothing to compare the stories to. I can compare them to what I see on television, but I don’t believe that birth is depicted well on television, that it is mocked. Later on in the unit, perhaps when we are in the scholar phase I could analyze these stories more accurately. Right now I’m still unsure of what I should think about birth.  They did answer some of the questions that I had about how it feels to be pregnant, saying that physically it isn’t pleasurable.  Which is understandable because when you make it as simple as possible, being pregnant is just having a large parasite. It’s funny that people are happy to have parasites sometimes.  That being said, all of these people made the process of pregnancy difficult, but they also would all say it’s worth going through.

What long-lasting affect (if any?) does losing a child (especially during labor) have on parents?

Homework 35- Other peoples perspectives (1)

As I interviewed people from my peer group, I noticed a lot of them, at least the ones from outside the course, didn't think a lot about birth. Which I expected because before we started the unit I didn't think about it either.
In interviews with girls, one of the biggest worries that came up was the pain that a woman goes through during child birth. One interesting insight I got from my friend Christina was, "I know it's going to hurt, every girl or woman does, but it is only natural to feel that pain, birth is a natural thing so it should be done naturally. I know it will probably different when I'm actually going through it though." What I found interesting was the last of that quote. It's true, how can we really say a lot about child birth and how it should be done when we haven't gone through it. I can stand up and say "C-sections aren't the natural way to give birth, so they shouldn't be done." But I also haven't to go through the immense pain associated with giving birth, so what gives me the right to say that? Maybe I don't have the right to.
A thought provoking, yet simple question a couple of the people had was "Who should be in the room at the time of birth?" All of us agreed upon the mother (obviously) and the father, because they created this soon to be child. We also agreed that there should be somebody assisting the mother, such as a doctor. Then the divide came after that, friends? Family? Neither? My friend Danny said, "It should be up to the mother to decide who is in that room with her. It is her child so she can be the only one to say for sure. It's like as I am pro-choice, that mother to be has the CHOICE to have an abortion or not. Why? Because its her child." I agreed with him. Under normal circumstances it isn't fair to have somebody tell you who is allowed to watch YOU give birth.
Based on the interviews I conducted people in my age group don't have a very clear idea of birth, or know much about it in general. The most experience that they/we have with it is televisions portrayal or with the births of family members. But I also think that this subject doesn't really affect many people in my age group, as most people in our society don't have children in their 20's and 30's. It isn't like food, which everyone has to eat and illness, which everyone has to experience.

Homework 34- First thoughts on birth.

To tell the truth, I don’t know what my first thoughts on this unit are. I was reading some of my peers posts and I don’t really feel the same way as them. A lot of the posts my classmates wondered what it feels like to actually give birth or to be a parent. Some of them don’t even want to have a child (or father one) at this point. For me personally, none of that really matters. That I can’t really see myself fathering a child at this point, that I’m not mature enough to even think about any of that.

A lot of people think that the birth of a child is important, but I see it in a different way. That while the birth of a child is important it isn’t the most memorable thing. When someone has a child, they don’t know much about it. It’s kind of like a relationship; people talk about their anniversary like it was the best day of their relationship, as compared to when they had their first kiss, which is probably more important. I see the moment of birth to be less important when compared to something such as a baby’s first steps or first words.

One thing I do think about is what a name means to a child. In the movie, “Big Daddy”, starring Adam Sandler, Adam’s character is basically forced to adopt a five year old. He doesn’t really like the idea at first, but he falls in love. But one thing he did in the movie is let the kid pick what he wanted to be called. This made the kid happy. I want to know is the freedom of picking your own name (and to be allowed to freely change it over time) better then just having one assigned to you.

Questions: (I don’t have many)

Should you have to be married to have a child with someone?

What health benefits does a c-section have?

Can the pain of childbirth be related to anything?

What effect does someone’s name play in his or her life?

How come mothers are seen to be “more important” to children?