HW#36

Interview w/ Liliana Fuertes (my mother)

1. How did pregnancy affect you physically, emotionally, or in other ways?

“In many ways my pregnancy was like any other with the exception of the feeling I had that it was my own child, “my own flesh and blood.” I felt just as much pain as any other normal pregnancy but felt the need to the epidural to numb the pain. At that point I was kind of scared of what the epidural might make me feel or what side affects it could have but I had to because of that extreme pain. Emotionally the pregnancy did not affect me at all like other mothers who suffer from postpartum depression. After the birth all I could think about was the pain I felt up until the shot and was baffled at how our bodies can withstand such intense pain.”

-Personal thoughts: The first thought bubble that pops up when I think about birth is the pain that comes with it, mostly for the mother. The idea alone of a human coming out of another human through a relatively tiny hole is something straight out of a sci-fi movie which is why I don’t think we’ll ever understand how we evolved to give birth in such an inefficient way.

2. What did you do, while pregnant, to prepare for giving birth?

“While I was getting ready to give birth I took many, many vitamins that helped keep me healthy as well as you while in the stomach. I also ate whenever I was hungry to avoid getting headaches or feeling sick because of a lack of nutrition. Besides these common occurrences I also did some yoga to help alleviate the back pains and movement of the baby in my stomach.”

3. What thoughts and feelings influenced your choice to make a baby?

“I never had an ideal childhood because of my relationship to my parents so when I was with your father for a long time, we both realized that we had that in common. Through this conversation we came to the conclusion that we would both like to have a child and raise him/her the way we would have liked to have been raised.”

4. When you learned of your pregnancy with my sister what thoughts went through your head?

“I never stressed out about my pregnancy with your sister but I did at times worry about the age gap because you were 13 at the time and you two would grow up in two different times. Later on in the pregnancy I was terrorized by thoughts of your sister being sick because of the tests that the doctors had to conduct to make sure she was okay. At first it was the test to make sure your sister would not have Down syndrome which probably affected me the most because I couldn’t even sleep or eat while waiting for the results; then came the worry about having to get a c-section because she was not facing the correct way for birth.”

-Personal thoughts: Hearing this story after having been there for the entire pregnancy was surreal because of the worry and pain I remember feeling in the air. When asking this question I felt reluctant because I wasn’t sure how my mother would react to it although my sister came out fine.

New Question: How does postpartum depression work and who does it affect the most?

HW#35

Notes for Interview w/ Devin

-Why are women pregnant for 9 months?

Ans: Babies take 9 months to fully develop and be ready for delivery

(Although that doesn’t completely answer the question of why we evolved to be born in 9 months)

-Why did we develop in such a weird way that doesn’t prevent pain or fatalities on both the mothers and the childs end?

Response: Who knows? Maybe at some point women started having the need to grow a human in their body and deliver it through a hole that isn’t big enough.

-We are lucky we aren’t other mammals

Response: we definitely are otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation although I haven’t seen an animal cry as loud as a woman does during birth. “Yes, of course. By its very nature, giving birth is a painful process. However, for most animals, it is not so painful and traumatic as it is for humans. Because of our large brains, we are born with unusually large heads, which is going to smart a bit on the way out. Also, our upright stance alters the shape of the pelvis and birth canal, meaning that the baby has to turn on its way out - most animals don't have this problem. Also, animals do not advertise the fact that they are in pain by crying out during birth as humans do, since a newborn animal is very vulnerable to predation, as is a mother in the throes of birth and unable to run or defend herself - crying out would alert predators to her presence and distress, making herself and her young a target.”(Response from a zookeeper on yahoo answers to the question “Do Other Animals Feel Pain While Giving Birth, Like Humans (Females)?”)

-What are the chances?

Response: At this point of the conversation I asked myself “What are the chances that we, of the million different sperm contained by our father came to be instead of someone else?” Maybe we focus too much on appearance which is why we think to ourselves how can birth possibly be beautiful with all of the different liquids and discharge instead of looking at it as being beautiful and miraculous because of the one in a million chance that the baby emerging is a single sperm out of a million other possibilities.

-Why do women have cravings?

Ans: Because they are feeding themselves and the child

Follow up Question: But why do they ask for the weirdest things?

Ans: My mom says she used to eat corn cake with mayonnaise in the middle of the night and other foods that she never ate before or after the pregnancy. Some doctors say that hormonal shifts may intensify a woman sense of smell leading to different choices in food.

HW#34

Thought bubbles:


-Question: Is it really morally correct to get married when your girlfriend is pregnant out out of a feeling of obligation?
-Different religions have different methods for pre birth and post birth
-Some couples(or women singularly) prefer natural births as opposed to hospital births.
-Different processes for pregnancy.
-Location of birth is very important to some people (i.e. underwater births, home births, etc)
-Dominant social practices behind childbirth include hospitals, drugs for pain and constant assistance that focuses on the mother such as meditation, mantras, yoga, soothing music,massages.
-Ambience during the birth is sometimes considered important b/c the baby should be born in a calm environment.
-Some women have c-sections because of natural causes,some have it for more selfish reasons like not ruining their vaginas.
Reflections & further thoughts:
-When my mother was pregnant with my sister she was forced to have a cesarian because of natural causes. Towards the end of the pregnancy my sister was not facing the correct way(head down facing the vagina) so she would not be able to come out. This is an example of a more normal reason than the hollywood actresses and models who get vaginal reconstruction surgery and what not to please their couple instead of giving the child a natural birth.
-When i was born my mother made the decision to get the epidural shot to not feel the birth at all as she describes it. As a side effect my mother now suffers from back pain on a semi-regular basis, which is something the doctors failed to mention when she was asked if she wanted the shots. Not only does this demonstrate the different precautions certain hospitals take but also the different level of attention that certain ethnicities receive at the hospital(at least during this time).