HW#37 Comments

Comments for Rigel:

The clearest and most focused on idea in your blog is that of the connection between the mother and child, inside and out of the womb. I specifically found this idea to be very thought provoking because is made me muse about how my mother or my other relatives felt during pregnancy; specifically whether they felt a connection like each of mothers you interviewed. This post has driven me to look up studies on the scientific definition on this “connection” between mother and child and whether or not a actual psychological connection exists

Comments for Kristin:

I think that the distinction between wanting a child and not really wanting one is essential in understanding the way the child is raised and how it will grow up. The fact that you mentioned how your uncle and the doctor were watching basketball instead of paying 100% attention to your aunt is an interesting idea to introduce because of how it puts the difference between gender roles into context. I also began to wonder how gender roles during pregnancy have evolved over time.

Comments for Anthony:

I like how you talk about the physical and emotional toll that pregnancy can take on a couple no matter what age as wells the situations you proposed to the interviewee’s. I wonder what influences a mother’s reaction to pregnancy and if it should be considered an emotional reaction to the pregnancy or if it should be looked at as a process of nature despite they unorthodox way it works.

Anthony said...

Felipe I enjoyed reading your post because I talked to my mom about her pregnancy right now and it really compares to your mothers. I’m 15 years apart from my brother so I definitely feel your sister's pain. It was good to see that you took the extra step and wanted to research and ask a different question after your interview with your mom.

amandap said...

My favorite line was "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.” This for me gave me an alternative point of view for why people have babies. In this case it was to make up for the kind of parenting your parents wish they had had growing up. I liked how you used direct quotes to answer each question and added personal thoughts after the quotes, so basically i liked the format, because it allowed me to see the exact wording your mother used.

Nice work, Amanda

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).

HW#30

What psychological effect does death have on the human mind before and after a traumatic experience?

          Some people associate the word trauma with physical pain and others with feelings; any sort of trauma is defined as making you feel unsafe or insecure after the event and as something that makes you feel insecure, but at what point of this potentially devastating experience does the human mind react and change in such a way that its perception of the outside world and experiences like their own become different?

         Of all the possible traumas a person can sustain I chose death as a core subject to focus on because of the unit as well as my personal affection towards those who have lost someone they love. To answer this complex question I decided to focus more on “real” evidence that I could interact with which in this case was a person. I also used evidence from other sources such as the internet and passages relating to my essential question.

Personally I find traumatic experiences to be something that no one should have to go through but at the same time I understand it is a part of life that forms people into who they are. I don’t want to confuse this idea with thinking that you are no one until you go through a traumatic experience but I find the two are very closely related in the sense that a large portion of you is directly affected by the experiences in your life. The experiences that we view as traumatic are often related to death and are usually the most damaging, many sources support this thought such as these lists that explain when trauma can occur and how to know if such an experience can be traumatic.

A stressful event is most likely to be traumatic if:

• It happened unexpectedly.
• You were unprepared for it.
• You felt powerless to prevent it.
• It happened repeatedly.
• Someone was intentionally cruel.
• It happened in childhood.

(Smith, Melinda, and Jeanne Segal, Healing Emotional and Psychological Trauma)

Other sources describe which experiences are the most traumatic but I will only show those directly related to death:

1. The discovery of a life-threatening illness or disabling condition, or other similar situations
2. Serious illness, especially when accompanied by very high fever
3. Hearing about violence to or sudden death of someone close
4. Physical assault, including rape, incest, molestation, domestic abuse and
   serious bodily harm

Þ    5.Serious accidents, such as automobile or other high-impact scenarios

Þ    6.Experiencing or witnessing horrific injury, carnage or fatalities

(Glenn, Marti, Trauma, Attachment, and Stress Disorders: Rethinking and Reworking Developmental Issues)

           I decided to put arrows next to two of these sources of trauma because they relate to my real evidence in a way that can potentially explain that why the person I interviewed feels towards death.

          Around the mid-1960’s my grandfather was 10 years old when he went through what is arguable the most traumatic experience of his life and quite possibly more traumatic than anything other people may experience. On a hot day in Colombia, my grandfather, his five brothers and his father decided to go for a hike in the steep mountains that were considered dangerous because of the FARC which are the Colombian communist party that have plagued the country for decades. While avoiding these counter-military groups, they encountered a large gap in the mountain that formed a sort of river a few hundred feet below. At this point in my grandfathers telling of the story, his eyes glazed over in such a manner that suggested crying but looked more as if pure anger or hate would soon spew from his eyes. As he continued he seemed to want to stop telling me the story and I also told him to stop if he didn’t feel well but I suppose he found some sort of consolation in telling me what can be looked at as HIS story because of how heavily it affected him. Facing the other side of this chasm and noticing a massive tree placed in between the two sides to form a makeshift bridge his brothers and his father decided to cross the tree like in some sort of bad adventure movie as my grandfather explained it. They all noticed how old the tree looked but decided to go forward completely disregarding the danger. Trailing behind of the group my grandfather watched as his brothers and fathers attempted to cross the tree; as he continues the most traumatic part of this story becomes obvious as my grandfather tells it because his voice cracks almost in unison with the crackling of the tree below their feet as it gave away under their combined weight before my grandfather set foot on it. He describes not knowing what to do and the feeling of hopelessness as he watched his brothers and father fall to their death. As he describes it, the walk back home was confusing and seemed as if the world around him was peeling away as he came to the realization of what had happened. Im not sure if this tremendous loss is more traumatic than what soon followed despite the fact that it has no actual death in it besides its mentioning.

          Through this grieving process, my grandfather changed into a person that he wishes he never was mostly due to his mother’s reaction to this loss. A 10 year old boy was forced to live with a mother that had lost it all as he had but used it in a selfish way that may have been more of a defense mechanism than an actual offense. Because of her misplaced hate, sadness and anger toward what happened, she turned to the only person who se could blame which was her son. While constantly blaming him for her pain she told him that she wished he had been the one who died instead of his brothers and father. He told me to keep in mind that 1 other of his brothers who was not present at the moment of the incident was still alive. I found it incredible how this one phrase changed his life so much more than the actual deaths. He also accentuated the fact that she has not, to this day, said sorry to him for what she said to him.

        After this saddening story I asked him how he looked at death when he was a young boy before incident. He told me that he was aware of it and he heard of people dying regularly but he didn’t think much of it. After the losses he tells me he became a shell of the person he once was as he was mentally abused by his mother on a daily basis because of her reaction to the loss. He looked a death as a person who he hated with every all of his power and that he hates to this day.

         Hearing this terrible story coming from an actual person and not from some sappy movie gave me a look into the human mind with no boundaries. On some levels I am glad that I learned this about our human nature and how we deal with things but I also wish that I had maintained that “innocence” that you have before you are forced to go through something like that and actually think of something to disturbing. Because of the time difference, my grandfather explained to me that before death was considered to be more normal because there was a lot less to do for someone sick or physically injured in such a way that death was unavoidable. Now death I much more terrible because we have thousands of things that we can do to draw out the process as much as we can so that we don’t have to lose any one which is a really selfish endeavor. If we had not made all of the advances in medicine and technology, how would we treat death today?

Citations

1. Smith, Melinda, and Jeanne Segal. "Healing Emotional and Psychological Trauma." SYMPTOMS, TREATMENT, AND RECOVERY Nov 8. n. pag.Helpguide.org. Web. <http://helpguide.org/mental/emotional_psychological_trauma.htm

2. Glenn, Marti, and . "Trauma, Attachment, and Stress Disorders: Rethinking and Reworking Developmental Issues." n. pag. Web.

HW#28

re: HW#27

 Amanda, I felt as if your most interesting line (to me) was, “...I was feeling much resentment towards Roberta. She was once a functioning person who could take care of herself in society, but now she relies on other people to take care of her, when she would be able to if she weren’t so disoriented or unfocused.” Because this focuses on illness and the feelings you may experience during it. Much like other things in our life, when we have feel as if we are left out or of loneliness, we direct our anger towards the most accessible thing which in this case is Roberta. I feel as if she is the easiest target because of her illness and weakness to put this anger on. My opinion itself also proves how other peoples sickness affect the way we look at them and think of them.

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HW#26

            The most important thing I learned from this unit was the ability to analyze all different aspects of death and the different point of views in a family that surround the person who is sick. The biggest source of information in this unit was Beth who had personal experience and endured it in the most natural way possible, that being her decisions to decline help, the grieving process, etc. Through her knowledge of death I learned about different effects that death has on people and how it affects the human mind. Because I would not have been able to learn these things otherwise (because I do not know anyone who has died or is dying) this opportunity was beyond valuable because of the insight it gave me into the “realm” of death that we all know and fear.