HW 36 - Pregnancy & Birth Stories

In my first interview i interviewed my Dad, although i was not his first child and have heard the story of my birth before i decided to gain more knowledge on that particular story anyway. I was born on February 16th 1994; "Getting pregnant and having a child was a big decision for us mainly because my wife was 40 and i was 56. My wife had some minor complications with her pregnancy as she was bed ridden months prior which was difficult". I was born during a winter storm and the hospital i was being taken to was uptown on the upper east side while we lived downtown in the lower west side so it made things more complicated (plus the elevators were broken in the building). When my mom got to the hospital she just made it, and after all this my dad described the experience as "scary and exciting".

This made me think of pregnancy and birth in our society as being one that is (exactly as i thought) random but expected. My mother may have been given a due date but when her time was expected, mother nature had other plans. This interview helped me understand that pregnancy and birth in our society is random yet expected, but also limits birthmothers to what they can and cant do in times of pregnancy. In my mothers case, she had to stay in bed during most of the pregnancy.

Besides hospitals, where is the second most "popular" place pregnancy takes place?

For my next interview i interviewed my neighbor, who had a child recently. She described her experience of pregnancy to me as "fun, limiting and scary". I asked her what about it was "limiting". She told me that during her pregnancy, she was told not to eat certain foods that could cause harm to the baby. "I always had to remain healthy, yet i was still gaining weight from the baby" she said. "It was a lot of work, but it was worth it the end". Three months ago her son was born, and attention came from everywhere including strangers "People were coming up to me on the street asking me how long till i was expected to have the baby but i also had a lot of support from friends and family, some that i haven't been in contact with from a little while now so the extra support helped me and motivated me."

This interview helped me realize how big of a role pregnancy and birth plays in society today. People will go out of their way to show support for your baby more than any other time in your life (maybe besides your wedding) and it also goes to show how much we really care about other people's lives and decisions even if we have no relation to them at all.

Is there a science to why random people are attracted to a woman's pregnant

stomach?

For my last interview i decided to interview a long time family friend, who's child is 18. She said that the story of her pregnancy can be described in one sentence: "Painful and stressful, but more than worth it in the end". Her daughter is an honor student with amazing grades and is planing on going to Dartmouth. "I would have been very satisfied with having a child no matter what they did (as long as it didn't involve selling illegal drugs or committing crimes) but it feels even better to know i raised to my child to be who she is now and i hope to have enough strength to continue to raise her to follow through with her dreams and succeed even though i know that since she has made it this far, she's grown up enough to carry her own". When she was pregnant, she had slight doubts after her last attempt ended in a miscarriage which was very emotional. "People showed me support but they didn't really know what was going to happen, no one was. I wasn't ready for another disappointment but i kept telling myself through all my doubts that this time it would actually happen.''

This interview helped me come to the conclusion that not only when the mother gives birth is slightly unexpected, but as well as if the birth will even take place. After doing further research, i found out that most miscarriages happen randomly and can even be incurable.

What is the percentage of women in the U.S that have miscarriages?