HW-36 Pregnancy and Birth Stories

For this interview I decided that it would be interesting to see the pregnancy and birth rituals over time. So I interviewed my grandmother, Iris my mom, Luz and my aunt Sandra who just had a baby girl named Jade Celeste on February 22. I wanted to keep the interview more like a conversation rather than an actual interview. So my mother, grandmother and I discussed this over a plate of spaghetti.

I started the interview by asking them what was the most surprising thing about being pregnant...
My grandmother said nothing was really surprising it was all a little expected because she had helped raise her siblings. She did however find it “weird” to see her stomach shift from side to side, she even told me a story about when the butt of my uncle Tony was pressed up against her belly for three days and you could see the outline.

My mother on the other hand has a rather intriguing story, because she did not know she was pregnant with me until she was seven months pregnant. She said she was laying down on her back in bed with her cousin Tanya, and her belly just made a huge wave, I had moved. She then went to the hospital and they told her the news. Until that point she had no symptoms or signs, no huge belly nothing to indicate that she was about to have her first child in the next two months. She showed me a picture of her on the beach in a bikini smiling a few weeks before finding out she was pregnant.

My aunt Sandra and I talked over the phone, the baby was a few days old at this point but I saw this as the perfect opportunity, still I didn’t want to trouble her too much. She had no surprises, it was just different. “Different?” I asked, “What do you mean different?” She said, “ I just feel different about people, pregnancy has a huge affect on your emotions. This time around I was really annoyed by people and things. Like sometimes I just woke up and felt annoyed” Then we laughed because the thought of my 4’11 aunt who was a sweet as sugar was very unusual. I then remembered about six years ago, when she had my little cousin Ruby, her first child. It was about two in the morning and we were changing 1 month old Ruby’s diaper and she literally shot poop out straight like a water faucet. We could not stop laughing!

When I interviewed my family I found that they all still felt excited and happy about something that had all experienced. They seemed to still feel like they were going through it again as they smiled and laughed and told me little stories that they asked not to share. My mother and grandmother, although they had children more then 10 years ago were still bubbly, Sandra was too but I think because she has a 24-hour job on her hands was a little more tired and a little bit more reserved. Either way I felt connected to my family through these stories. I don’t know if that’s because its a “girl-thing” .

Culturally I think that we as woman always find the weird things about being pregnant and make them cute or adorable. We see the gross things that happen as a gateway to connect, making it a funny story. During pregnancy and birth you don’t know what to expect so you try your best and share the rest, kind of like a survival guide for other soon to be pregnant mothers.
Something I would like to explore, complications at birth and their affect on the child /family later on in life.