I'd like to be immature and say ICK!

I had to interview my mom today to write this paper for my child development class. I learned a lot of things about my birth and births in general. Many things my mom told me just made me want to say ICK! I hope things are a bit different in Sweden if I ever have a kid there! The US doesn't seem like a good place to have one!

My mom was 28 when I was born, very young and working her first job. She applied for the job when she was 7 months pregnant so they said they would only hire her if she took 2 weeks off when the baby was born, no more. The medical coverage she got from that job wouldn't cover anything related to me since I was a "pre-existing condition." The hospital was very expensive and they ended up with a 3000 USD debt for the three days we were in the hospital. She refused food for the first day because she was afraid they were going to charge her for it. She says she wished she had known that it was included in the room price. My mom was only 100 pounds at the time and she ended up gaining 50 pounds before she had me. She ended up collecting a lot on her rear end as balance.

I was produced after a 12 hour labor. My mom didn't expect it to take that long or to hurt as much as it did. One of the things she didn't expect was that the contractions for her were in her back. It was her first time ever being admitted to a hospital and she found it frightening. She didn't know her doctor very well and the doctor was not very caring. As soon as she got there they hooked her up to fifteen machines and she felt like she was a science experiment. She had an epidural because it hurt so much.

After I was born she was a bit shocked, I was covered in black scum. She says I was a pretty baby once they washed me off though. She was also a bit shocked that the first thing they did was to take me away from her for all sorts of science tests. I was weighed, prodded, and generally examined. She thinks they had to take me away from her because whatever they were doing was going to make me cry. She says she had lots of ripping and tearing and blames the uncaring doctor who was not careful at all. I was a big baby too at 8 pounds. She didn't expect the pain killers to hurt as much as they did. They were supposed to fix the pain, not cause pain. She said it felt like she was being burned.

The things she would have done differently are pretty plentiful. She says she would have liked to have me earlier because she felt like she didn't have the energy to keep up with me. She was glad she waited until finishing school first though. My mom also had very little idea about babies. She had gone to mostly Catholic schools and her mom never really told her much about babies. Babies just happened, she was one of nine herself. After I was born my dad's mother stayed with us for one week and my mom wishes she could have stayed longer. My mom took care of me and my grandmother did the washing and cooking since my mom was not feeling very well. My mom didn't expect to not be able to sit down for 2 weeks!

My mom's advice to others is to watch a movie or something about child birth so you'd have known what to expect. She would have also have done a tour of the hospital ahead of time so she wasn't so scared on the big day. She wishes she had done some more research since the doctor apparently makes or breaks the experience of having a baby. She says the doctor she had with my brother was much better. She also advises taking at LEAST 6 weeks off after the birth to heal and be with the baby before going back to full time employment.

That's my paper. I ended up just copying this entry into my paper. I think lots of this are just ICK! I didn't want to know that! Although I guess it's something I should know about since I am a girl and sometime in the far far far future might have a kid myself. She also said she didn't have any problems getting pregnant at all. As soon as she was off of the pill, it happened. She did have a miscarriage before me. I think I could have done without knowing about ripping and tearing and black scum covered babies though.