Writing Our Life Stories: Assignment Two

14 years ago

Assignment Two is to write about your birth.

Lois Daniel, whose book I'm following, suggests including these statistics:

Who?

What?

Where?

When?

How? (including doctor or midwife's name)

Why? (in case your parents were living somewhere temporarily, for instance)

I also included what time of day my mother went into labor, and a story about my dad and the cab driver engaging in an absorbing discussion of sports, during which time my laboring mother was ignored. :-)

Lois Daniel suggests researching the world you were born into. I think this is a great idea. Who was President? Were we at war? What did people wear? What did an automobile cost? Oh, wait--did we have automobiles? LOL

Because of my abiding interest in childbirth, and in particular the thought I gave to my birth when writing this chapter, I got heavily into childbirth practices of the 1940s. It's depressing! Actually, it's literally depressing, because the nervous systems of both mothers and babies were depressed by the drugs hospitals routinely administered at the time. I hope some of you were lucky enough to be born at home.

Here's an example of what I wrote:

I'm sorry my mom didn't have the birthing choices that were available when I had my babies. She was a strong, athletic woman with an equally strong maternal instinct. She would have loved natural childbirth. She would have embraced prepared childbirth classes (though I don't know how deeply my father would have gotten into that......well, maybe if everyone was doing it), and I'm certain she would have felt, as I did, great happiness and satisfaction in the birth process. But in 1943 women giving birth in a hospital didn't see their babies take their first breaths. They didn't get to hold them and nurse them right away. This is typical of what I found in my research:

By the 1940's, more than 80% of all pregnant women gave birth in a hospital in a surgical environment. They were given heavy drugs to disconnect them from the perceptions of pain, and put under general anesthesia for the birth of their child.

I also found an interesting (and infuriating) list of Do's and Don'ts given to new mothers in the 40s. Maybe I'll post that separately on the KT as I think some might find it interesting.

One of my most exciting finds was the doctor who delivered me! He's no longer living, but he was 99 when he died almost three years ago. And he practiced medicine until he was 96! I was really happy to make this discovery, not so much because he directed my birth, but because he was my mom's doctor.

Dr. Vialotti

How many of you are taking part in this project so far? Are you enjoying it? (I am.)

Susan

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Comments (8)

nanny98
14 years ago
I am working on it Susan, and I once again thank you for your effort to keep me (and us) going. Your assignments are very thought provoking, as intended. Nanny
darrah
14 years ago
I have to admit I have not begun to do any writing but am definitely interested in following along as you write about your life events. I am copying your assignments so that when I am able to get down to the business of writing I will have something to help guide me. Thank you so much for posting this interesting topic.
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Well, here it is March 25 and I have "bragged" (excitedly) about this project all the while we have been travelling the I 5 corridor here in Oregon. Think I may have recruited a couple of friends to look us up. Did Alisande decide to give up because of so few participating? (We left home March 9 and have not always had a WiFI connection or many down days) I have really found that writing (also journaling which I have done sporatically) just takes me to places and memories I have not expeced. That must be the Catharism" that folks talk about....facinating details of long forgotten events. Mind blowing at times. When we were in Alaska two years ago, the community of Palmer just " spoke" to me, I wanted to stay or return or delve into the background of the place. It was one of President FDR's programs to "grow and populate" the wilderness and I was completly hooked. So, in my writing I was so very surprised to find that I too was part of one of his "programs" to better the lives of such ordinary people who were right off the farms of the mid=west, willing to work and educate their children. I knew where I had been....but I didn't KNOW what it had been. Quite astonishing, really. So Thank you, Susan! And, I haven't even begun to explore those events in history that I have been so very close to and thought that I would just write those down so my kids would remember them thru my eyes. We will see, as I do plan to continue writing. Thank you again Nanny PS forgive the typos...love my mac, but the keyboard is just not compatible to me and my long fingernails, I think.
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User
14 years ago
My life story would bore you to tears.
alisande
Original Author
14 years ago
So it looks like we have one person (plus myself) working on this, and one in the wings, and that's it? I'm surprised.

Darrah, I recommend starting now, while you have a support group, tiny as it is.
joyfulguy
14 years ago
Another of the 18 or so guys at the ... ahem ... what we used to call "Senior Men's Coffee Hour" at church, but later changed to "ROMEOs" (Retired Old Men Eating Out"), this morning has the same birthdate as I, but a few years earlier, so I remarked on that as I started to tell my life story at the group this morning.

I was supposed to take 5 min. (or so) ...

... but mine went on for quite a bit longer, I suspect.

As for my birth ...

... I was there at the time ...

... but don't remember much about the particulars ...

... do you figure that might have warped my life, later on?

ole joyful
nanny98
14 years ago
I had hoped for more writers too. I have been encouraged by my son, mostly, and I think that perhaps you have to be older and have that 'encouragement' to do it. My son, is (ooohh) 52, and is just curious to learn how we got to where we had been before he arrived on the scene and my remembrances of our "gypsy" life during his childhood. We 21st century old folks have lived during such huge changes in our society and in our environment...and even in our values....that we really owe our children a glimpse of how we rose to the occasion of those milestones. Just a thought! Nanny

BTW....some old movies that are shown today, show many scenes that our parents aspired to, rather than the fact of life. Not always, but when I see some of them I realize that some of the ideas that my mother tried to make me believe were things that movies told her to aspire to in a subliminal way. Today's entertainment is much more realistic, or is it? I really love the writings of John Steinbeck as he told the truth about the pain of the depression and of the lives, sometimes of desperation, that many people lived. And, yes, I wonder as I see men and women "pan-handling" on the streets of our small community being homeless...are they feeling that same kind of desperation? TMI, sorry.
Linda Harris
14 years ago
willl you link me to assignment 1 I have finally decided to join in this.
nanny98
14 years ago
Assignment two is at the top of the page....# 1 is on January 11. Nanny

Writing Our Life Stories: Assignment Two

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