Being Pregnant
Conversations with Women
Morrison, Daphne Photography by Barnett, Robin
Publisher: New Star Books, Vancouver, Canada
Year Published: 1987
Pages: 201pp ISBN: ISBN 0-919573-71-1
Resource Type: Book
Cx Number: CX3399
Abstract:
This oral history was inspired when the author, finding herself happily pregnant, financially secure and with a supportive mate, wondered what the experience of pregnancy would be like for women in circumstances other than her own. She found 15 women in a variety of cultural, economic, social and personal situations to tell the stories of their experiences. All of them speak with great candor and emotion. As Ms. Morrison says in her introduction, "Pregnancy is natural and entirely common place...But (it) is also, for each of us who goes through one, a very powerful and personal event. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the outcome, it has the potential to change us profoundly."
We hear from a Native woman who wanted a child but not a husband; an older nurse whose husband was still in medical school when she first became pregnant, necessitating a then illegal abortion; a lesbian woman who talks about her own and her lover's problems in becoming pregnant by artificial insemination; a woman from Pakistan explains why she doesn't wish her husband to be present in the delivery room; a single mother on welfare; a married woman coping with crippling arthritis during her pregnancy; and a single woman who agreed to give up her baby for adoption but changed her mind after it was born.
This book should be of interest to most women, and useful to anyone concerned personally or professionally with pregnant women in "non-standard" situations.
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