A Hospital Birth Story from 1957 - My Grandmother's First Birth
In March of 2010 I interviewed my maternal Grandmother Ann ( Nana) as a part of my birth Doula certification project. Now, many years later and a few years after her passing, I'd like to share her story. This really isn't a positive or uplifting birth story and it isn't meant to be. Rather, my grandmother's story represents what many women and babies experienced as routine hospital birth in the 1950s and 60s. I wish this was a positive story, but my grandmother gave birth in a country and time that did not fully respect the importance of pregnancy, birth, bonding and the experience of motherhood. My grandmother was 26 years old in 1957 when she gave birth to her first born, my Aunt M. She re-lived this experience with me 53 years later at the age of 79. Let's hear my grandmother's story... Wedding Day! I was 26 years old, pregnant for the first time and still considered a newly-wed (I married my husband less than one year before at the age of 25... I...
