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Quote by Petra Hermans

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Petra Hermans

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“Ich bin kein kleiner, pulsierender Punkt inmitten einer Kraterlandschaft, ich bin keine Wölbung, trete nicht von innen beherzt gegen eine Bauchdecke oder spiele in Ermangelung anderer Beschäftigungen mit der Nabelschnur herum, um schon einmal die Langeweile zu üben. Ich sorge ja noch nicht einmal für morgendliche Übelkeit. Dabei würde ich nichts lieber wollen, als so wunderbar wahllos und ausgeliefert vor mich hinzuwachsen. Dann hätte ich neun Monate Zeit, um mich auf alles vorzubereiten. Ich könnte mir zum Beispiel in Ruhe überlegen, was wohl mein erstes Wort sein soll, damit mir nicht im entscheidenden Moment doch nur wieder "Mama" oder "Ball" herausrutscht, das wäre mir unangenehm, da habe ich höhere Ansprüche.”

HumorBabyBirthThoughtsThoughts On Life
Book:Morgen mehr
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“During that time, I was listening to a teacher who said, “you always have to have some breakdown to have a breakthrough.” When I heard that, it made the hair on my arms stand up. It goes all the way back to birth. The baby’s not comfortable when it’s leaving it’s comfort space and it’s being pushed, through violent contractions to who knows where. So, I sorta developed that into my own saying, “birth always looks like death from the other side.”

Birth
Author:Rob Seven
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“Physicality’s a cage. And a liberation. The cells I’ll fill in, they’re magnificent, burgeoning with aliveness! I’m dialed into them like a station on a radio transmitting constantly. First faint and distant, but growing, amassing, volumizing the very idea of a person this body aims to harbor. Glowing like the universe, always growing. Each new cell increases my momentum, tightening the tether.”

SoulUniverseBirthCellsPregnancyPregnantExpansionPhysicalityBeing BornFetal
Book:The Power of Amie Martine
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“And there I lie in these damned bandages for a week. And there he lies, swathed up too, like a little mummy. And never crying. But now I like raking him in my arms and looking at him. A lovely forehead, incredibly white, the eyebrows drawn very faintly in gold dust... Well, this was a funny time. (The big bowl of coffee in the morning with a pattern of red and blue flowers. I was always so thirsty.) But uneasy, uneasy... Ought a baby to be as pretty as this, as pale as this, as silent as this? The other babies yell from morning to night. Uneasy... When I complain about the bandages she says: 'I promise you that when you take them off you'll be just as you were before.' And it is true. When she takes them off there is not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And there he is, lying with a ticket tied around his wrist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease...”

DeathMotherGriefBabyBirthMotherhoodGrief And LossNurseBabiesHospital
Book:Good Morning, Midnight
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“In classical art this 'aura' surrounding motherhood depicts repose. The dominant culture projects pregnancy as a time of quiet waiting. We refer to the woman as 'expecting,' as though this new life were flying in from another planet and she sat in her rocking chair by the window, occasionally moving the curtain aside to see whether the ship is coming. The image of uneventful waiting associated with pregnancy reveals clearly how much the discourse of pregnancy leaves out the subjectivity of the woman. From the point of view of others pregnancy is primarily a time of waiting and watching, when nothing happens. For the pregnant subject, on the other hand, pregnancy has a temporality of movement, growth, and change. The pregnant subject is not simply a splitting which the two halves lie open and still, but a dialectic. The pregnant woman experiences herself as a source and participant in a creative process. Though she does not plan and direct it, neither does it merely wash over; rather, she is this process, this change. Time stretches out, moments and days take on a depth because she experiences more changes in herself, her body. Each day, each week, she looks at herself for signs of transformation... For others the birth of an infant may only be a beginning, but for the birthing woman it is a conclusion as well. It signals the close of a process she has been undergoing for nine months, the leaving of this unique body she has moved through, always surprising her a bit in its boundary changes and inner kicks. Especially if this is her first child she experiences the birth as a transition to a new self that she may both desire and fear. She fears a loss of identity, as though on the other side of the birth she herself became a transformed person, such that she would 'never be the same again.”

FeminismBirthActivityPregnancyEmbodimentPassivity
Book:On Female Body Experience: "Throwing Like a Girl" and Other Essays
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