Hello Welcome to my last blog post!! I am going to be talking about the last chapters I read all about having view of a baby in the womb to parenthood. To start off I want to point out how technology has changed that’s made childbirth easy. As I read the chapter “Womb with a View” in Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank it reminded me when my mom had a three dimensional ultrasound images of my baby sister, my mom was amazed because it was a good moment to look at her and see how she was growing inside. I kept reading I read that there were X-rays done on pregnant women that’s dangerous for the baby have X-ray exposure leads to childhood leukemia. Until Dr. Alice Stewart discovered that X-rays were bad for pregnant women, but sadly that didn’t stop doctors:
“And yet, doctors continued to do the fetal X-ray exam for another 20 years.”(191)
That’s crazy I thought but that was in the past until ultrasound machines were invented years later Ian Donald a Scottish obstetrician began to collect embryo images that we now see today when a pregnant mother gets her ultrasound done.
I got to the next chapter that was “Sperm Shopping” in Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank it was interesting to read about how people pay to have information of sperm donor.
“You are trying to create your dream child.”(204)
Sperm banking is a business it is a big deal because for a sperm donor there could be 30,000 babies born and its a need for sperm to be tested out for diseases.
“Jeffery A. Riffell, a neuroscientist at the University of Arizona and one of the researchers, likes to think of it as the sperm having a nose, sniffing its way to the egg.”(210)
Sperm goes through a journey to find the egg and finally create a baby. John Hunter in 1785 was the first that impregnated a women by inserting the sperm in her. I learned a lot from this chapter about sperm inserting, sperm donors, sperm banks and all about doctors that examined with sperm.
“When it comes to sperm trade, the mechanics have been worked out easy-to-follow steps. Masturbate. Freeze. Store. Ship. Thaw. Insert.”(227)
It all changed when I read about the chapter “The Big Chill” in Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank it was mostly about egg freezing. Before egg freezing was rare and it was mostly for women with cancer. It costs a lot of money to have your eggs frozen and many women are in different situations to get their eggs frozen because eggs are rare to find and important into making a life. Just like there is a sperm bank there is the donor egg bank, that ship eggs worldwide as well as sperm. Today now is so successful to make babies with the technology being more advance.
Overall the book Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank was good and I learn a lot of new things I didn’t know about. It was interesting and made me realize how grateful I am to live in a world that has technology that help us now to have medical innovations. It was an enjoyable book and had information that made me gain knowledge of childbirth. A good summer reading book!
StarPathDesign 
Natalia your blog post was so good! You had many links and quotes from the book that really helped your argument and helps me as a reader to further more understand your topic. I like how you were brief with your summaries but still included your opinion and many facts. Good Job Natalia- Thalia G.