Considering
a Baby?
A hypertext by Adrienne
Eisen
Inventory | Space and Time analysis
The temporal length of the hypertext is nine months, the time a pregnancy lasts.
The distribution of nodes is linear: month one, month two, month three, etc. Therefore, the argument will remain clear along the reading, with a starting point and an end. There is no word linking inside the text but below it: there are two or three linked units, separated by vertical lines. Each one goes to a similar/repetitive node, depending on the months theme.
The author hasn’t used any images nor sounds. The background colour is plain blue and the font & size isn’t pre-established. Every reader will see it in a different way as it’s determined by the explorer he/she uses. The colour of the linked units is purple and it turns blue-violet after reading it.
There are 23 total nodes, including the last one, “home” which takes you back to the main page. In the main page, we can see the name of the hypertext and the author, both in bold letters. Beneath it, there are three linked units, corresponding to the first month. At the bottom of the page, A. Eisen has left her e-mail address and a link to more of her hypertexts.
In my personal reading, I have followed three different reading paths and ended with the same conclusion.
Month One: Your
Finances | Your Sleep | Your Skin
Month Two: Your
Mood | Your Friends | Your Spice
Month Three:
Your Naps | Your Amnio
Month Four: Your
Clothes | Your Worries | Your Discharge
Month Five: Your
Model | Your Cobra
Month Six: Your
Outbursts | Your Mucus
Month Seven:
Your Husband | Your Sex Life | Your Vagina
Month Eight:
Your Moods | Your Mother | Your Instincts
Month Nine: Your
Labor
Home
First reading path
Month One: Your Finances
The author talks about all the pregnancy tests a woman buys soon after she’s had unprotected sex and how useless that is as the test’s reading is accurate only after a three-weeks time.
Month Two: Your Mood
This paragraph develops the woman’s mood topic and how changeable it is due to the important risk of losing the baby. And the famous doubt, telling people or not telling people.
Month Three: Your Naps
Now the future mom is starting to get a little bit scared, but only during her “sober” hours because she’ll be sleeping all day long. She will start to think that having kids is an insane thing to do but on the other hand, aborting is illegal…
Month Four: Your Clothes
You’ll have to spend a considerable amount of money in maternity-clothes shops, although you’d rather continue pilfering your husband’s clothes.
Month Five: Your Model
Now you start to worry about your proportions and how will you manage to get back your silhouette. You begin to think of the baby in terms of “shield” so no one can see your body.
Month Six: Your Outbursts
The situation seems to enter in the red zone: you think of the baby’s sex and wish the one you won’t get –just for the sake of it-, you speak nonsense with your husband –too much spare time- and cry a lot.
Month Seven: Your Husband
Your breasts will hurt so you won’t want your husband to touch them but you’ll do your best to work things out without telling him anything. That’s what couples do.
Month Eight: Your Moods
This month is as irritating and irregular as the second month –or even worse if you have a delicate equilibrium. You become more and more concerned about the diseases the baby could have, you go to therapy with your husband, and you feel –be?- extremely FAT.
Month Nine: Your Labor
This last month is a month of euphoria –the baby is out at last, safe and sound- and painful indeed, but it doesn’t matter because neither you nor any mother in the world will remember it. So you will have other babies.
Second reading path
Month One: Your Sleep
You get very tired because you don’t sleep enough time so you metamorphose into a neurotic wife.
Month Two: Your Friends
They will give you a lot of encyclopedia sized baby books and you’ll end up getting rid of most of your friends since they don’t have children and don’t understand you.
Month Three: Your Amnio
You do the amniocentesis test and freak out with the possibilities of your baby to have Down's syndrome or the abort that this test may cause. So you yell and blame on your husband for everything and he buys you flowers because that’s the only thing he can do at this point.
Month Four: Your Worries
Your baby doesn’t move when he/she’s supposed to move so you worry even more and when he finally starts to do it, you want him/her to stop because you can’t sleep.
Month Five: Your Cobra
You won’t be able to practice stomach-lying Yoga poses anymore so you take advantage of it.
Month Six: Your Mucus
You confuse mucus with abortion but your husband supports you –and tells you to use a bra so your breasts don’t drop.
Month Seven: Your Sex Life
You won’t be able to move during sex nor kiss your husband and you’ll stop having sex because you’re afraid of damaging the baby.
Month Eight: Your Mother
You get a lot of visits from your mother and talk more than in your entire life.
Month Nine: Your Labor
This last month is a month of euphoria –the baby is out at last, safe and sound- and painful indeed, but it doesn’t matter because neither you nor any mother in the world will remember it. So you will have other babies.
Third reading path
Month
One: Your Skin
When being pregnant, everyone talks about you being –or supposed to be- radiant but you only notice the pimps presence due to the absence of the pill’s hormonal regulation.
Month Two: Your Spice
Surprisingly, sex won’t get any better even if your husband buys you sexy clothes.
Month Three: Your Amnio
You do the amniocentesis test and freak out with the possibilities of your baby to have Down's syndrome or the abort that this test may cause. So you yell and blame on your husband for everything and he buys you flowers because that’s the only thing he can do at this point.
Month Four: Your Discharge
You’re so warm that your husband will think you’re cooking…him.
Month Five: Your Cobra
You won’t be able to practice stomach-lying Yoga poses anymore so you take advantage of it.
Month Six: Your Mucus
You confuse mucus with abortion but your husband supports you –and tells you to use a bra so your breasts don’t drop.
Month Seven: Your Vagina
You’ll end up watching porn sites because of your anarchic hormones revolution.
Month Eight: Your Instincts
You cry because the baby isn’t coming when you expect him/her to come so you start to feel like hating everyone, including your baby and your body. So your husband comforts you although he’s tired too and starts to have paranoid thoughts.
Month Nine: Your Labor
This last month is a month of euphoria –the baby is out at last, safe and sound- and painful indeed, but it doesn’t matter because neither you nor any mother in the world will remember it. So you will have other babies.
Language | Argument | Characters
“Considering a baby?” is a short hypertext that goes about the “disadvantages” of being pregnant in an ironic, self-critical and magnetic kind of way. It mainly spins around the physical and mental changes the narrator has to put up with during nine months: hormonal, emotional –it comes to the same thing-, physical, etc. The text is overflowed with sexual terms: spice, vagina, sex life, penis, teddy silk and so on. The coloquial style makes the text more attractive and catchy for the reader as he/she can identify himself/herself and end up saying loudly “Hey, I was thinking just the same thing”.
In my opinion, the author finally ends up saying that no matter how much you suffer during your pregnancy, it’s worth the while as you will end up forgetting it, starting with the moment you see your new-born child.
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
©
Cristina Rusu
rucris@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press