Essay --

Do I regret not doing this years ago? No, I do not. It is certainly true, that since a small child, growing up on my Dads pig farm, have I been fascinated by birth. Yes, tiny new piglets were beautiful, but other things intrigued me. The sow usually delivered her new overcompensate with both serenity and independence. Some of my early memories are of rushing out to the farrowing house crates (yes, the poor animal in those days was in a pen designed purely for birth, not outside in the freedom of the field) to see how many piglets had arrived and hoping to catch a glimpse of the afterbirth, as we referred to it, sometimes however seeing her deliver it. Gruesome to some but to me it was amazing how this strange looking mass had kept lots of little lives alive. This fascination is still with me today, diaphanous when my family and I went to lambing day at a local farm. But now, following the birth of my children, I brought empathy for the ewe too. Studying on the Access course has al ready taught me a lot about myself. Although an initially a shock to the system after over twenty years away from stu...