MRS B.: I remember one thing, she sent the two kids, the two younger brothers upstairs, because… you know, because it was a terrible thing having a baby at home eh? The very privateness, so she sent them upstairs and made them stay there (laughter).

KAREN: Just for the privacy, for their sake. How old would they have been?

MRS B.: She was an English lady, you know, and she was very prim and proper (laughs).

KAREN: (Laughs) I know a few of those. Yeah. My own grandmother was. You know, there were certain things she just wouldn’t mention. My aunt, her youngest daughter, had lost a baby through a miscarriage, and I was eleven at the time, and my grandmother explained it to me by saying that she had a pain in her tummy. She wouldn’t say.

MRS B.: No, they wouldn’t talk about things like that. No.

KAREN: So, and you’re in labor, I assume you were sort of downstairs in the living room, where were you? The boys were sent upstairs.

MRS B.: The front room. In the front room.

KAREN: Were you lying down, were you sitting, were you walking, walking, walking? What were you doing?

MRS B.: No, lying down.

KAREN: Oh, you were lying down. And how did you cope with it?

MRS B.: He gave me ether, that we had known.

KAREN: When the doctor arrived. And did you go out completely?

MRS B.: Before the instruments… Uh, not really, no, I don’t think, no.

KAREN: I found that ether sometimes makes people sort of drift in, drift out, and drift in. Did you find that helped?

MRS B.: Oh ya, I guess so.

KAREN: What was the reason that they used forceps? I’m assuming when you say…

MRS B.: Instruments help you know, help I guess…

KAREN: Just to help him?

MRS B.: Uh hm.

KAREN: Okay. Had you been in any difficulty?

MRS B.: No, I don’t think so, just that you know, with my first… But I think some doctors would wait longer, you know (laughs).

KAREN: How long had you been in labor before he used them?

MRS B.: Not too long, I don’t think, but… I don’t know why. I think it makes a difference who the doctor is, eh?

KAREN: Yeah, I agree. How did he look when you first saw him? Did he..

MRS B.: Oh, fine. His head had a little forceps marked on his.. temple, but..

KAREN: Okay. Tell me a little bit about the routines for you after the baby was born. We’re hearing a lot of stories that the ladies stayed in bed for ten days, is this what happened? Did you stay in bed?

MRS B.: No, my mother-in-law, she didn’t… she made me get up. She didn’t explain why. But now, you know, like, we don’t stay in at all, but in the hospital, when my youngest was born, my husband was in the Air Force then, and he was up here in Saskatoon, and we had to move that day. So when he was born, he was up here.

KAREN: Was your husband present for any of the births?

MRS B.: No. (Laughs.)

KAREN: No? Would he like to have been?

MRS B.: Well, he was when the girl was born. My girl was talking to you when you phoned. Ya. She’s five years younger.

KAREN: And she’s the middle one or the last one?

MRS B.: The middle one. The boys are ten years apart, both born in October, ten years apart. So when she was born, why, he was working for a man, but we had our own home, like, you know, and I had the neighbour lady come.

KAREN: And your daughter was born at home as well?

MRS B.: The doctor came and we lived just north of… used to live in Winnipeg then, and he came out from Teulon.

KAREN: And you mentioned a neighbour lady.

MRS B.: Ya. She came over, she wasn’t a nurse or anything, you know, but she said she would come and help us.

KAREN: Before the baby, or after the baby?

MRS B.: After the baby was born.

KAREN: Did you ever have the help of a midwife?

MRS B.: No.

KAREN: No? You had a doctor each time?

MRS B.: Well, I think she had been helping some people, you know, but you didn’t call her a midwife. She’d just offered to help. But my oldest boy, he was five, and he had whooping cough, so she was born in July, so I had to keep him out until, like, when I was bathing her or anything, I didn’t let him come near her. I’d put a jacket on, like, before I had anything to do with him (laughs). It was hard on him. And he used to get up on a table outside the window and watch me bathe her.

KAREN: Oh! Little thing! Oh! My own boy’s five now, I can imagine what he would have been feeling.

MRS B.: Well, it was July, it was warm weather, you know… But it wasn’t a very good beginning for a child. But he’s a loving disposition, he still is.

KAREN: So he got over his whooping cough then.

MRS B.: And he didn’t bother her, you know.

KAREN: Okay, tell me a little bit about the birth of the… Ya, you just did the second baby. Was it the same doctor that you had?

MRS B.: No, no.

KAREN: A different doctor? Had you moved?

MRS B.: Ya, I lived in Welwyn, you see, before.

KAREN: And then you moved to?

MRS B.: We lived in Winnipeg.

KAREN: Were you close enough to a hospital for these first two births, that you could have had the babies in hospital?

MRS B.: Yes, I never even thought about it.

KAREN: Okay, that’s what I’m interested in, why didn’t you consider it?

MRS B.: Oh, I don’t know, it just wasn’t done then I guess, eh?

KAREN: It was perfectly natural thing to have a baby at home?

MRS B.: I was in Winnipeg when the last was born. I had him in Grace Hospital, and it isn’t even there any more, they built a new one out in Portage Avenue, you know.

KAREN: So what was the difference? Why did you choose to have the third baby in the hospital, or were you persuaded to?

MRS B.: Well there was no alternative, eh? You know?

KAREN: Why now? If you had the first two at home, why was there no alternative with this birth?

MRS B.: Well I was there in Winnipeg, and it was during the war, and I didn’t know anybody, you know (laughs.)

KAREN: Yeah, it was during… that would have been in 1943?

MRS B.: Ya.

KAREN: And your husband was away?

MRS B.: Ya, well he was service police in the Air Force. They let him off because of my condition, you know, but the boys were kind of put out because they were missing their 48, you know, because he was working there, because he was let off, eh? And so he said where he’d go on this trip, and I said, “Well if you do,” I said, “the baby will be born while you’re away.” He said, “Oh, I don’t know, that’s not likely.” So they wouldn’t believe him, they thought, you know, they thought we were fooling, he’d have to…

Mrs B had been trying to suppress a nagging cough as we talked, but at this point it completely overcame her. It turned out she’d recently had a gastroscopy and her throat was still irritated from the procedure.

KAREN: I know you’ve talked about this I just want to get specific. Did you have any problems in any of your pregnancies? No problems that had to be dealt with in any particular way?

MRS B.: No.

KAREN: How did you feel approaching the first delivery? How did you feel about your ability to cope with the pain, and your ability to deliver the baby?

MRS B.: Actually I didn’t know anything about all this pain and everything. You know, nobody ever talked to me about it, or suggested it, or… you know?

KAREN: So how did you feel when it first happened? Did it take you by surprise or were you kind of ready for it?

MRS B.: Well I figured you know, they’d have to get it out some way (laughs ).

KAREN: Women of my generation–I’m one of the ones who did this–we read and read and read, we talk and talk and talk.

MRS B.: There were no subjects on that at that time.

KAREN: You’re right. And yet, the more we read the more we know, sometimes the more nervous we make ourselves. And I know, I was quite tense, you know, when the day was approaching. I was quite worried, was I going to be able to do this? … And yet we’ve talked to many women now, of your generation, and we’d say, “Were you afraid? Were you worried?” “Oh no. Women did this. If they can do it I can do it.” That seems to be the attitude. I think you had a great deal more confidence.

MRS B.: Either that or we were ignorant.

KAREN: Well, I was going to say…

MRS B.: Do you think a lot of it was ignorance about… you know, people didn’t talk it.

KAREN: A lot of it, yeah. It was a lack of knowledge.

MRS B.: Your parents and that didn’t talk about it.

KAREN: Yeah, there was a sort of confidence that.. you look around, you see other women having babies, well, there’s no reason I can’t do this. There was an acceptance, that was… That’s nice for me to say…

MRS B.: Well, my husband’s mother had all her babies at home, you know?

KAREN: How many did she have?

MRS B.: She had four boys. You know, she was from the old country, and well her sister lived out at the coast, but she had no relatives, you know, just neighbours eh?

Here the tape ended, and I had to switch to Side B. We tended to lose the train of thought, picking it up somewhere else entirely on the second side.

KAREN: Oh that’s right. After the first baby, you were staying with your husband’s family?

MRS B.: Uh huh.

KAREN: And your mother-in-law didn’t encourage you to stay in bed very long?

MRS B.: No.

KAREN: Was that because she didn’t think you needed it? Or because she thought it was bad for you, or why did she not? See, the custom, I think, certainly amongst women of your generation that we’ve talked to, has been to stay in bed for ten days. Had you heard of that custom?

MRS B.: Yes, but she wasn’t for letting me off the hook more or less (laughs).

KAREN: Oh, is that right? She wanted you to do your chores, did she?

MRS B.: Ya.

KAREN: Really! And how were you feeling? Did you…

MRS B.: Oh I felt good, I was healthy, hey? You know. Young and healthy, eh? I didn’t think anything of it. I knew her attitude, you know. She didn’t really like me having the baby there, anyway she said I could, you know, but, on account of her two younger boys, eh? And she had one older boy than my husband, but that was all right for him, but the other ones were too young. And they were you know, teenagers, fifteen or so, eh? I didn’t figure I was accepted, you know, as one of the family. She treated me all right, but I mean, I was supposed to get up and wash my own diapers, and…

KAREN: Was your husband ever present during any of the births? Did I ask you that?

MRS B.: No. Well, the first one he was, you know, he was there, part time. When he got there with the nurse.

KAREN: Ya, he got there with the nurse that day. Did he come into the room? Did he hold your hand, you know, say, “There honey, you can do it.” That kind of thing?

MRS B.: (Laughs) Ya.

KAREN: He did! Oh, good for him. A lot of them would stay out in the kitchen, pacing up and down, pacing up and down. What about the other two? Was he around for those?

MRS B.: (Coughing a lot) Yes, he was around, when my daughter was born. We were in a farm home.

KAREN: Oh, right. For the second one. And I want to know how much he participated in the birth, in helping you?

MRS B.: Oh ya, he did, ya.

KAREN: Was he allowed in the hospital?

MRS B.: Ya, when he came (Laughs).

KAREN: Who was taking care of the kids?

MRS B.: Oh, well I had a girl.

KAREN: Oh, did you? That’s what a lot of people have said that, I had a girl, I had a girl to help with the housework.

MRS B.: Ya, she just came. She was engaged to his younger brother, and he
was killed overseas, later, but she came, and she had been out to the farm, you know, to meet his mother and dad, and so she came in, but, I don’t know, the kids didn’t, like, get along with her, she was just a young girl, you know.

KAREN: Ya. And your boy would have been ten, by the time you were having your youngest.

MRS B.: Ya, and the girl was almost five, she was five. Her birthday’s in July. But he was almost ten.

KAREN: Yeah, and mine is ten, he’d give a baby sitter a rough time.

MRS B.: Well, the youngest one was born the 9th of October, and he was born the 25th, so, he was two weeks short of ten years.. close to that one.

KAREN: There was no Medicare in those days.

MRS B.: No.

KAREN: So doctors and hospitals would have cost money. Do you remember how much?

MRS B.: I think it was $25, if I remember.

KAREN: For the doctor or for the hospital?

MRS B.: For the doctor. Oh, the hospital… I don’t remember what we had to pay for the hospital.

KAREN: We’ve tried to pin somebody down, can somebody remember? Nobody’s been able to remember exactly yet. I’ve got some photocopies from the library, you know, of government brochures, and they sort of indicate about $2 or $3 a day. So that’s average patient care. But then I’m assuming that the doctor’s fees would have been on top of that. Would the cost have been a problem for you? Would you have found it, you know, a high cost? Would you have struggled as a family to come up with that kind of money?

MRS B.: Well, there wasn’t much money around (laughs).

KAREN: No. I know, that’s what I’m saying, there wasn’t much money around.

MRS B.: I never even.. we never even thought of going to a hospital, you know, for the first two, eh?

KAREN: Okay. Thinking back now in general, over your birthing experiences, are you happy in general with the way things went?

MRS B.: Well, ya, at home, yes. Ya. I have no problems. I was young and healthy, eh? But the last one …? I think if I had another one I wouldn’t go to a hospital again. Because, you know, I guess it just happened that way, but…

KAREN: I am interested in that. We began this project with all kinds of romantic ideas about having babies at home. The more we talked the more we’re finding, well, it wasn’t so romantic after all. And yes, most people preferred their hospital experience. You’re the first I’ve found who did not like the hospital experience. But it doesn’t sound as though you were very well treated there.

MRS B.: Well I seemed to be after but, you know, all right, but …

KAREN: Do you think it was more an oversight? Were they busy that day?

MRS B.: Well, just having the three babies wanting to come at the same time, I guess, that was what was wrong.

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