MARYANNE: So how did that come about that you decided to go to the hospital?

MRS D: I don’t know why that was. But I had a brother right next to Carrot River, just a quarter mile out of town and they probably offered that I could stay there. I don’t know how long I was there. Maybe we went a week too soon and I stayed there, because that one was born in December and the roads were all in terrible snow drifts.

There is some confusion here on the tape where Maryanne and Mrs. D misunderstand what the other is saying. I’m omitting it, to avoid misrepresenting either of them.

MARYANNE: So how did that birth go in the hospital? Was it quite a different experience from the first birth?

MRS D: Well that must have gone quite well, too. I can’t remember too much.

MARYANNE: Now the third baby, you’re back at home again?

MRS D: Yes, I don’t really remember too much about that. But what I do remember is that my husband very likely had to take the children to my mother-in-law, and then he brought her out and then he went to get the midwife. She was, oh, about a few miles from our place. So I guess everything went quite well. But, see, this little boy was born in May and all we had was… it seems to me he went with a big wagon, or something two wheeled (unclear) to get mother-in-law first, and then he went to get the midwife so I didn’t have a doctor.

MARYANNE: Had that midwife been around when you had the other two children or did she come new to the district? How did you hear about her?

MRS D: No, she was around, but I don’t know why I didn’t. She must have already been around when the first one was born, but I probably didn’t know about her.

MARYANNE: What was her name, do you remember?

MRS D: Mrs. Sawatsky.

MARYANNE: So she was a midwife. Was she a trained midwife, do you remember?

MRS D: I think it was through experience she was trained.

MARYANNE: Was she an older lady, a younger lady?

MRS D: Well, she wasn’t old, but she was old enough that I could have been her daughter.

MARYANNE: More middle aged, maybe 40s?

MRS D: Yeah.

MARYANNE: So how did that go with her, did she do anything differently at all? Was that another quick birth?

MRS D: It can’t have been too bad because I can’t remember there being any complications or anything. And I think she stayed with us overnight the first night. And then after that I think my mother-in-law came again to bathe the baby. There was another family close by, not too far, and that lady sometimes came to bathe the baby.

But one thing I must tell you. I don’t know, this must have been from the first baby though, but like my mother-in-law said, I think it was on a Sunday. She wouldn’t be able to come Saturday or Sunday, whatever (i.e. day it was), she said she wouldn’t be able to come and it was the tenth or eleventh day (postpartum)and she said she thought I would be able to bathe the baby already. But she says, “Don’t get out of bed, get your girl to get the basin of water ready.” I should just do it, you know? I should sit in the bed and do it beside me in the bed, just sponge him off, you know, that way. And I guess I was nervous that morning thinking I had to do it myself and I had forgotten and then here I got the girl to get me the tub and put warm water in it in the kitchen. Oh, by that time we had a little lean-to. It was a veranda, but we had closed it off, it wasn’t a very warm place. I remember I got up and went into the kitchen there and bathed in there, but it was kind of a cool, windy day and there were cracks in the wall and he just cried for all he was worth. It didn’t take me very long to bathe him. Took him out of the tub there as quick as I could and wrapped the towel around him. Yeah, I was just telling you this because now they let you out in a couple of days?

MARYANNE: Yeah.

MRS D: And then it was at least ten days and then I had strict orders not to get out of bed just to be beside the baby.

“I was just telling you this because now they let you out in a couple of days?” Mrs D had been expressing remorse that her inexperience allowed her baby to get cold. Even though she’d been instructed to stay in bed, under someone else’s care, for ten days, she still made a mistake. She was essentially questioning the wisdom of discharging new moms after only two days which, by 1997, had become common practice in Saskatoon hospitals.

MARYANNE: How did you feel? Did you feel okay?

MRS D: Well, laying in bed that long I must have felt kind of weak.

MARYANNE: I know with my last baby I came home within a day. I think it’s good to rest for ten days, but I think it’s good to get up and maybe get some fresh air. You know, I don’t know. Sometimes things are done because that’s just the way they are done. Okay, that’s interesting about the cracks in the walls, there would be a lot of holes in the walls? What were they stuffed with in those log houses? Were those the ones where they used a paste of mud and manure and hay? My mom lived in a house like that, she used to tell me how they would mix that with their feet. They would get the kids to go and mix that all up and then they would paste up the house. So how would there be a crack, would some of that paste fall away?

MRS D: Well, this was a lean to that had been added.

MARYANNE: Oh, I see.

MRS D: And it wasn’t really finished off, like there was no insulation or anything do there were cracks.

MARYANNE: I see. Tell me what did the babies wear then, what would you dress the baby in then?

MRS D: Well, all the babies clothes were from flannel.

MARYANNE: So there would be a diaper and then what would they wear, like a nightie kind of thing?

MRS D: Well, kind of a shirt, a little bit of a shirt and then like open in the back I guess.

MARYANNE: Something on their feet? Did they wear little booties or would that nightie be long?

MRS D: Oh it would be a long nightie.

MARYANNE: So it would probably cover them.

MRS D: Yeah.

MARYANNE: So did you wrap the babies up?

MRS D: Oh yes, we always had them wrapped up, not like they do now when the babies are so young and small and they hold them just like that completely dressed. No, we always laid kind of like a little mattress to put into the receiving blanket, where you would lay on it, and it would be nice and soft and then you would cover them up.

“… a little mattress” inside the receiving blanket. I don’t recall hearing this described before. I’ve certainly never seen one.

MARYANNE: Swaddle them up nice and tight?

MRS D: Yeah, mm huh.

MARYANNE: Where would you put the baby, did you have a pram or little crib or rocking crib, or would the baby just sleep on the bed?

MRS D: No, I think we had a little crib.

MARYANNE: So then, going back then now, your first baby was at home, second in the hospital and the third at home with a midwife. Did the midwife do anything to help you at all in labour? Did she, you know, come over and talk to you or do things, you don’t remember?

MRS D: I don’t remember that.

MARYANNE: So who was there with the third baby? There was a midwife, your mother-in-law. Did your mother come?

MRS D: I don’t remember really, maybe my mother-in-law, she was closer. Maybe she was there.

MARYANNE: So the other children would have been left? I know you said your husband went out to get your mother-in-law.

MRS D: Yeah, he would have taken the children along and you know, left them at her home and then brought mother-in-law.

MARYANNE: So, that midwife, was she sort of known in the community to be fairly good?

MRS D: Oh yes! Yes she was.

MARYANNE: Did the midwife at any time use any drugs on you, ether or chloroform.

MRS D: No.

MARYANNE: So it was a different experience for you because you said with the first baby you were put out? So did it seem like a different experience at all to you?

MRS D: (Laughs)I can’t remember. Can’t have been too bad.

MARYANNE: We all forget, they say that’s the thing about having babies is we all forget that pain. Now the fourth baby…