MRS D: Well, just when the birth came and I had Mother and a doctor or the midwife.

KAREN: Oh there was a midwife?

MRS D: Not all the time, I just had that for the first one and for the fourth one. 

KAREN: Okay, can you tell me, I want to talk about the midwife. How did you feel about your midwife? How did you feel she looked after you? 

MRS D: Well, because I didn’t know anything anyways, it didn’t make that much difference.

KAREN: Did you trust the midwife? You didn’t have any problems with her? 

MRS D: No. 

KAREN: Okay. Did she do anything different, maybe, to what the doctor did when he looked after you?

MRS D: Well the doctor… I know one time he did give me something and when I had stitches he would fix that up and the midwife didn’t do that. So I should have had stitches the first time and she wouldn’t do that. It has bothered me every time. 

KAREN: I don’t want to embarrass you by asking you too intimate questions, but did she make a cut, or did you tear?

MRS D: I did tear.

KAREN: Okay, And you think she should have sewn it up?

MRS D: Mm-hmm. And she didn’t. 

KAREN: Okay, let’s back up a bit to when you first found out you were expecting the first baby. How did you feel about the pregnancy itself? 

MRS D: Well at first I didn’t feel bad. I felt good. But later on I didn’t feel good all the time. 

KAREN: How about in your mind, were you afraid of what was coming? 

MRS D: Well I was thinking about that. How that would be. 

KAREN: Did you talk to anybody?

MRS D: Mm-mm (No.)

KAREN: No. It was a very private time, wasn’t it?

MRS D: Yes, it was. 

KAREN: (Following a brief discussion of modern attitudes.) So you were fairly confident throughout all the births? 

MRS D: Yeah.

KAREN: Yeah, but it was a long labour? 

MRS D: Yeah it was. 

KAREN: How many hours, do you remember?

MRS D: Well from the start, it must have been about five hours.

KAREN: That’s not bad. (This was a reflexive response. My own first labour was 25 hours. But I am clearly judging her perceptions here and I should have bitten my tongue.)

MRS D: And I didn’t have that big pain all the time.

KAREN: Right. 

MRS D: But I know some had had it much longer.

KAREN: But it’s tiring all the same isn’t it?

MRS D: Oh it is, yeah.

KAREN: And then the next ones, did they get shorter?

MRS D: Yeah, and in those days we didn’t have the washrooms in the house and stuff like that. 

This, of course, is true. I think MRS D is the only one of our interview subjects who pointed it out, though. And we didn’t follow it up. At least, not that I’ve discovered so far in these transcripts. Missed opportunity.

KAREN: Yes! Of course. So what did you do?

MRS D: Well we had some kind of a stool with a hole in there and a pail under there.

KAREN: That’s difficult. I hadn’t thought of that.

MRS D: Oh yeah it is. 

KAREN: Okay, so when you first started feeling pains—I’m talking about the first baby—did you tell your husband? Did he go for a midwife? How did you get the midwife to come?

MRS D: Well I knew right away that would be something like that so… First he did go and get my mother.

KAREN: Oh did he?

MRS D: I didn’t like that, but…

KAREN: Oh you didn’t? Why was that? 

MRS D: Oh, I just didn’t like that.

KAREN: Okay.

MRS D: And then she was there and he did go and get the midwife because those days they didn’t have the cars and everything. Everything had to be done by horse and buggy or sleigh. 

KAREN: How did he go?