145. Illness Costing nearly £20.
I have only had one child, a girl, and I had a most fearful time, which nearly cost me my life. I got up and tried to get about, as I had only engaged my nurse for three weeks, and I thought I must try, as time was going on, and I was in agonies all the time. The doctor had left me, and the nurse I had assured me it would pass off as I got stronger, and instead I grew worse and worse, until my husband would call in the doctor again. I had a fearful time. The womb had got twisted, and was lying on the back passage, and inflammation set in. It was worse than a confinement. What I went through! I was in bed ten weeks, and it was more than three months before I could even lift my baby or do anything. I had to be sat with day and night, and have nourishment every fifteen minutes. The woman I had to nurse me, who was recommended to me by the doctor, swarmed me with vermin, and there I was helpless. Only my husband and a neighbour to attend to my head, until the doctor sent the district nurse, and she saved my life. She was so good, and kind, and clever, one of Queen Alexandra’s Nurses she was. I am so glad the Certificated Midwives are doing such grand work. We have one here in the town, and I may say she has all the cases now, and is always very busy, and is so good, and clean, and careful in the home. What we working women want to-day is a friend in the time of need, not a nuisance, the same as I had. It cost me nearly £20, my illness. Had it not been for our little nest-egg invested in our Co-operative Society, where should I have been? What a blessing this Maternity Benefit is! I trust I shall never require it.
Wages 27s.; one child.
146. Specialist’s Advice Needed.
My case was rather an extraordinary one, and emphasises that the National Care of Maternity ought to be brought into force at once. Through no fault of my own, I suffered from St. Vitus’s dance, caused through pregnancy, and was under three local doctors, and also engaged a trained nurse, but at the last moment they decided I must go into hospital, as my case was so bad. The physician said that in a case like mine local doctors were not worth six a penny, and if I had gone to hospital at the commencement, I would never have got to the state in which I unfortunately was. The local doctors told me I could not be cured until the child was born, but the physician in hospital said it was ridiculous. If I had gone four months earlier, I could have been cured, and come home for the child to be born. I had no mother to give me advice, and the same makes me very strongly in favour of Moral Hygiene being taught in schools, so as not to leave girls ignorant of the functions of pregnancy and motherhood. Cases like mine should be brought to light in order that some poor souls in the future will be saved from going through the same as I did.
Wages 27s. 6d.; one child.
147. A Small Private Income.
I really did not suffer much during that time, and always had good confinements. I am one of the few working men’s wives who have a small private income, so I am thankful to say I have never felt the pinch.
148. “Nine Months of Misery.”
I wish to give you a little on the sufferings of mothers in pregnancy. I myself might say it is a matter of nine months misery for me while I am in that condition. I might say I was married twelve months when I had my first—a little girl—and four years after we got a little boy, a fine child, born. But I had contracted a severe chill, and it was all on my chest; and having baby on the breast, it drew the cold from me, and with that took ill of catarrh of the stomach, and died at four months. Being in a weak state myself, I again found myself pregnant; but at the eight months the child was born dead, it being the second boy. Two years after I had another girl, but it was when work was slack, and my husband could get very little work, and it became so bad that we had to sell part of our home to keep ourselves, and the time I should have had extras and somebody in to look after me this was out of the question. Now, two years after, again I had another girl (my last, I hope). I might say that, although sick and ill all the time I was pregnant, I soon got over it when the time was up. I have known some poor souls go days and weeks in their labour, and then have to have instruments and chloroform, and after nearly coming to death’s door have had to be stitched and syringed and doctored for months.