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.
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.
_Wages 20s. to 22s. 6d.; five children, one still-born._
I have been in the fortunate position of being able to have every help at those times, added to which my youngest child is turned twenty-six years, and time has obliterated much that I suffered at those times. My husband was earning 9d. an hour. We afterwards started in business for ourselves.
I have not got one healthy child among my five, not because I did not get well looked after, but they are suffering through the past generation. My first child is now a man of twenty-seven, married, but has had a paralysed arm from two years old (a milder form of which was a family trouble). The second one died. My third, a daughter, is almost an invalid, through nerves, and has developed a state of “catalepsy” whenever she is overdone. She was trained to be a shorthand typist, but is unable to follow out same, as it excites her nerves. She is now a waitress, half time, and teaches music, to enable her to keep herself. The fourth suffers from congenital heart, and is always ailing more or less. She is a dressmaker. The fifth is now nine years old, and suffers from malnutrition, and is always ailing, but a clever child for her years. We have always been able to provide everything required to keep them in good health. But in the light of the knowledge I have got since I was able to grasp what things are, I have often said I was one of the women who should never have had children, as from a girl I was always ill, right through my married life till now. I have done child-bearing, and am now in better health than I can remember. I was married when I was twenty.