This is Boris Solis interviewing CP 150624-0047,
who was given a verbal consent to the consent form.
Correct. Um, it is June 24, 2015 at 4:52.
All right. All right, so we'll get started. All right, so, um, do you want
to do some, why don't you go ahead and just tell me a little bit about
yourself? OK, about back then or just any time? maybe like how long you've
been here or OK, I've lived in Arizona since 1976
and I came down here to go to graduate school at ASU. Um, I lived in
Denver before then. I've lived a lot of different places. So in the
country in the US. How's audio? It's good. Yeah. OK, we're taking audio
mainly too. OK. OK. Um, so maybe you could take me back to around the time
of your pregnancy and or the labor and delivery, if there were any
memorable aspects like it was a very hot summer or something was going on
in terms of politics or just something to situate us in the time. OK. It
was in the year of 1967.
And it was a very cold winter in Milwaukee and actually a few weeks before
the birth, um we had had a big snowstorm and there was no way to, we lived
in an apartment building, there was no way to even get out of the parking
lot, uh, which was scary to me because my doctor had told me that it was
gonna be a rapid delivery. And so, because I was dilated so many, such and
such a level, I can't remember exactly. Um. And then I remember I was in
his office and I, I started crying when I said we couldn't really get out
of the parking lot and I had even spoken with the next door neighbor who
was a physician on leave from Vietnam, but he wasn't an OBGYN and he said
, you know, if I have to, I can deliver your baby, which, you know, with
some comfort but not really, and the doctor had told me that. The baby was
situated in such a way that the cord could wrap around her neck. And so
when he told me that it was gonna be a fast delivery and we had had this
snowstorm.
I got tearful and I said, well, what can I do? And he said, well, what do
you want me to do? Put you in the hospital early? And I said, yes. Because
we lived, I don't know how many miles, but we lived quite a ways out of
town and uh so anyway he did put me in the hospital early and I was in the
hospital we had a deal that he wanted to do an X-ray of the baby because
he could tell whether or not the bones were formed enough for, you know,
the delivery to take place and. I didn't really want to be X-rayed. I
didn't think it was a good idea, but we had a deal that if she was not
born by Valentine's Day, that he would induce labor. So anyway, he decided
ultimately to go ahead and do the X-ray once I've been in the hospital a
couple days and it showed that she was. You know, ready to be born and
everything, but they kept, he said we're gonna continue to keep you here
for the next few days, but if Valentine's Day comes, then you know that's
it. So anyway, um, a few days before Valentine's Day, I went into labor in
the hospital. And
Um, I started with having these labor pains in my back, which was kind of
weird. I wasn't sure I was in labor. And I called the nurse and I said,
and there was a nursing shortage at that point. In the hospital and I
called the nurse and she, she said, I'll be in there when I can. I have to
empty all the trash cans on the floor first so there I was and finally
like 20 minutes later or something, she showed up and when she looked at
me she could tell that the baby was about ready to be born and so she
screamed and ran out of the room and called my doctor and he got there.
Just right about as she was being born and he didn't even have time to put
on a white coat or anything like that. And he was very angry because he
said, you know, I put this patient in the hospital early for a reason and
you call me at the last minute. Also, he had been at a basketball game
that was tied.
He wasn't real happy about that. So anyway, um, she was basically born
with almost no sedation or anything like that and born very quickly and
then He gave me Demerol right after the birth, and I had a paradoxical
reaction to that. Normally that would calm you down and I just, I was like
wired, you know, I, I jabbered constantly.
Called everybody I could think of, you know, to tell them about her birth
and so on. So that's basically what happened,
um, so. When you Um, after who was in the room with you for one thing. OK
, that, that was interesting. The person who was in the room with me. What
happened was I had been in the room by myself and then they moved in a
woman into the room who had pneumonia and they didn't have her baby in the
room with her because of her pneumonia and her baby was gonna be brought
in to be. Breastfed and my baby was in the room and I complained I said
wait a minute. I said, you know, this woman has pneumonia. I don't want my
baby exposed to that and they said, well, there's nothing we can do so I
said, well, I'm gonna call my doctor. Well, as soon as I said that
suddenly there was something they could do and they moved her out of the
room and she agreed with me. I mean, she understood totally and she said I
would feel the same way you do. So anyway, that happened too. So I was in
there by myself after that. Yeah, so was your husband with you? He wasn't.
He was back where we lived. I had another older child and of course there
was no time to call anybody, you know, to be there for the delivery or
anything, so I was the only one there. Did you have any family in town?
Was your mother still? No, my, my mother lived in a distant state and um
the only person there was my husband and my other child, but like I say,
we lived out of town and you know they couldn't camp at the hospital or
anything, so that's what happened. When you, um, was your pregnancy a
planned pregnancy?
I wouldn't call it exactly planned, but it was not a huge surprise and it
was, it was like we wanted to have another child, but we weren't really
specifically trying that hard at that moment in time, so. It was, it was
like that. It wasn't like, you know, we're gonna really try to have a baby
right this second. Yeah. Did you have any sort of birth plan or take birth
classes?
Um, I'm trying to remember if I did with that pregnancy.
I think I had already taken those classes earlier. Um, And you know I was
about ready to take classes on how do you deliver a baby or something. My
doctor said, you know, I think you're somebody who could deliver your own
baby if you had to, but he said, I don't want you in the have to do that
because of the cord and where the baby's situated and everything. What was
the concern with the cord? That it was wrapped around the baby's neck in
the position and that the baby could. Be strangled, you know, during the
birth process without a doctor being there for the delivery. So he
actually knew that at this point it was loosely kind of around the I don't
know exactly how it was. um, in those days they didn't show you images
like they do now, um. So I don't know, he just said the position the
baby's in. Means that it's very likely the cord is wrapped around the
child's neck and, you know, it could be a dangerous kind of delivery if,
if you don't have help. So. So had you intended to um give birth without
any medication?
Not necessarily one way or the other, but I had had an easy time before
and so I wasn't real worried about it one way or the other. I wasn't
extremely concerned, but. Normally I would have had something, you know,
some kind of medication, yeah. At this point they weren't, they were
giving epidurals though, correct? They did give epidurals, but I didn't
have an epidural. Um, I was somewhat leery of epidurals. I had had heard
from other people that something about if you raise your head, you end up
with a splitting headache and this that and the other, and I didn't feel
like I really needed an epidural, so I had had a neighbor. When I had
lived in another city who had done had all of her children through natural
childbirth and she taught me a lot of the, you know, exercises, squatting
and this that and the other to do for that so I wasn't really that worried
about about that part of it. I was more worried about something going
wrong without a doctor there. So, um, once the baby was born, what then?
Did they give you your baby? Yes, my baby was in the room with me and um.
You know, I was nursing for the first several months, um, and I I would
say that I was probably in the hospital.
Several days afterwards, in those days, they had people in the hospital a
lot longer than they do now, you know, and I was probably in there a good
3 or 4 days before I went home. Yeah. That's interesting. So they didn't
take the baby to a nursery, and they just had it in the bassinet next to
your bed then. Yeah, it's what in those states they called rooming in, you
know, where you have your baby in the room with you. So, and I had done
that in my previous pregnancy too. So, so there was nothing actually wrong
with the cord that once the baby was born, the cord was not wrapped around.
You know, actually, let me change something. I didn't have rooming in
that I had it before, and the reason I remember I didn't is because
someone said don't have rooming in because, you know, you've got to go
home to your other child too who's like 2 years old. And rest while you
can, so I took that advice. So I didn't actually have rooming in that time.
I did the time before, but that's nice, it was an option. Yeah, oh yeah,
definitely, it was a women's hospital.
Um, so can you talk about your pregnancy? Um,
It was pretty uneventful, really, the pregnancy itself, other than, you
know, as the time came and with the weather bad and all that, that was the
scary part, but other than that, it was not. There was not anything about
that pregnancy that particularly wasn't a particularly difficult or
particularly easy pregnancy or whatever. It was just kind of a typical.
Experience, I think, and we had moved to that city. Um,
I would say when I was several months pregnant, we had moved there from
somewhere else, so, and we lived in a big apartment complex and. So I did
know a few people there, but not many. How did you um feel about being
pregnant? I mean, did you feel good in your skin or? I felt, I felt good
about it, but it was a somewhat stressful period in the sense that. Um,
you know, moving. And um.
Some of the difficulties with.
There were, it was competition between my mother and my in-laws.
And for example, I had, uh, this was right beforehand, but I had said to
my in-laws, don't come for Christmas this year because my mother's coming.
We lived in a two bedroom, one bath apartment. Well, they came, you know
, and so it's like there were those kinds of things going on, yeah. Yeah,
and those can complicate things.
So did you put on a lot of weight? I can't remember how much weight I
gained. I think it was just kind of typical, like probably 20 or 30 pounds
or something. Yeah, I mean, I didn't gain a huge amount. I didn't have
swollen ankles or anything like that. I had had toxemia in an earlier
pregnancy, so I was very careful about. Monitoring things and. One thing
that was kind of interesting is I do remember this, um, this was my 3rd
pregnancy. And I had, I was so afraid of having to see me again. That both
for my 2nd pregnancy and the 3rd 1 I had. Rented a blood pressure
instrument and I took my own blood pressure every day and I had decided
that if my blood pressure went up, I was gonna make up a story about and
go to the doctor for some reason, you know, but that had happened in my
first pregnancy and it wasn't realized so. Is that where toxemia is? Well
, toxemia is, is when my understanding of it is it's when your kidneys
start to fail and your blood pressure shoots way up. I had had like a
grand mal convulsion and everything else. I mean, I could have literally
died, you know, and so I was very careful about things like that and. I
read later that toxemia is much more common in first pregnancies, so. I
never had it again, which was good, yeah.
Um, you know, I don't think I realized that you, that I thought Ruth was
your only child. No, I have a daughter who is, um. 2 years older than Ruth.
Yeah, how was your experience with her? Did you, um, was it similar to
Ruth's? Uh, it was really, it was a very good experience. I did have
rooming in for that one. And she was born after my first child had died,
so it was really an extremely positive experience and um It was an
uneventful pregnancy and you know no complications or anything and you had
um her in the hospital, yes, in a different hospital, different city. What
was the season? Uh, the season was fall, yeah. Yeah, Denver.
Yeah. So what was home life then once you got home with Ruth? And having
another toddler or a young child, was 2 years, the other daughter was 2
years old when you were, yeah,
it was, you know, just kind of a typical situation, I would say, you know.
Did she sleep through the night and. You know, I'm trying to even
remember she was a pretty easy little baby. Later on, what happened was
she would get up. And sit up in the crib in the middle of the night and
start playing with things, you know, and so you'd hear all this noise.
Going on and she was always a very precocious child physically like she
crawled at 4 months, she walked at 8 months, you know, she just again
something that I think she inherited from her father's side of the family
because I'm not necessarily that athletic, but um, and she always was a
really good athlete, so. Yeah, so had you known before that you wanted to
have 2 children? Um, Originally, when I was a child growing up, I used to
say I was gonna have 6 children and each of them were gonna look like one
of my friends.
But as I grew up and had kids, I didn't think I want to have 6 children.
Yeah. 2 was a good number. Yeah. And you have a career but I didn't have
a career then. Yeah, I went back to graduate school much later. Yeah.
Interesting. Mhm. OK, let me look at my notes and see if I'm. Did you
feel um prepared for your delivery experiences?
I think I did the 2nd and 3rd pregnancies, you know, I, I felt prepared. I
mean, obviously the way things went with the 3rd pregnancy, there wasn't,
I, I wasn't totally prepared for the way it was gonna unfold, you know,
but um. But you know, I think I knew what to expect within reason. I
didn't expect that the nurse would be emptying trash cans about the time I
was ready to deliver. I wasn't sure though that I was in labor because of
having pains in my back. I had never experienced that before. It was and
it was just like twinges initially and so I didn't, I thought, well, is
that really. But it was rhythmic, you know, so I thought, well, maybe that
really is labor. Yeah, did the women in your family talk to you about what
to expect? Not really. I mean, I think they probably had an earlier.
Situations, but I, I knew.
You know, I knew something about my mother's pregnancies. But I had known
that for years, yeah. Did you have your seizure at home or were you? I was
in the hospital, but barely. Yeah. Fortunately, I lived a few blocks from
the hospital at that point. Yeah. And your health was fine after that. My
health was fine, you know, I, I was just worried it was gonna happen again
, you know, and I had gone to a general practitioner who was the family
doctor for my husband's family. And um My mother kept saying, you know,
why don't you go to an OBGYN but I wanted to do kind of what was expected
in that situation, but after that child died of a crib death, I then went
to see an OBGYN and had him review my records and everything, and he said
, you know, this may not ever happen to you again. And he also was very
critical of the doctor I had been to. He said, you know, he must have been
throwing your urine samples down the drain or something. He said there had
, he had seen you like the week before and he said, uh, I think you can
easily, I wanted to know whether I should have another child or not
because I didn't understand everything that had happened and he said, you
know, you should probably be fine as long as you go to somebody who. He
knows what they're doing, but he said, whatever you do, don't go back to
Joe Schmo.
So, and you know how doctors don't usually criticize one another, yeah.
Well, it's really wonderful that you had to, you know, good birthing
experience. Oh, it is, it really is, yeah. Um, so we're separating these
stories into themes, and so we're asking people to maybe if they can come
up with a word or a small grouping of words that kind of describes their
experience.
Hm, it's a challenging question. It is. I'll have to think about that.
I guess one thing I would say is certainly they were positive experiences.
Um,
I also would say. They were somewhat challenging for me in the sense that
um.
I, one thing I learned from that first experience, I had, my father was a
physician and I had always gone to good doctors.
And I just kind of trusted my doctor. And I really came to believe
something that I read in a book later on, but I believed it already, which
is that you really have to be a partner with your doctor and you can't
just say whatever you think you've got to, I felt I had to like I had to
take my own blood pressure and things like that, which was probably
excessive, but that's how I felt, you know, that I, I wanted to take
charge this time, make sure that things went, you know, the way they
should go. Yeah. Women have been saying too that um going through that the
birth experience, labor delivery experience for them has um Brought out
aspects of their personality or inner strength that they didn't even
really know they were capable of. You know it seems to you that you've
maybe taking control part and being your own advocate was something that
you came from that terrible tragedy, you know I did.
I, I just really believe that you have to rely on your doctor up to a
point, but you have to. Be in charge, it's your baby and your delivery and
yeah. I meant to ask you and I forgot, did you have an episiotomy or did
you have any issues with tearing or any physical? No, not really, not
really. I didn't really have, I think I did have an episiotomy, but I
don't remember that much about it, to tell you the truth, yeah, with at
least one of the pregnancies, yeah. I think they're pretty common.
Now it's mixed. I had to have one, but I know you had a rough time. Yeah,
you did. I felt bad for you when I read that, yeah. Um, but let's see, I
don't think I have. Any other questions for you? I think we did great. I
really appreciate it. OK. Well, you're very welcome. Yeah. Do you have
anything else you wanna add before we turn off? I don't think so. Yeah,
yeah, great, yeah.