Page 18 - A Visit with Janie Nicholson, Baddeck

ISSUE : Issue 31

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1982/6/1

was over, well, he left it all with me. (So he cut the cord?) Yes, or I could cut it if I wished. (And then he'd wait for the afterbirth?) Oh yes, we'd have to wait. You'd have to let her rest a little while. Then she starts with pain again. But you've got to be very careful with the af? terbirth. Uterus is here, and keep holding up like that, and let her have her pain, but just ease it off a little.bit. Then she'd pro? bably have some more pains. And then, if the doctor wasn't there, you'd have to take ahold of the cord and pull it easy, while she was having her pain. To take it down. So you wouldn't pull everything with it. You'd have to be very careful about getting the afterbirth. (That was almost the most dangerous part, sometimes.) Yes, sometimes it is. Sometimes it's awful hard to get it. The only times I ever got the babies alone, I didn't have much trouble with the afterbirth. It seemed to come quite well. Dr. MacMillan and I were talking together one day not too long ago down on the street there. I was at the bank, and he came out. We were talking about the days and the nights that we'd be out. Poor fel? low. That night that he called me, and we had to go out in the country on the snowmo? bile: "Do you know," he said, "that I only went to bed about 10 minutes before the phone rang. And," he said, "this is the third night that I've been out, and I haven't had any sleep yet." "Well," I said, "if things are slow when we get there, you can have a sleep." So things were slow, not very fast, and I got the old lady in the house, the grandmother--"Can you get a nice place for Dr. MacMillan to lie down?" I said, "Tuck some nice blankets around him." "Yes," she said. "Well," I said, "I'll wake you if I have to. You go ahead We Support Cape Breton Craftspeople! Cape Bretoners are proud of the quality and variety of outstanding crafts produced throughout the Island. It is an industry that requires both moral and financial assistance and the Cape Breton Development Corporation has been giving both for over a decade. The Corporation's craft program includes help with marketing, through Island Crafts, as well as technical and financial assistance. Cape Bretoners in Business Together! CAPE BRETON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION Industrial Development Division P. 0. Box 1750 Sydney, Nova Scotia Telephone: (902) 539-6300 (18)

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