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Daisy Hewett

Her description of Belinda's birth

Feb 5th
To Belinda! This might amuse you someday.

The baby was about due & something happened to make us think it was on the way. So at 12 o'çlock
at night Feb 4th 1924 we rang up Mrs Kivell, (who had promised to be of use) & she and her husband motored round to the back door at Ohaupo. It was a cold and misty night & your mother was feeling rather frightened & as if her last hours had come! Mr Kivell had only just learned to drive his Ford & he started off at a great rate, winged by fear as to what might happen in the back seat! We whizzed round corners so fast we whirled in our seats, daddy holding on tight to his little wife! We didn't know exactly where the maternity home was! Only knew the address by letter! We had thought of going up in the dark! So after 12 miles of bumping and whizzing, we came to a standstill in the dark, deserted streets of Frankton. Every house shut up, every one "au lit"! So we began cautiously driving up and down various sides of squares & after a long time at last came on the white gate & green hedges of "XXX" - about 2 a.m. & got out and went up some dark steps & knocked at the door. No answer for ages, at last a light appeared, the door was opened & a tall angular woman appeared.

We explained our business (she had been expecting me in a week or 2). So I bid daddy a last farewell, feeling it really was a last perhaps, the door was shut and he was gone. The old lady took me into a nice big bedroom with 3 beds (it appeared however I was the only patient in the hospital of 9 beds! Why, I was to discover!)

She asked me to unpack & stood XXX & XXX watching. while I undid little pretty garments that had taken many months to make. "Huh, don't think much of those Plunket garments" she said at last! Poor me. I got into bed and she went off with the light. I went to sleep - no more pains. Woke feeling OK got up and had breakfast. It was a very hot day & I spent it wandering feebly in the garden behind the tall hedge hiding the road. I tried her quite nice piano & nearly wept to think it might be the last time. The old dragon (who had been well recommended by my Dr) eying me all the time evilly. She told me, if you got married "you brought it on yourself"!! all of which rather helped depress me! Mrs Cooper & Babe (the 10 or so) came to see me in the afternoon, but I had to ask her to go, as the pain came on again. The Dr. came to see me and said all was well for at least 2 hours. However, he was slightly out, for after a terrific time (for me), you arrived in ½ hour, without the Dr. who had gone off again. First mother filled the air with moaning & then you!! such a furious crying. You did not approve of this world. I said "Nurse, you've left baby in the cold" She growled and threw a bit of sheet over you. Then they got me into bed and you were carried off! & never was I allowed to see you except 20' at each "feed" (I'd have a little more to say now-a-days!) But was so afraid she'd be horrid to you, if I said anything. It was a lonely time after that, the days sweltering, the nights cold & mist rolling in at the open verandah door, my little lonely self in the big room, no baby to cheer me. & Nurse told me one day, that even if I had rapped on the wall, she might not hear me! (& this someone who might die if unheard!) 

Dear old Daddy used to come up be train, every other day, where he found I was not very happy. He walked 3 miles (no car then) to the station, had ½ hour's journey, had ½ hour with me & then back again to the cows. I had no visitors barring Mrs Noorish once & Mrs Thwaits once and Mrs Couper never came to see me, although she came and showed the baby to Babe one day. 

Nurse occasionally came & sat be me & told me of all the patients she had had who'd died & "one in 2 minutes" but she comfortingly assured me no one had ever died in the first 3 days!!!  I have a grim remembrance of dry over-done beef pudding with very tough beef & runner beans nearly black by some curious system of cooking. I kept asking for stewed fruit & something lighter than boiled puddings & she got more and more annoyed with me, though I hardly dared open my mouth.

You seemed to spend all the time sleeping or having bad tummyaches & we had an awful time in all that heat trying to keep you awake to have a meal. At 7.30 p.m. I had a dreadful bowl of lumpy watery gruel to get through & then the light was put out & I was left alone & in the dark, to wish the night was not so long. I was a XXX little XXX in those days longing to tell the Dr. things (I was not at all well & as you would not suck well I had great trouble with my breasts) & as she was always standing at the foot of the bed like an angry guardian angel when He came I said nothing! Then, on the day I went home I had another fright (a swollen breast) & was so afraid I should be still longer in this prison. But XXX, he said I could go home & poultice it.  Oh the relief. 

And then another rathe terrible time with poor little Auntie XXX nearly killing herself and neither of us knowing anything of babies & this one such a crying one! And the Plunket method tried so conscientiously and such a failure!  To console you anyhow. Still, you never had a mouth piece ("tootsy") although I think I'd have been happier if you had. None of you did tho' I got one in case Nancy was not good. The Dr. said you were the prettiest baby he had ever seen (except his own). You had silkiest of black hair, rose leaf complexion. Very small 6½ lbs but quite perfect.




Date1924
Linked toMarguerite Hewett

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