KAREN:  So did your mother-in-law help you deliver all your own babies? 

LILLIAN:  No.  There was two other ladies that I sent for from the village to come up and help me.  Yeah.  Grandma get too excited.  So I didn't want to hear her.  And they helped and -- and they came just about the time babies want to be delivered, so... 

KAREN:  It's interesting that in Holy Cross, you continued to use midwives even when there was a health aide.  

LILLIAN:  Uh-hum (affirmative). 

KAREN:  I wonder why that is? 

LILLIAN:  Well, I don't think the hospital wanted them to come down to the hospital to deliver -- deliver, but most of the time the -- the mothers wouldn't want to leave because of their other children she would have to leave.  And it was just in that time, day and age, I guess, they were still delivering at home. 

KAREN:  Uh-hum. 

LILLIAN:  And I refused to deliver after my alternate aide, she was a health -- she was not a health aide then, but she hemorrhaged, she was hemorrhaging before I got to see her. 

But I knew what was happening, so I -- I put her to bed right away.  I was already knowing what to do, I was in health aide training.  And they always gave us a lot of books and stuff to study.  Any kind of -- anything to teach -- to train.  We did a lot of reading.  I did.  And that's how I learned how to take care. 

And then I talked to the ladies before it was time for them to, they would come to me and they would say, I need to kind of know when they are going to deliver their first, or their last period they had. 


KAREN:  Uh-hum. 
LILLIAN:  And count.  Take some days away from that, add it up.  And then I'd tell them when you're going to deliver, I want you to go to Bethel Hospital.  Some didn't want to, but they had to.  I told them I refuse to. 

I said, after I seen that woman hemorrhaging like that, and it made me think if anything like that happens again, you know, we might not be as lucky. 

But after I became a health aide, I was not a health aide -- let's see, he's 20 -- I think he's 28 years old now, that was about 28 years ago I delivered him.  The health aide was there.  I -- it's after I retired. 

She -- she said to -- she said -- Judy told me, when I have my baby, you're going to deliver me.  I said, no, I'm not.  Yes, you are.  And she said, nobody's going to send me out of this village.  She already had had one child before some years before that.  And she said, and when I call for you, I want you to come to me, so okay. 

And the health aide that I worked with was -- was the primary health aide then, and she said, I told her, you're going to come up and help me.  And she said, I am?  And I said, yes, because I am no longer a health aide, and it's -- they -- I can't do it if there's a health aide there.  She has to be with me. 
And the Public Health nurse was there at the time.  They still had travelling nurses.  Diane was her name.  And I said, Diane, when she's going -- thank God you're here.  I said, when she's going to deliver, you're going to come with me. 

She said, I'll go and I'll -- I'll observe you.  I said, okay.  That would be fine.  And if you really need help, I'll help you, but I didn't need any help.  I just told her what to do and told Theresa what to do. 

And after she had the baby, Judy, after she delivered, she said, well, you see, you did it.  I told her, it wasn't -- it had been awhile since I had delivered a baby. 

But that young man went to the -- he was in the Marines, I think he was in the Marine.  Maybe in the Navy.  And he came back home and he's now about 29 years old.  Yeah.