Transcript
When my daughter was born, I'd said to the obstetrician, "I need to have this baby now because my husband's posting to Western Australia on a ship and he'll be gone in three days". He said, "Sure'. So I was induced and I had my daughter and then my husband, indeed, posted to Western Australia.
I was at home in Sydney and my husband just said, "Make sure we do the inventory because we've got a removal in six weeks". So I sort of learned how to be a new mum on my own, but in many ways that was, you know, not too bad.
I didn't have to worry about anything else but the baby and me, but I certainly hadn't done the inventory by the time my husband got back. And then we moved to the West and then he went back to sea again … My mother-in-law lived not that far away, but she didn't visit that often. But fortunately, my daughter was pretty easy and I didn't need that much support at the time …
I think you blur those sorts of things in your memory because otherwise, if it was difficult, you'd never come back and have another baby, I think ... I was on maternity leave for six months but fortunately in Western Australia at Stirling was some friends from the Navy and, in fact, one was a doctor who joined the Navy at the same time as me and his wife had just had a baby as well. So I sort of had some instant friends when I moved over there, which was really great because otherwise it's a bit isolated being in the West.
