For births #2 and #3, my waterbag had burst before I checked myself into the hospital. So for #4, I had just assumed it would be the same.

Contractions finally started at 1.30am, early Thursday morning. They lasted 1 min & was 10 min apart. Very quickly it progressed to 7 min apart & I had a bloody show. Moved my bowels twice in that short span of time. I got up at 3am to shower & get ready. Told myself that I would only get admitted when contractions were 5 min apart coupled w/ water bag bursting. But it wasn't possible, the contractions were a bit too strong for me to hold back anymore & I really did not want to birth at home! I woke dh up at 6am (moved my bowels once more) & called my parents to come over to watch the older kids. My parents sure took the longest 30 min drive down to my place. I really thot I was going to give birth along the corridor of our apartment! Lol!

When I reached the hospital, the contractions were holding me back from walking normally so the nurses hurried to get me a wheelchair :)

Once in the delivery suite, I was (as usual) strapped to the CTG. But I was only 5 cm dilated!!!! Argh!!!! Everyone thought I was going to birth anytime soon since it was the 4th birth for me. So I wasn't even allowed to go to the toilet to relieve myself! I had to do it in the bedpan :(

From 7:30am to abt 9am, the contractions were moving along from 5 to 3 min & lasting really long. The midwife came in at abt 8am to insert an antibiotic IV drip in me coz I was diagnosed with a positive GBS infection at 38 weeks. I protested coz the dr had agreed that he would give me a jab or an oral dose instead. Unsure of what to do, she called the dr & I overheard her complaining to him that I refused the drip :) !

The dr arrived at abt 9am & told me that he would give me a jab but then almost immediately changed his mind coz he said I may still need the drip incase of excessive post partum bleeding. Sigh!!! the only "good" thing was that he only left the drip contraption on w/o the actual plastic drip tube, iykwim? Then he did a VE & said that I can deliver soon. He broke my water bag w/o informing me (grr!!!) & said ok - you can deliver now!?!?!?!!? I was placed "in position" & told to push!

Huh? I was quite irritated. I tried to push a few times with the contractions but instead of the contractions moving closer together coz of AROM, I felt them growing further apart! & on top of that I was getting tired & I could feel the bb sitting on my spine, unable to move down coz of the position I was in.

Dr then left the room (too impatient to wait?!) & left the midwives in-charge. They kept asking me to push & in the end I snapped at them - "I want to get down!" The older midwife was so shocked she said "huh?" but the younger one ran to check with dr coz I was getting down from that position regardless of what anyone says!

I got down and started to push on fours, then on my knees leaning forward, - doing whatever my body was telling me to do. I felt baby pushing down but I just couldn't get her out!

By then I was getting weary of this whole pushing thing I was soooo desperate that when the dr came back in I told him to just vacuum her out! He told me to get back on the bed & then to push again. Again I repeated - "please vacuum the baby out!" and he said "no lah! you want everything natural, including delivering your placenta out naturally. So how can you ask to vacuum the bb out? You must push her out!" Argh! Not what I wanted to hear! So I bargained with him! but he insisted and told me "you have forgotten your verse 'I can do ALL things thru Christ Jesus who strengthens me!' "

I got back up on the bed and praise God! I pushed twice and the baby pops out! BUT with the cord around her neck! So while her head was hanging out, the body had to be "delayed" while he unwinds the cord off her and then she came out! With no cry! She just laid on me while the nurse dried her & then she wailed only when they stuck the plastic tube to suction the stuff out of her mouth!

Meanwhile, I could feel the placenta sliding out of me easily. Woah! After having been pulled & tugged w/o any pain relief with #3, the natural birthing of the placenta this time was a breeze!!!

And then dh gets to trim the cord. His 1st time! And then we found out why the baby took so much more effort than the rest to come out. She was our heaviest by far - 3.5kg and her head circumference was the largest at 36cm!

Immediately my 1st thought was - next time, I will pray for a baby with a head circumference of 34cm! :)

What did I learn? That thought I wanted the waterbag to burst as a clear indication tro go to the hospital, God knew better. Being GBS positive meant that the baby was in danger of ingesting the infection if the waterbag had burst in advance. Keeping the waterbag intact till the actual birth was His way of protecting the baby from the infection. God is so good! I had no pethedine, no gas mask and I got to deliver my placenta naturally. It was awesome!

But I still felt that something was missing......

Yes, my waterbag did break but the cotnractions were only 10min apart and did not progress. Hmm...So should I go or not? To complicate matters, there was meconium in the waters passed. According to what I have read, it may signal that baby is in distress. And yet there was an incredible peace about waiting it out. So I waited and waited. I walked, I squatted, I went on all-fours but the contractions remained at 7 - 10 min apart.

This time round, my parents had been called to come and mind the children and they were also hanging around, wondering what was happening. I called a friend who said that I hsould go to the hospital "just in case". Dh and I prayed and discussed and decided that we will go to the hospital to just check the status of the baby.

Surprisingly, everyone at the hospital was very calm even when I told them that my baby had passed meconium. They did the usual exams and put the CTG monitor on to check the baby's heartbeat. The dr came in and said that baby is fine and the only "problem" was that I had to stay in bed, hooked up to the CTG coz they wanted to monitor the baby's condition closely! That was a bummer coz I did not feel comfortable. Lying down on my back always hurts!

I was all ready to argue with the dr that I didn't want to be induced. But the dr didn't bring it up at all and then he leaves to perform communion (this was a Sunday morning) at his church!

But from the moment I had checked in (slightly before 10am) till 12 nn, I was still at 4cm dilation! Althought the contractions were strong and consistent, the dilation just wasn't progressing. So I prayed. Dh prayed. Suddenly 9to me) at 1:45pm I needed to push. The mideife scuttles in to check and she yells "Call the dr!'. Lol! She claimed I was 9cm but I am sure I was a 10! She said that I needed to wait for the dr, so I took the offer of the gas mask to control the urge to push & to calm myself down.

5 pushes later - the baby came whooshing out! Drug free, pain free, Exhilarating! :)

And the best part of all was when the dr said that he was going to suggest induction so that he could go and perform communion bbut decided not to! Wow! The hand of God is mighty and protects!

At 38weeks, I had very strong contractions. It was progressing at every 7 - 10mins regularly and didn't change in pattern even when I sat up or lay down. Hmm....labour? I prayed. God didn't say to go in so I didn't. The contractions did not become closer. After 2 hrs, the contractions stopped. I was grateful that I didn't panic and checked myself into the hospital where I most likely would have been induced.

One day before EDD while reading in my bed before sleeping, I felt a strong pressure down at my cervix and with that pressure, there was a small leak of waters. Hmm....waterbag breaking? But it was such a small leak. Again, I prayed, asking for a sure sign. Then I went to bed. That was about 11pm. At 2+am, there was such a huge contraction and with that, a gush of waters came through. But, no, it didn't gush non-stop :) I immediately woke dh up and went to shower and change. After which I called my parents to come over and help with minding our #1.

By the time I checked into the hospital, it was about 3am. The nurse asked if I wanted a pethedine shot. Not knowing any better, I said ok. After the shot, I promptly fell asleep till the midwife came running in and shouting at me to not push! I was in a daze, being rudely woken up and almost immediately, I felt the bearing down sensation. They yelled for me to not push till the dr came in. It was quite hilarious. A few pushes, and the baby was out at 6am! IOW I spent only 3hrs in the hospital and I was not as tired as my first birth! Praise God! Now that was a supernatural childbirth! There was no pain! The recovery this time round was even better. The nurses couldn't believe that I had just given birth when they came into make the bed at 8am.

But I learnt something else - the pethedine shot I took with both #1 and #2 can cause a blue baby syndrome in the baby when administered too late. My room mate's baby had the condition coz her baby came out real fast. And the baby had to go into ICU for monitoring. After reading up somemore, I found out that all the drugs given to a mother during labour affects the baby somehow.

Much later on, I had friends who shared that due to the epidural they took, their babies were so sleepy, they couldn't nurse. I personally tried to help a friend to nurse her baby. But her baby was so drugged that he didn't even have the natural instinct of rooting that all newborns have! All he did was sleep! And even when bottlefed, he only took one bottle in the 3 days he was at the hospital!

Of course there are many women who took the epidural with no seen effects on either the mom or the baby but there are risks involved whenever the mum takes any drug during labour and the benefits need to be weighed carefully againt the baby's needs.

Having a few friends who have either birthed recently or going to birth in a couple of months made me reflect on my own birth stories. And I like dwelling on them coz I see so clearly the hand of God on the pregnancies, labour and birth. I would say I am one of the rare women who have had enjoyable and pleasant births :) Nothing to do with me, I may add! It is all by the grace of God and His work on the cross.

I hope that by sharing with you, I may encourage those who are about to birth or those contemplating motherhood to know that birth can be a not scary thing. But please note that every birth is different, there is no magic formula. We just can't pigeon hole God, chant some mumbo jumbo and expect God to do exactly what we want.

#1 - this birth was what I called my baptism of fire :) We had read the book Supernatural Childbirth by Jackie Mize and understaood and agreed with her that the work on the cross by Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of "sorrow" or "pain" of childbirth. But we didn't know anyone who believed in it and how it would actually work out. So when the contractions hit, we thought "this is it!" and went to the hospital on the dr's advice even though God didn't tell us to do so. Oh we prayed but we didn't wait for His answer! :( And what happened was awful.

I had to be put on a drip to "accelerate the labour" as the dr said coz my labour had stalled. He also proceded to break my waterbag. Combined, they brought on the most awful contractions that were so fast and hard that it left me gasping for air! In the beginning tho' it was still painless but after a while, there was PAIN!!! I finally caved in and took the pethedine shot and used the gas mask.

My body, which was designed perfectly by God to bear and birth babies, was being sabotaged by the drip and premature bursting of the waterbag! In a normal process, the body is able to handle each contraction as it came, releasing enough endorphins (the happy hormones) to counter each contraction. But with an artifically induced labour, the body's mechanism is short circuited.

I wanted to push but was not allowed to because I hadn't dlilated to 10cm. I spent most of the hours from 8am (when the drip was inserted & the waterbag broken) to 4pm trying NOT to push. So when it was time to push, I had no more energy! baby was finally taken out via a vacuum cap :( And I had the "requisite" episiotomy :( Besides being physically tired out, recovery was surprisingly fast. But I was sore at the bottom for about 3 - 5 days.

What did I learn? No matter what happened, God's hand was still on me and the baby. On that day in the hospital, our birth was the only natural one out of the five births that happened! Oh! The power of prayer and the grace of God!

But I knew that this was far from the Supernatural Childbirth I was meant to have. So I read up and joined discussions on email groups that spoke about a natural birth. One big mistake I made was to go into the hospital too early!

Going in too early had several consequences. One of which is that labour can stall or stop altogether. The stressful situation in the hospital (nothing beats labouring at home if you have no medical condition!) is not comfortable. So if you are near your EDD and your labour stalls, then there is most likely going to be an induction. Yucks! If the baby is due, the induction may be just a very painful way to labour. BUT if the baby is not ready to come out and there is an induction, your body will not cooperate. Contractions will not be strong enough and there'll be no dilation. But if the waterbag has been broken, the baby has to come out so a c-section will be performed!

So the main lesson I learnt was : not to go in too early!

So what can help the new mother adjust to the addition of baby into the family? From my own observations, besides prayer, there is one thing that is most important to the new mother - support and encouragement.

Support and encouragement : new mums need lots of it! After birth, the mother is physically tired (they don't call it labour for nothing! Lol!), her hormones are settling down and she is probably very emotional :) She does not need to hear any negative things that cause her to doubt her ability as a mother. We should always encourage the mother to be the mother.

What do I mean? A lot of timesI hear the well meaning grandmother or confinement lady say "Aiyah! You don't know how to carry/bathe/soothe/etc.. the baby!" And then she takes over. So how is the new mother supposed to learn how to be a mother if everytime she tries, she's taken over by the grandmother or confinement lady?

For breastfeeding mothers, they need even more support and encouragement! Breastfeeding, though is God's gift to babies, is not embraced by many. It is deemed either too difficult or for the poor :( So for those who persevere, the last thing they need to hear is "You don't have enough milk!" Our bodies produce milk according to the baby's needs and demands. But because we can't see the milk going into the baby, many presume that the milk is insuffucient. Worse is if the mother is not well endowed :(

Being there for new mothers is helpful. While our husbands can help, it often takes a fellow mother to sympathise and help another one through the rough early days. I remember crying when we had our 1st who was so difficult to handle in the early days coz he had the need to suck but got angry when I had a letdown and milk went pouring into his mouth. He would scream and yell his head off. My friend had no advice but she was there listening to me pour out my woes and her encouragement that these days will pass was helpful even tho I didn't think I would make it!

One other thing that helped me was receiving practical help from kind friends. As we have no no live-in help, any practical help offered is great :) It allowed me to concentrate on the baby and the other children instead of housework and cooking.

Last but definitely not least, pray for the new mother. Knowing that you are praying with her and for her gives her great comfort. Even as you offer practical help and encouragement, direct her back to God, for indeed as the psalmist says, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1 We can't always be there for the new mother but God can. We don't always have answers for her but God does!