In this issue:
– Heart’s Work
– What’s new at Four Trimesters Birth Sanc­tu­ary — LOADS!! Scroll down to find out!
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An invi­ta­tion to fly up to Sri Lanka again this week­end left me feel­ing both torn and grin­ning from ear to ear. I was just there 2 weeks ago.

I have recently returned from an 8 week sab­bat­i­cal (Mar/​Apr) from trav­el­ing to Viet­nam, Bangkok, Jakarta , Bali and back in Sin­ga­pore to teach Hyp­no­Birthing to expec­tant moth­ers, train peers to be Hyp­no­Birthing Prac­ti­tion­ers and DONA Birth Doula cer­ti­fi­ca­tion work­shop as I am a trainer for both orga­ni­za­tions. Whilst it wasn’t a sab­bat­i­cal in its truest sense as I was work­ing through the 8 weeks, it cer­tainly was for me and it was such an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence from both a per­sonal and pro­fes­sional front, an oppor­tu­nity to grow and fur­ther develop myself even more. And more inter­est­ingly, was learn­ing about the dif­fer­ent birthing cul­tures and meet­ing peo­ple from the birthing com­mu­nity in these coun­tries. It was almost like “United Nations”, birthing as the com­mon theme that weaves all our lives together.

After 5 weeks on the road in 5 dif­fer­ent cities, I went on to Bali to vol­un­teer for Anthony Rob­bins in his Date with Des­tiny sem­i­nar. Hav­ing attended Date with Des­tiny in 2007 which lib­er­ated me in many ways and took my life to the next level, I went to vol­un­teer with an objec­tive to serve. Never did I expect that the gift of giv­ing would be returned to me a thou­sand fold, if not more – I left Bali with the walls of my heart torn down. And with more avail­able space, allowed even more good things to hap­pen in my life.

That was when I received word that I received par­tial fel­low­ship for my Post­par­tum Doula Trainer appli­ca­tion from DONA. I was both elated and dis­ap­pointed that I did receive par­tial fel­low­ship and not full fel­low­ship for the DONA post­par­tum trainer, yet it turned out to be a bless­ing in dis­guise. I was also at a point where there were sev­eral doors opened for me, so I had to choose which door I wanted to walk through. True to my heart, I decided that I was going to going to the annual DONA con­fer­ence and within 24 hours of decid­ing, I received full spon­sor­ship to cover the rest of the fel­low­ship. I was over­whelmed by immense grat­i­tude and joy and was in tears as my heart opened and cried. I was touched beyond words and actions by the love and sup­port I am given by oth­ers as I basked in grat­i­tude. The expe­ri­ence was sim­ply amaz­ing. As I trusted the Uni­verse, it gives you what you need and what you ask for.

In less than 2 weeks, I was off again to Sri Lanka with a good friend for a loca­tion research trip for my busi­ness, as well as some rest and relax­ation and vol­un­teer work. I went to meet the child of whom I spon­sored under www​.smileon​sri​lanka​.org and that expe­ri­ence itself, ripped my heart so wide open that I took on the role of being the Sin­ga­pore rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the orga­ni­za­tion and man­aged to get 18 spon­sors in a week at US$180 per child. One of the spon­sors, an ex-​client (I was there for both her births) was going through a mis­car­riage and bleed­ing nat­u­rally and she wrote in to spon­sor two chil­dren. I broke down in tears. Lit­tle would I have known that tak­ing on a project like this, I was touch­ing the hearts of so many lives, and my heart opened up even more, filled and over­flow­ing with love and grat­i­tude for all beings.

Not a day has passed since that I do not shed tears of joy and grat­i­tude daily. As I kick-​start my day ask­ing myself daily: “How can I sense the grace & divin­ity in myself & those around me even more so as to mag­nify the love that we have within our­selves & oth­ers?” — the Uni­verse has kindly guided me through my inter­ac­tions daily with the lessons I need to learn, the expe­ri­ences I need to have, and a posi­tion to inspire, empower and trans­form lives – mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in every way!

So here I am, left feel­ing both torn about leav­ing because of my clients AND grin­ning from ear to ear with the idea of fly­ing up to Sri Lanka again this week­end to attend the cer­e­mony of the kids receiv­ing their cer­tifi­cates of spon­sor­ship and the oppor­tu­nity and plea­sure of expos­ing my 9 year old son, Kieran, to the good­ness of this project and share the fruits of our labor with my team in Sri Lanka. The Uni­verse shows me the answer in my every day experiences.

I was with my client at the clinic to meet her doc­tor, some­one whom I have not worked with before. They’re first time par­ents who are fac­ing some preg­nancy com­pli­ca­tions and I was there to intro­duce myself to her doc­tor and explain what my role would be and estab­lish rap­port. As the doc­tor was doing the scan to see the baby and mea­sure if there are ade­quate waters in the womb — which is an indica­tive to mea­sure which road my client needs to take – the com­bi­na­tion of the ten­sion & fear from my clients, the sound of the baby’s heart­beat and the antic­i­pa­tion of the results, came the answer.

The events that played out the entire day was sim­ply a dec­la­ra­tion of my pri­mary ques­tion and my val­ues. It’s no won­der that con­tri­bu­tion ranks num­ber two on my val­ues’ list, and what I am will­ing to forgo in place to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence, mag­nify and inspire lives. My heart’s work is here for now. I trust that every­thing is as it should be and what­ever will be, will unfold at the right time.

Namaste, Ginny

Smile on Sri Lanka
If you would like to spon­sor a child on www​.smileon​sri​lanka​.org, feel free to drop me an email to find out more. Here are some pics of the kids who are spon­sored:
http://​www​.face​book​.com/​a​l​b​u​m​.​p​h​p​?​a​i​d​=​2​0​3​7​7​6​&​a​m​p​;​i​d​=​5​9​1​1​4​6​1​7​9​&​a​m​p​;​l​=​3​d​4​5​d​a​1​06f

“Hi Ginny, will research on it first. Frankly, we are very cau­tious where our money goes. But just want to share this with you — your spirit of giv­ing is infec­tious. It brought me and my fam­ily to think about giv­ing and for a start, we have cho­sen The World Food pro­gramme. If you have not posted, donat­ing to the less for­tu­nate, is just a thing at the back of out minds. U know the love of God, it takes a spark to pass it on … and u are that spark.”

“Your spir­i­tu­al­ity shines through in every moment of every day in every thought, word and action you do. It’s who you are Ginny! You are BEAUTIFUL and you SHINE. It’s so much more than your 10 mins of med­i­ta­tion in the morn­ing. It’s who you are to the core of your being! And I love you for that.”

All events require reg­is­tra­tion. To enquire or reg­is­ter for any of the events, please con­tact Ginny at (+65) 9475 1585 or drop her an email at ginny@​fourtrimesters.​com with your name, hp num­ber & email.

All events require reg­is­tra­tion. To enquire or reg­is­ter for any of the events, please con­tact Ginny at (+65) 9475 1585 or drop her an email at ginny@​fourtrimesters.​com with your name, hp num­ber & email.

FREE Hyp­no­Birthing Taster
A FREE pre­view on Hyp­no­birthing to get a taste of what is it all about.
Sat­ur­day, 12 June, 11.30am – 12.30pm
Sun­day, 4 July, 9.30 – 10.30am

Sun­day

Hyp­no­Birthing Ante­na­tal Classes sched­ule for June – July 2010

A com­plete ante­na­tal pro­gram using mind-​body tech­niques to enable par­ents to have an easy, short, relaxed & com­fort­able birth to wel­come their babies into this world as gen­tly as pos­si­ble. $495 per cou­ple for the course See sched­ule here:

Hyp­no­birthing classes — Sin­ga­pore
• Sun­days, 11am-​6pm: 6 & 13 June 2010 (Inten­sive)
• Sat­ur­day & Sun­day, 11am – 6pm: 19 & 20 June 2010 (Inten­sive – 1 week­end)
• Sat­ur­days, 2 – 6pm: 3, 10, 17 & 24 July 2010
• Sun­days, 11am-​6pm: 4 & 11 July 2010 (Inten­sive)
• Sun­days, 11am-​6pm: 18 & 25 July 2010 (Intensive)

Hyp­no­birthing & Par­ent­ing classes – Jakarta, Indone­sia
• Hyp­no­birthing classes: Sat­ur­day & Sun­day, 11am — 6pm: 26 & 27 June 2010
• Breast­feed­ing & Par­ent­ing classes: Mon­day, 9am – 2pm: 28 June 2010

Par­ent­ing Classes sched­ule for 2010
The objec­tive of the Par­ent­ing Classes is to pre­pare par­ents for the first 6 weeks of life and there­after. Con­sist­ing of 2 ses­sions of 4 hours each, we focus on breast­feed­ing, how to help baby in sleep health­ily, and how to soothe a cry­ing baby. We also dis­cuss par­ent­ing styles, chang­ing dynam­ics of the rela­tion­ship and post­par­tum care and changes. This course comes with a CD and mate­ri­als and cost $195.
• Sat­ur­days, 9-​1pm: 17 & 24 July 2010

Lunchtime Sup­port Group every Tues­day, 11am — 1pm – bring a potluck! *Resume 1^st June 2010*
A free lunchtime sup­port group for expec­tant & new par­ents to gain peer sup­port, ask about breast­feed­ing, baby-​related & par­ent­ing ques­tions. We also have a weigh­ing scale avail­able, max­i­mum 10kg though!

Infant Baby Mas­sage Class with Mar­lene Parker
Sundays,6, 13 & 20 June 2010 from 9-​10am
3 ses­sions 1 hour each — $150.00 per couple

Baby Sign­ing Time Sign­ing Course with Ali­cia Tan
Sat­ur­days, 12, 19, 26 June & 3 July from 9 – 11am
4 ses­sions 1 hour each — $320 per per­son; $450 per couple

www​.lit​tle​sign​ing​hands​.blogspot​.com
Would you like to com­mu­ni­cate with your child before they can talk? Do you want to increase your child’s read­ing and lan­guage abil­i­ties?
Sci­en­tific stud­ies sug­gest that “typ­i­cal” chil­dren who learn to sign:
• have higher IQ scores
• are bet­ter adjusted
• read at an ear­lier age
Many par­ents observe that by learn­ing to com­mu­ni­cate ear­lier, the “ter­ri­ble twos” are not so ter­ri­ble—chil­dren can use a sign instead of throw­ing a tantrum to express their needs. For the first time, Baby Sign­ing Time course is avail­able here in Sin­ga­pore! Ali­cia Tan is the first Baby Sign­ing Time Instruc­tor in Sin­ga­pore cer­ti­fied by the Sign­ing Time Acad­emy. She is a sign­ing mum and has been sign­ing to her child for more than a year. She decided to embark on teach­ing it to share the ben­e­fits of sign­ing she has enjoyed, with other par­ents. In the course, you will learn age appro­pri­ate signs such as “milk”, “more”, “ball”, “hurt”, car”, etc., which enables you to com­mu­ni­cate with your baby. This course spans over 4 ses­sions, 2 hours each. Expect the class to be inter­ac­tive and learn through songs as you learn to sign sign sign away!

Love & Logic Par­ent­ing Work­shop with Paula Hug­gins
Tues­days, 15, 22, 29 June 7 & 6 July from 7–9.30pm
4 ses­sions 2.5 hours each — $265 per per­son; Bring another Friend/​Relative/​Spouse and pay $250 per per­son.
To reg­is­ter: http://​events​.con​stant​con​tact​.com/​r​e​g​i​s​t​e​r​/​e​v​e​n​t​?​o​e​i​d​k​=​a​0​7​e​2​w​u​b​x​n​j​7​5​a​0​f​807

The joys of par­ent­ing… Most par­ents would agree that par­ent­ing is pos­si­bly the most reward­ing and inspi­ra­tional jour­ney they’ve ever taken. At the same time, it can be the most frus­trat­ing and stress­ful role expe­ri­enced in adult life leav­ing them won­der­ing if there is a light at the end of the tun­nel! With­out a doubt, the major­ity of par­ents take their role seri­ously and would do any­thing humanly pos­si­ble to ensure that they raise respon­si­ble kids who are capa­ble from within them­selves of meet­ing life’s chal­lenges as they arise. But we all have days when we won­der if we will ever man­age to achieve this – or whether we’ll sur­vive the stress of get­ting them there!
So how should par­ents go about this daunt­ing task of rais­ing respon­si­ble and resilient chil­dren? How can they appro­pri­ately equip their chil­dren to move from total depen­dence to inde­pen­dence in a mere 18 years
The Love & Logic approach pro­vides par­ents with a prac­ti­cal tool-​kit that empha­sizes pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion, devel­op­ment of healthy rela­tion­ships using empa­thy and nat­ural con­se­quence. It is applic­a­ble from tod­dler­hood to teenage years. Take this oppor­tu­nity to hone your par­ent­ing skills and come along to learn, laugh and share your expe­ri­ences with other parents.

DONA Birth Doula Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Work­shop
Inter­ested in becom­ing a Doula? Come join us for a life-​changing expe­ri­ence and be in a posi­tion to inspire, mag­nify and make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in people’s lives. Next course will be held some­time Aug/​Sep. Dates to be confirmed.

Four Trimesters Library Books
Bor­rowed a book from us or have books to donate? Kindly have it returned by hand or by reg­is­tered mail to: Four Trimesters Pte Ltd, 33 Taman Warna Sin­ga­pore 276369, so that we can have our annual inven­tory count and loan the books to the other moms. More than 50 books are loaned out at this moment, so kindly help them find their way back to where they belong.

To reg­is­ter for any events or classes (seats are lim­ited), please email Ginny at ginny@​fourtrimesters.​com the fol­low­ing:
Name:
Partner’s name:
Esti­mated due date (if applic­a­ble):
Hand­phone:
Email:
Event attending:

Wish­ing you and your fam­i­lies a Happy Vesak Day!!!

Hear Ginny on Medi­a­corp radio with Anita Kapoor!

Down­load the pod­cast (right click and save as) here!

A hilar­i­ous inter­view with Shan & Ross on Click​net​work​.tv

In this issue:
– In Mem­ory of Max­ence
– What clients say
– What’s new at Four Trimesters Birth Sanc­tu­ary — LOADS!! Scroll down to find out!
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Dear Max­ence,

The clock turned 00:00, my client was push­ing vig­or­ously. The entire labor has been so pre­car­i­ous, with no clear indi­ca­tions whether she would be able to have a suc­cess­ful vbac (vagi­nal birth after a cesarean) or not. I’ve been with her since 5am, not count­ing the calls I have been receiv­ing through the night and the home­birth the night before. The doc­tor and I exchanged a glance that only the both of us under­stood – today was the first time in my entire Doula career to have a client birth on my birth­day, and for the Doc­tor, he has had 15 births on his birth­day (Yes, he actu­ally has a record of every­thing!!!!). Yet as she is push­ing, hav­ing been in a tough labor for more than 24 hours, finally being so close to deliv­ery, I sud­denly felt over­whelmed with tears, hold­ing back from sob­bing, as today marks one month since you passed away.

There is not a day that I don’t think about you and your fam­ily. Keep­ing in close con­tact with your Mommy, I am cry­ing after exchang­ing smses with your mommy, espe­cially when she opens her heart up to me, shar­ing the pain that she is going through.

You may have been too young to know this but I only met your mommy about two months before she gave birth to your sis­ter Julie where I was her birth doula. The first thing that struck me about your mother was her beauty and her very strong sense of self. Even though it was a pro­fes­sional rela­tion­ship, we had a con­nec­tion and got along really well.

It was dur­ing the post­na­tal visit when I first met you, active and run­ning around despite not feel­ing well and you were still get­ting used to hav­ing Julie as the new addi­tion to the fam­ily. Apart from
that, I got to know you through other peo­ple & the rela­tion­ship you had with them and what they had to say about you, your things that are lying around the house and the pic­tures that I’ve seen of you.

On the day that you passed on, I came home exhausted after a 12 hour work day when a friend called to can­cel the break­fast meet­ing together with your mommy and that’s how I found out about your pass­ing. In shock, I con­tacted your mommy to offer to babysit Julie through­out and was glad that she accepted so that she could attend to you.

My dad died when I was 2.5 years old in an acci­dent and when my son Kieran turned 2.5 years old I had an irra­tional fear of him dying, it was only until he was about 3 years old did that fear dis­si­pate on
it’s own. So when I heard about your death and wit­ness­ing what your mother and fam­ily had to go through, it felt like my worse fears were being played out. Dur­ing those days of being there with your fam­ily at the wake and keep­ing in touch with your mommy there­after, I can only imag­ine the pain that your mommy is going through.

I imag­ined that I would be strong on the out­side, for the sake of my fam­ily and for the sake of mov­ing on but on the inside I am crum­bling and tired of being strong. I imag­ined that there would be a day when I feel so numbed to the pain and would have appeared to move on but some­thing would trig­ger the pain to the point of hys­te­ria and dyfunc­tion, that all I really needed would be to let it out, go insane with grieve to feel it fully and just be and scream within the walls of my heart “Why me? Why you?”. I imag­ined that if I would hold on to the pain it would help me to remem­ber and feel you close in my heart. I imag­ined being with chil­dren and won­der­ing had you still been alive, would you be doing what they are doing or even more. I mourn for the loss of you, I mourn for the loss of us and many many many other moments and mem­o­ries that are not to be. I won­der if life is still worth liv­ing? And with all this pain, what really hurts is that I miss you so much, the sounds of you, the warmth of your body as you snug­gle into our bed in the mid­dle of the nights and all your lit­tle tricks and treats that makes the house­hold come alive. And if it doesn’t make it bet­ter, is that my breasts are still mak­ing milk for you. Every day there is a reminder of you yet when I want to reach out to you, you are not there and I feel locked up in an asy­lum. I miss you, I love you and I know not what to do except that if I could wish for any­thing in the world right now, that would be for you to be in my arms right now.

I can only imag­ine and feel the tears and the pain in my heart when­ever I think of you and your fam­ily. I can only be there in what­ever ways pos­si­ble to offer a lis­ten­ing ear and a shoul­der to cry
on for your mother. And this Max­ence, I can and will do.

I trust that you are with God and in his house right now, with the angels pro­tect­ing you as I keep you in my prayers and in my heart. Though I may not have really known you my dear lit­tle lit­tle Max­ence, you live on in our hearts. Blessed be thy soul.

With all my love,
Aunty Ginny

Max­ence passed away on 23^rd Novem­ber at the age of 2.5 years old, and he is the mid­dle child of a fam­ily of 3 chil­dren.
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What Clients Say:
I usu­ally get swamped with emails after a newslet­ter has been sent out, here are some of what client’s do say…

Dear Ginny,

I really enjoyed read­ing your reflec­tions and expe­ri­ences as a doula in your news let­ter n updates. I have been deeply moved by your cur­rent news let­ter and how all your births had been so lov­ing and calm. I have the men­tal images of the births as you described them in words.

I remem­ber my expe­ri­ence some 5 months plus ago as I laboured drug free and gave birth to my beau­ti­ful baby, it brings tears to my eyes as I recall this expe­ri­ence and Read­ing ur newslet­ter brought me back into the whole expe­ri­ence again. It’s so amaz­ing and I realised that I need to thank you once again, for your call­ing, your lov­ing and assur­ing words and pres­ence and your atti­tude towards your own life and the peo­ple around you.

Even though we didn’t engage you as our doula but the classes helped and because of that my baby was born gen­tly and calmly into this whole au nat­ural. It was a life chang­ing expe­ri­ence and our fam­ily glows with such pride every time ash n I share this expe­ri­ence with friends, fam­ily and even strangers and we have a cute mon­key to show!!

Thanks Ginny, I appre­ci­ate your call­ing and your lov­ing duty to make this world a brighter place for mum­mies and babies.

God bless u and happy days ahead,
Diana

~

Just thought of you. I hope all is well! Thank you so much for shar­ing these women’s sto­ries. Expe­ri­enc­ing their sto­ries through you always uplifts me and I feel so thank­ful to life for being a woman, a mother and for hav­ing given birth in Sin­ga­pore with you at my side.

Akiko

~

Dear Ginny,

Thank you for shar­ing. I am so touched read­ing these.
Elaine is two year old now and I felt the warmth and hap­pi­ness when­ever I recall my birth expe­ri­ence and the hyn­po­birthing and breast­feed­ing classes I attended. Every­thing was so won­der­ful and com­fort­able in prepa­ra­tion for the birth of Elaine.

Thank you for striv­ing to make a difference.

I may not com­pletely under­stand what you went through and strug­gles in your being, but I think your atti­tude, per­spec­tives and expe­ri­ences like no oth­ers have made you a whole­some per­son in every way. A path and jour­ney of no regrets. Kieran will be proud to have a mummy like you. I am full of salute for you.

Wish­ing you strength, hope and lots of faith in all that you do.

Thank you.

regards, Jovin

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All events require reg­is­tra­tion. To enquire or reg­is­ter for any of the events, please con­tact Ginny at 9475 1585 or drop her an email at ginny@​fourtrimesters.​com with your name, hp num­ber & email.

Open House on Sun­day, 10 Jan­u­ary 2-​6pm
2-​3pm: A FREE pre­view on Hyp­no­birthing to get a taste of what is it all about.
3.30–4.30pm: Plan­ning a water­birth, come for our work­shop and find out what it is all about *Free for the launch*
5-​6pm: Our guest speaker, Kirsten Han­nah, from Osteo­pathic Health­care, will speak about Osteopa­thy and preg­nancy, birth and baby related issues.

Hyp­no­birthing Ante­na­tal Classes sched­ule for 2010
A com­plete ante­na­tal pro­gram using mind-​body tech­niques to enable par­ents to have an easy, short, relaxed & com­fort­able birth to wel­come their babies into this world as gen­tly as pos­si­ble. $495 for 4 ses­sions, 3.5−4 hours per ses­sion. See sched­ule here:
Hyp­no­birthing classes
• Sun­days, 9am-​1pm: 3, 10, 17 & 24 Jan 2010
• Sat­ur­days, 1.30–5.30pm: 16, 23, 30 Jan & 6 Feb 2010
• Sun­days, 11am-​6pm: 31 Jan & 7 Feb 2010 (Inten¬sive)
• Sat­ur­days, 11am-​6pm: 20 & 27 Feb 2010 (Inten¬sive)
• Sat­ur­days, 1.30–5.30pm: 24 Apr, 1, 8 & 15 May 2010
• Sun­days, 9am-​1pm: 9, 16, 23 & 30 May 2010
• Sat­ur­days, 1.30–5.30pm: 22, 29 May, 5 & 12 June 2010

Par­ent­ing Classes sched­ule for 2010
The objec­tive of the Par­ent­ing Classes is to pre­pare par­ents for the first 6 weeks of life and there­after. Con­sist­ing of 2 ses­sions of 4 hours each, we focus on breast­feed­ing, how to help baby in sleep health­ily, and how to soothe a cry­ing baby. We also dis­cuss par­ent­ing styles, chang­ing dynam­ics of the rela­tion­ship and post­par­tum care and changes. This course comes with a CD and mate­ri­als and cost $195.
• Sun­days, 2-​6pm: 17 & 24 Jan 2009
• Sun­days, 9-​1pm: 21 & 28 Feb 2010
• Sun¬days, 2-​6pm: 23 & 30 May 2010

Lunchtime Sup­port Group every Tues­day, 11.30am – 1.30pm – bring a potluck! *Resume 6^th Jan­u­ary 2010*
A free lunchtime sup­port group for expec­tant & new par­ents to gain peer sup­port, ask about breast­feed­ing, baby-​related & par­ent­ing ques­tions. We also have a weigh­ing scale avail­able, max­i­mum 10kg though! From Jan 2010, we will spend the first hour dis­cussing the top­ics below and the next hour just chat­ting and ask­ing any other ques­tions that you have or get hands on help with breast­feed­ing.
Wk 1– Cre­ate your own Med­i­Box
Wk 2 — Com­mon Baby Ail­ments
Wk 3 — Alter­na­tive Cures for Com­mon Ail­ments
Wk 4 — Book­club Week (Dis­cus­sion on diff authors on ‘Sleep’)

*NEW* Baby Mas­sage classes to start in March 2010; DONA Doula Train­ing in April 2010; Hyp­no­birthing work­shops and Prac­ti­tioner train­ing in Viet­nam and Jakarta between Mar 2010, all details will be released in the next newsletter.

Pre­na­tal Yoga with Colleen Sim­monds
Pre­na­tal Yoga: Sat­ur­days 11.30am – 12.45pm
Sin­gle Class $25; 4 class pack­age $80; 8 class pack­age $150.00

Four Trimesters Library books
Bor­rowed a book from us or have books to donate? Kindly have it returned by hand or by reg­is­tered mail to: Four Trimesters Pte Ltd, 33 Taman Warna Sin­ga­pore 276369, so that we can have our annual inven­tory count and loan the books to the other moms. More than 50 books are loaned out at this moment, so kindly help them find their way back to where they belong.

To reg­is­ter for any events or classes (seats are lim­ited), please email Ginny at ginny@​fourtrimesters.​com the fol­low­ing:
Name:
Partner’s name:
Esti­mated due date (if applic­a­ble):
Hand­phone:
Email:
Event attending:

Four Trimesters Birth Sanc­tu­ary is born and avail­able for rent
Four Trimesters Birth Sanc­tu­ary is ide­ally look­ing for mer­chants with com­pli­men­tary prod­ucts and ser­vices to share rental space. Liv­ing room area is avail­able for rent on an hourly ad-​hoc basis as well as on a per­ma­nent basis. Extras such as pro­jec­tor, lap­top, pro­jec­tor screen and refresh­ments are all avail­able. We cur­rently have reg­u­lar work­shops and classes such as First Aid, infant nutri­tion and yoga classes avail­able. If you are inter­ested or know some­one who would be, please con­tact Ginny at 9475 1585 or email her at ginny@​fourtrimesters.​com
Link to pic­tures here:

http://​www​.face​book​.com/​a​l​b​u​m​.​p​h​p​?​a​i​d​=​1​0​1​2​5​0​&​a​m​p​;​i​d​=​5​9​1​1​4​6​1​7​9​&​a​m​p​;​l​=​b​9​f​6​d​f​a​a21

Wish­ing you and your fam­i­lies a Merry Christ­mas and a Happy New Year!!!

–
Doulaing with a warm heart because birth mat­ters,
Ginny Phang
Doula, Child­birth Edu­ca­tor, 5PATH cer­ti­fied Hyp­nother­a­pist, Hyp­noFer­til­ity & Hyp­no­Birthing Prac­ti­tioner
W: www​.four​trimesters​.com
A: Four Trimesters Pte Ltd. 33 Taman Warna. (Hol­land Vil­lage) Sin­ga­pore 276369.
T: (65) 9475 1585

In this issue:
– A Doula’s reflec­tions on the tales of many births
– What clients say
– What’s hap­pen­ing at Four Trimesters Birth Sanctuary

_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​
Born in the Caul

36 hours before I was sup­posed to leave for an impromptu vaca­tion, Sab­rina calls me at mid­night to inform me that she thinks she is in early labor. Still out under the moon­light look­ing for her miss­ing dog, I encour­aged her to go home and rest.

I woke up in the morn­ing jump­ing out of bed pan­ick­ing that I must have missed her call, only to real­ize that she still hasn’t called, so I dialed her num­ber, labor was still incon­sis­tent she reported. An appoint­ment with Dr. F.M Lai at 1pm showed that she was only 3-​4cm dilated, so they decided to go home first to get some lunch and pack up before head­ing to the hos­pi­tal. An hour and the half later, Jeff calls me to inform me about the nature of her surges, 5 mins apart but climb­ing in inten­sity. We agreed to meet at Mount Alver­nia Hos­pi­tal, with me trav­el­ing from the East, and them trav­el­ing from Seng Kang, in the pour­ing rain.

3.45pm They arrived at the hos­pi­tal and Sab­rina is 7-​8cm. I arrived 15mins after they did and Sab­rina was clearly breath­ing down but her water bag was still intact. Jeff went down to get admis­sions done, and the nurses were bustling around prep­ping the room for deliv­ery. As for me, my eyes were on the CTG machine as it was not pick­ing up a good trace of baby’s heart rate. I gen­tly asked Sab­rina if she could move from a sit­ting posi­tion to an all fours posi­tion, which could help with the trac­ing. As I lifted up her blan­ket, not hav­ing smelled any whiff of amni­otic fluid which I am so good at detect­ing, I was caught off guard to see baby’s head already crown­ing. I then real­ized that for that split sec­ond, only Sab­rina and I were alone in the room!! I reached over to bell the nurses to no avail. Sab­rina was in her own world, fol­low­ing the flow of her body. With the next breath, baby’s head emerged fully with the waterbag still intact. Instinc­tively, my body took over with ease, plac­ing one hand under baby’s neck just in time to catch Sabrina’s next breath, baby slipped out into the world into my hands. Baby started cry­ing whilst still veiled by the waterbag. At this point, my body hav­ing expe­ri­enced many births before, sim­ply took over and reacted much faster than my head, where my hands reached from baby’s belly, where there was a hole in the waterbag, lift­ing the veil as though it was a t-​shirt, over his head and place baby onto Sabrina’s arms imme­di­ately. Sab­rina, super­star that she is, was calm as ever and she read­ily wel­comed her baby into her arms. First birth, less than 2 hours of intense labor. Hyp­no­Birthing rocks!

The whole scene was so bizarre. In a moment where every­one should have been in the room – for some rea­son, no one was around – and when I attempted to get every­one, from press­ing the nurses call but­ton repeat­edly.. to call­ing her hus­band and the Doc­tor, I some­how could not reach any­one. It was as though fate has deter­mined that this moment was meant to be.

I reflected upon the birth as a good omen – to have a baby be born onto my heal­ing hands and to be born in the caul, how much more aus­pi­cious can it get? It was the bless­ing I needed before leav­ing for my 10 day fast at Koh Samui.

~
Mak­ing my peace as a Doula

I jumped out of bed by 5.30am, show­ered, put on my make-​up and quickly planned the sched­ule for the rest of my day. The plan to take the day off looked promis­ing – the plans to accom­pany my son for his swim les­son, head off for a morn­ing breast­feed­ing con­sul­ta­tion, and take the rest of the day off by hav­ing lunch with my son and friend, fol­lowed by trial pot­tery lessons just to do some­thing dif­fer­ent together for Kieran and I, Kieran going for his mar­tial arts class, din­ner with friends, attend­ing Ajahm brahms talk and finally, a salsa dance social at Union Square. Excited about the day ahead as I was once again, going to attempt to take the day off after my morn­ing appointment.

And the story always starts with my phone ring­ing, Jo was on the line and says that she is in early labor. How­ever, because the nature of the surges were hap­haz­ard, she’ll keep me updated. That’s usu­ally fine except that this is Jo’s 3^rd preg­nancy and that I’ve only met her yes­ter­day for the first time and for the first pre­na­tal, her birth plan was not done and she hasn’t had the chance to read up about whether she wants a water­birth, home birth or just an active birth. Most of all, the doc­tor and the nurses at her hos­pi­tal of choice has yet to be informed. Her doc­tor only called me per­son­ally a week ago to inform me that she is refer­ring Jo to me.

Expe­ri­ence got the bet­ter of me, so I quickly had my break­fast, pre­pared my veg­etable wrap to take along with me as part of my labor food stash, con­tacted all the rel­e­vant peo­ple (that being the doc­tor, the mid­wife in-​charge of water­births at the hos­pi­tal and the deliv­ery quite staff to inform them and arrange for a pos­si­ble unplanned water­birth. Then because I had only met them yes­ter­day, I had to print their birth plan and checked with her hus­band if he had some of the labor tools such as a rice sock ready, in case he needs me to sup­ply any­thing else. On a per­sonal front, I had to reg­is­ter Kieran at his new swim school, for­tu­nately the class today was within walk­ing dis­tance from my home and where I would get a cab as well, so I quickly made my way there. Just as I was done, her hus­band called to update me on her progress and I said we should meet at the hos­pi­tal. Jo refused as she felt that she would not be able to make it through the car ride to the hos­pi­tal with­out any sup­port so her hus­band asked me to go over to their place instead and we go to the hos­pi­tal from there. I called for a cab and headed over.

One look at Jo on all fours hold­ing on to the gym ball under the run­ning shower, I felt instinc­tively that we had to go soon and wanted to see the nature of her surges before we made a move. So I quickly asked her hus­band to bring over the draft birth plan we worked on and asked him to hand write the points that we dis­cussed the before whilst I observe Jo to see how she was cop­ing with the surges, if her vulva was bulging, if her anus was dilated and if there was any more bloody show. With each surge, I coached her on her breath­ing so she would focus more on her breath­ing instead of los­ing it dur­ing con­trac­tions. I told her hus­band to grab two tow­els for the car in case her waters broke and to take her clothes so we can dress her as we had to get ready to trans­fer to the hos­pi­tal soon­est. I texted the mid­wife in charge of water­births at the deliv­ery quite to inform her that we were going to go in soon.

But we had a prob­lem. Jo would not and could not move. Con­trac­tions were 2 mins apart and she started to feel like she needed to push. Usu­ally, when a client com­mits to a hos­pi­tal birth, I make it a point and even take pride in the fact that I will do what­ever it takes to get them there. How­ever, this time, the sit­u­a­tion was dif­fer­ent. I had to think quickly. Do we force her to move and get her going to the hos­pi­tal OR since she can’t move, do they want to go to the hos­pi­tal? In a sit­u­a­tion like this, I would ensure that they make a move and go to the hos­pi­tal BUT I wasn’t too con­fi­dent that we would be able to make it in time and the pos­si­bil­ity of Jo giv­ing birth in the car was very real. So I explained the sit­u­a­tion to her hus­band and decided that we should go. Jo still could not move and did not want to move.

Thoughts race through my mind. The hos­pi­tal staff are all antic­i­pat­ing her arrival and her doc­tor even called me up per­son­ally to refer Jo to me, my rep­u­ta­tion and rela­tion­ship with the doc­tor and the hos­pi­tal is at stake here. OR do I call the doc­tor who does home­births to see if he will take on this last minute case based on com­plete trust in me and my judge­ment and if he can come over right now so that Jo, who had 2 trau­matic births, can finally achieve the birth of her dreams?

Whilst the pos­si­bil­ity of risk­ing the rela­tion­ship with the Doc­tor and hos­pi­tal was at stake, Jo’s needs topped the list in nano sec­ond. I left Jo in her husband’s care and went to call Dr. F.M Lai who does home­births, ask­ing if he could come. He said yes, and I gave him all the details he needed and rushed back to attend­ing to Jo who was in dis­tress. She was push­ing hard, and I coached her to keep blow­ing with each out-​breath. Then I had to call the pae­di­a­tri­cian to ask if she was will­ing to take a last minute case and be on standby, and she said yes. Next I had to con­tact the hospital’s mid­wife. At this point, I was with­out hands. Her hus­band had to con­nect the ear piece to my ear whilst he found all the num­bers and called/​smsed on my behalf.

Stand­ing just next to the run­ning shower, with Jo grab­bing on one hand and my other hand mas­sag­ing her back inten­sively crouch­ing over, I was get­ting drenched which I found very amus­ing. Amus­ing because even after attend­ing 200 over births and always know­ing instinc­tively how to pro­tect myself and my clothes, this was the first time I was get­ting a wet shower with my clothes and make-​up on after all these years! When we talk about water­births to the doc­tors and the nurses in a new envi­ron­ment, one of the com­mon ques­tions asked is if the doctor/​nurses have to go into the pool to deliver the baby. And I always say never, well, this time around, I am wrong.

Her hus­band at this point who busy with all the logis­tics, giv­ing road direc­tions to the doc­tor, get­ting hot water ready (what hot water is for? I dunno, but my guess is watch­ing many too many Chi­nese drama series of how there would always be hot water at a birth), grab­bing all the tow­els, pro­tect­ing the bed, spread­ing tow­els on the floor so nobody slips and falls etc… he was busy as a bum­ble bee!

At this point, Jo was scream­ing the HDB block down.. and kept say­ing I can­not do it, I can­not do it. With a firm but lov­ing voice, I told Jo not to waste her ener­gies by talk­ing, instead coached her with breath­ing and blow­ing, until the doc­tor arrives, with my fin­gers and toes crossed tightly. I caught a baby before I left for my 12 day vaca­tion recently, which is some­thing I do not do as Doulas do not do any­thing clin­i­cal unless it’s an emer­gency sit­u­a­tion, inter­est­ingly, for that hos­pi­tal birth, no one was around and the nurse bell even stopped func­tion­ing but that’s a dif­fer­ent story alto­gether. Point being, this baby was to be deliv­ered by the doctor.

Finally, her hus­band announced that the Doc­tor has arrived. A sigh of relieve and a huge smile came from me. Josephine was fully dilated, a point she has never made it through drug-​free before with her pre­vi­ous 2 births. Head was low and sit­ting there, now she was free to push. Within a few pushes, her per­ineum was stretch­ing and she started say­ing “its too painful”. Not hav­ing birth her pre­vi­ous babies before with­out assis­tance, Jo was los­ing con­fi­dence again. “Push through the pain” I said firmly and reas­sur­ingly. There is no where else to go, there is no help for assis­tance avail­able, this is a home­birth, as you have requested. So work with it, push through the pain”. And she did.

Her hus­band was like a news­caster at this point, cheer­ing Jo on whilst video-​taping the entire birth. “A lot of hair!””The head is crown­ing” The Head is out”… A big smile flashed across Jo’s face when I told her that baby’s head is out, and with the next con­trac­tion, she just had to give one push and the body would slide out.

Baby was born and Jo burst into tears, unable to believe all that was hap­pen­ing. We slowly helped Jo to sit down and passed baby imme­di­ately into her arms. Even though this was her third preg­nancy, this birth expe­ri­ence was all new to her, and she needed this expe­ri­ence to know that she CAN do this and more impor­tantly, to heal from her birth trauma of her pre­vi­ous births. A heal­ing cir­cle – the rebirth of a mother and father all over again.

Reflec­tions from the Doula:
“Even though I only met Jo & her hus­band less than 24 hours ago from her birth, a bond of trust was formed imme­di­ately. This birth expe­ri­ence gave me a split sec­ond oppor­tu­nity to rethink my role as a Doula when I had to make the call between get­ting Jo to the hos­pi­tal or arrang­ing for a home birth. The choice was clear. My client’s inter­ests come first, this is after all, their birth expe­ri­ence to keep and not mine. Whilst I risk the rela­tion­ship with the doc­tor and the hos­pi­tal, the sat­is­fac­tion and heal­ing that it pro­vided for Jo made the deci­sion the right decision.