At last!

It was an charged moment when I came downstairs yesterday to get a drink and spotted the thick large envelope that came from Australia.

I knew what was in there. I had waited so long for it but yet when the time came, I felt a strange reluctance to open the envelope. I debated about waiting for KH to come home, to open it together. But then I thought just heck it and open lah! So I sat on the mattress in my living room (did I mention that we are now squatters in our own home? more on that later) and ripped it open.

The envelope contained my transcript, a congratulatory letter from Andrea Robertson, principal of Birth International, a list of qualities which a certified birth educator is now equipped with and of course, the cert itself.

In purple letters: Graduate Diploma in Childbirth Education. My name beneath.

Well, I worked for it alright. Unless you've gone through this course, you can have no idea how rigorous it is. I'm going to reminisce my journey now, so feel free to skip if you already know/don't want to know!

I thought back to the very beginning: 2004 - I'd just joined 4tri and the discussion was between A, G and I on what course I could take to be trained in birth education. There was the local one which A had taken and which G was also taking, run by the local doulas.

Then there was this: run by ACE Graphics, Birth International. Both A and G said they liked this course. It was very comprehensive, but it was also very costly. The local course would have cost about $1k+. The projected cost for the ACE course was around A$5000? Not including my airfare, postal costs, living costs for the Aus workshops etc. I think in all, I must have spent about S$10k in all!

I decided to go with ACE eventually because firstly, it was accredited. The local course is not. I wanted a qualification that could stand up to scrutiny. I thought that Singapore being the paper-chasing place it was, I'd better have something accredited. ACE's course is accredited by the Aussie govt. It was the first and I think, the only course to have accreditation. I would be qualified to teach in Aus, hospitals or otherwise.

Yes, it would be more costly and it looked tough: there were lots more components to this than to the local one. But I felt that if I wanted to do this, let's do it all the way - no half measures. KH agreed with me and my mom also supported me, so let's go!

Because I did not have a basic qualification or tertiary training in midwifery, medicine or any related field, they accepted me into the course as a Special Entry student. Which meant I had to pass two of the Self-Study Units to demonstrate that I could read/analyse complex material and write papers before I would be allowed to stay in the course.

I had not studied or written long papers for the longest time and I was so rusty I was scared! I could not even reference correctly in the beginning! And the first paper I had to complete was on Teaching Adults - yikes! What did I know about that?? I fumbled through it, gasak-butah (Malay for blind guesswork!) and luckily passed it. I managed to pass both papers and was allowed to stay on.

The Self-Study units were not easy - my earlier papers were about 30-40 A4 sheets long. But the later ones - the ones on Maternity Care, Pregnancy etc - all ran into more than 100 A4 sheets each. Each paper required lots of research and reading, from textbooks (my Myles Midwifery text is splitting in the spine already!) and from the Internet, the Cochrane Library. The questions were detailed and technical in nature. I remember asking A once about the HPL hormone and she didn't know the answer, commenting that the ACE course was a lot more 'technical'. But while I cursed and swore and stayed up nights hammering out the papers on the PC, I also found myself learning a lot and shoring up the info base.

By then, things were not working out smoothly on the friendship/business end and I had parted ways with G and A. It was a very emotional period for me. I found it very hard going then. And very lost - I didn't have any other friends in the same 'industry'. And at times, lonely - because I had no one who could understand when I needed to de-brief a birth, or analyse an event/process that had happened, or who to toss ideas with etc. I still feel this loneliness from time to time.

And later, thanks to what happened after Meghan's birth, when the doula community closed ranks against me, I felt even more depressed and marginalised. The incident was a real low point but it just spurred me on to continue and to plug on with the course. And it spurred me to register BirthRight as a legit business! So maybe not so bad after all? God always has a plan.

Well, there were high points as well.

Getting High Distinctions twice for the self-study units were high points. Going to Australia when Trin was 3 weeks and Owain 2yo to attend the compulsory 5-day workshop on prenatal education and the 2-day workshop on active birth was wonderful. I met a bunch of warm, fun, lovely women who were also part of the same journey. They were from different parts of Australia - Sydney, Cairns, Adelaide, some from New Zealand and one from Finland! I learnt a lot.

It was also great having Trin in class with me. She wasn't the only baby - there was another 9-mo baby there too. But she was so precious - I nursed her in a sling and kept her in-arms. She hardly made a peep. I had brought along a 'nest' for her to lie down and that was kept in a corner but was hardly used since she was happy to stay in the sling. We stayed in the YWCA which is where the workshop was held and every morning, you'd see me slinging Cait, holding the large 'nest' or The Boat as we called it, my folders, a bag of diapers etc and taking the lift down to the meeting room. KH would head out for the day with Owain. They'd go to the park, or to the zoo, or to the museum or on many ferry rides criss-crossing Sydney Harbour. We'd meet at the end of the day, walk to Chinatown or down Liverpool St for dinner. I think I really enjoyed those days.

Finally meeting some of my fellow coursemates - Helen, Gill and Vina - really helped keep me going as well. We moaned to each other a lot on email and that helped us de-stress when it mattered - particularly the supervised teaching phase, during the exam and the observations. And now I can't wait to meet them again at the bi-annual NACE conference next year in Melbourne!

Then came the exams - taken right at my cubicle at TP on my day off with my lecturer colleague invigilating me! It was kosher all the way - no extra time just because we were colleagues! Passed one paper with a Credit and the other paper with a Distinction.

Then came the grueling bit - the supervised teaching phase. First - unnerving to finally put into practice what I have learnt. Second - logistics difficulty. Thanks to Julie who lent me her digicam, I taped each session. Then borrowed the DVD recorder to transfer the tapes into DVD, then got to rush to the post office and send the tapes off to my Supervisor. Christine Choong, a certified IBCLC and Grad Dip CBE, who ran a lactation consultancy and birth classes in KL was my supervisor. Always so reassuring and so kind, her comments were always spot-on and constructive. I never felt discouraged with her. And really, thanks to God, who sent some lovely couples my way for my first class!

Then came the next few months of dragging feet and doing the Observations - talking to hospital staff, LCs, lactation counsellors etc. Tedious but it helped build my knowledge base. And finally, the last Presentation Unit which again required videoing and sending over - this time to Australia.

Till now - this thin sheet of paper resting on my lap. It's been quite a long ride.

So here's the GradDip thank-you speech: I could not have done it without my friends cheering me on - Gayle, Sam, Rita, Cory, Mag, Julie (who very generously lent me her digicam twice!). They have restored my faith in loyalty being a cornerstone of friendship. Definitely could not have done it without KH who stoutly defended me when I hit the low points, believed in me and gamely went with me to Aus and took care of O while I went to my workshops. Could not have done it without my able helpers Panem and Lolita who swooped babies away when I needed to get cracking. Christine, my lovely supervisor - so patient and kind! Vi my sis who was my 'despatch girl' in KL. My kids who provided sound and light entertainment and noise. Writing an essay on the characteristics of four different pelvis shapes and the impact this makes on labour and birth is already bad enough. Doing this with one kid at the breast, another kid whining about his sister who won't let him have his book back, another kid asking if I prefered princesses to fairies cos thats what she was going to draw - well, that's a whole different challenge.

And finally, I could not have done it without my mom who listened while I ranted on the medicalisation of birth, shared her memories and insights on birth as a midwife and quietly supported me all the way. I never made it to uni and never had a 'tertiary' cert - 'A' levels not counted. So mom, I can finally put some letters behind my name!

So now that this is done, what's next?

Driving lessons!!