關於 how to say a prayer to someone ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

The Power of Fasting and Prayer

God’s word reveals to us that fasting has many benefits, such as it being a channel of healing, health, answered prayers, and a great way to cast out unbelief from our hearts.

I'm sure that if God is leading you to fast, He is preparing you to receive a manifestation of blessing!

One benefit we are going to look at is increased sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s voice. We can sense God’s directions for our lives better when we fast.

When the disciples in the early church fasted, it seems like they became more sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. They were able to receive God’s instructions and leading easier. It also helped them to make the right decision when faced with a big task.

“Now in the assembly that was at Antioch there were some prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen the foster brother of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they served the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Separate Barnabas and Saul for me, for the work to which I have called them.” Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” (Acts 13:1-3 WEB)

If you are at a crossroads in life and need to make an important decision, the Holy Spirit may lead you to fast to seek God for His guidance and wisdom.

I believe that fasting makes one’s spirit more in tune with the spiritual things of God so we're able to hear from Him with greater clarity.

This is likely because when we fast, we are denying the flesh of its desires and are more focused on the Spirit.

Whenever fasting is mentioned in the Bible, it is mostly combined with prayer. I would liken fasting to an amplifier, making your prayers more effective by casting out unbelief from your heart and also making you more sensitive to the Holy Spirit and what He wants you to pray for.

Do you need to receive wisdom to make an important decision? Maybe you feel like you can’t sense what God wants from you at this point in time. Perhaps it’s time to dedicate a fast to the Lord, and make it a season to receive and hear from Him.

“Let the husband give his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife. Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment.” (1 Corinthians 7:3-6 WEB)

The Apostle Paul taught that there are seasons whereby we should put aside fleshly indulgences like physical intimacy with your spouse, and just commit time to fasting and prayer.

The last time I fasted, I had to make a decision whether or not to listen to someone who was many years older than me. He preached God’s word locally and overseas.

After my fast, we met up. I could clearly sense that he was speaking nonsense, and I could easily discern the motivations that were shaping his words. It was obvious that his words were not to be trusted.

If I had listened to him I might have wasted precious years of my life doing something that was not God’s will for me.

Don’t overlook the powerful combination of fasting and prayer. We need to hear clearly from God, especially in difficult seasons and moments of standing at crossroads.

You can learn more about New Covenant fasting in my eBook “How to Fast Under Grace”. It is a short read, and it will clear up many misconceptions believers have about fasting: https://www.miltongoh.net/store/p20/how-to-fast-under-grace-milton-goh.html

早晨被一個夢打醒⋯
這個夢很有意思 代表我內心的渴求 狀態⋯有一陣子沒有這樣子有點複雜紛亂又清楚的夢⋯。

才知道今天是1月11日～1/11⋯❤️

在我生命中有兩個日子，刻劃很深的記號⋯11/1 和1/11～。我從來沒有覺得數字有什麼特別，但這兩個數字卻讓我永遠記得，紀念甚至感恩！❤️🌹🥰🥰

那是一段刻骨銘心很難明白的艱困過程，多年前1/11那個日子讓我跨了一個大門，有一點像是生孩子的過程，痛到你幾乎不想生，但是忍過那個最痛的階段，就是一個新生命的開始⋯，真的是如此啊⋯若沒有勇敢的跨過去往前走，我就看不到現在一片綠意盎然，充滿生氣的我的人生風景！所有的細節美麗和精彩啊⋯！

我曾經有一個經驗，很可愛很真實！轉換了我面對傷害的態度～！
特別傷你的人是你愛的人,特別難面對⋯。
有一次我跟主禱告，和著眼淚和氣憤⋯，在禱告中，我看見一個影像，就像電影一樣～那個傷我的人對著我扔石頭，但那石頭沒打著我，於是我撿起那塊石頭很生氣的回丟過去，扔過去時，覺得很沒力道手很輕⋯一看，我扔過去的，居然是一個麵包！我突然就噗哧的笑了⋯怎麼那麼沒力呀！連傷人都傷不到！🥰🥰這時上帝對我說，如果別人用黑暗用憎恨來對你，難道你回他的是一樣的嗎？你的心中有的是什麼呢？如果你有了我，你會知道要回應什麼⋯⋯

真的，我即刻從生氣到笑自己，這麼容易被激怒，因為我心中充滿的⋯真的不是這些，我可以給予的美麗和美好太多了⋯。

在黑暗中，唯有你自己成為光，才可以找出一條路⋯不要再等候其他的⋯。
你自己就可以成為光，你自己就是那個美麗！那個力量！那個智慧！那個勇敢！⋯只是你沒有找到那個鑰匙⋯甚至是你不想找～

最近有一個很深的體悟，不管你有多愛一個人，或者有人多愛你，不管你有多少人陪在你旁邊，你最終都是得孤獨的面對自己～靈魂的那一個你～如果你自己不能好好欣賞愛你自己，明白你自己是美麗的，你就沒有辦法自在和滿足～。

對於那些傷害與破碎，還有那些不明白為何傷害你的人～放了吧！
一句傷害的話都不用說，因為你更多的能量是看自己愛自己成為⋯美麗的那一個你～！使人看見你就開心就喜樂！好像吃到麵包那樣滿足！🥰🥰❤️🌹

在2021/1/11的今天～～這曾經令我痛哭欲絕的這一天，我向我的主獻上感恩～
謝謝祢總是不離不棄，在我最艱困的時候，用祢最溫柔有力的胸膛擁抱我！用祢最溫柔最有智慧的言語餵飽我，用祢最溫柔明亮的光帶領我，用祢最深最廣的愛情包裹我⋯。 使我可以在靈魂的海洋裡 大山裡面自由奔放⋯I love you,My Lord....🌷


(馬太福音 5:9) 使人和睦的人有福了！因為他們必稱為　神的兒子。
(Matthew 5:9) Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

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Photographer:Su 蘇婭

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I Waked up by a dream in the morning...
This dream is very interesting. It represents the desire ,my situation in my heart....It hasn't been a somewhat complicated and clear dream like this for a while.
I just know that today is January 11 day～1/11...❤️
There are two days in my life, with deep marks...11/1 and 1/11~. I have never felt that the numbers are special, but these two numbers make me always remember, commemorate and even be grateful! ❤️🌹
It was a difficult process that was unforgettable and hard to understand. ..The day 1/11 many years ago ...made me step through a door. It was a little bit like the process of having a child. The pain was so painful that you almost didn’t want to give birth to ... But to endure the most painful stage is the beginning of a new life... , it’s true! If I didn’t step forward bravely, I would not see the greenery and fullness now. ...My Life...Landscape! All the details are beautiful and wonderful...!
I once had an experience, very cute and real! Changed my attitude in the face of injury~!
I once had an experience, very cute and real! Changed my attitude in the face of injury~!
The person who hurt you in particular is the one you love.
Once I prayed to the Lord, with tears and anger... During the prayer, I saw an image, just like a movie. The person who hurt me threw a stone at me, but the stone did not hit me, so I picked it up. I picked up the stone and threw it back angrily. When I threw it over, I felt very weak and light in my hand... At first glance, what I threw over was actually a piece of bread! Suddenly I laughed...how could I be so weak! Can't even hurt people! At this time, God said to me, if someone treat you in hatred in darkness way ,would it be the same for you to treat him? What is in your heart? If you had me, you would know what to respond...
Really, I instantly went from being angry to laughing at myself, I am so easily irritated, because my heart is filled with...it really is not this, I can give too much beautiful things and kindness...
In the dark, you can only find a way out by becoming the light yourself...don't wait for others...
You can become light yourself, and you yourself are the beauty! That power! That wisdom! That brave! ...But you didn't find the key...even you don't want to find it~
Recently, I have a deep realization that no matter how much you love someone or how many people love you, no matter how many people being with you, you will eventually have to face yourself alone~ the soul of you~ If you can’t appreciate and love yourself well, and understand that you are beautiful, you can’t be comfortable and satisfied~.
For those who hurt and broken, and those who don’t understand why they hurt you~ let it go!
There is no need to say a hurtful sentence, because you should take more energy to see yourself loving yourself and becoming...the beautiful you~! Make people happy when they see you! As satisfied as if they had bread! ❤️🌹

Today on January 11, 2021~~This is the day that once made me cry, I give my thanks to my Lord~
Thank you for always staying true to me. In my most difficult time, hug me with your most tender and powerful chest! Feed me with your tenderest and wisest words, lead me with your softest and brightest light, and wrap me with your deepest and broadest love... So that I can be free in the ocean of the soul...I love you, My Lord...🌷

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My sister, Michelle-Ann Iking's 3% chance of conceiving naturally was a success! Here's her story:

(My apologies as I've been overwhelmed with personal matters. I've only managed to get to my desk. So finally got around posting this).

This is the story behind my sister's pregnancy struggle and how she shared her journey over her Facebook page.

Because some may have not caught her LIVE session chat with me (https://www.facebook.com/daphneiking/videos/687743128744960/) , or read her lengthy post (as it's a private page);
she's allowed me to copy and paste it over my wall, in case you need to know more about her thought process on how AND why she focused on the 3% success probability. Read on.

-------------------------------------------

Posted 10th May 2020.
FB Credit: Michelle-Ann Iking

A week ago today I celebrated becoming a mother to our second, long awaited child.

Please forgive this mother's LONG (self-indulgent) post, journalling what this significant milestone has meant for her personally, for her own fallible memory's sake as well as maybe to share one day with her son.

If all you were wondering was whether I had delivered and if mum and bub are OK, please be assured the whole KkLM family are thriving tremendously, and continue scrolling right along your Newsfeed 😁.

OUR 3% MIRACLE

All babies are miracles... and none more so than our precious Kiaen Aaryan (pronounced KEY-n AR-yen), whose name derives from Sanskrit origins meaning:

Grace of God
Spiritual
Kind
Benevolent

...words espousing the gratitude Kishore and I feel for Kiaen's arrival as our "3% miracle".

He was conceived, naturally, after 3 years of Kishore and I hoping, praying and 'endeavoring'... and only couples for whom the objective switches from pure recreation to (elusive) procreation will understand how this is less fun than it sounds ...

3 years during which time we had consensus from 3 different doctors that we, particularly I (with my advancing age etc etc) had only a 3% chance of natural conception and that our best hope for a sibling for our firstborn, Lara Anoushka, was via IVF.

Lara herself was an 'intervention baby', being one of the 20% of babies successfully conceived through the less intrusive IUI process, after a year and a half of trying naturally and already being told then my age was a debilitating factor.

We had tried another round of IUI for her sibling in 2017 when Lara was a year old. And that time we fell into the ranks of the 80% of would-be parents for whom it would be an exercise in futility... who would go home, comfort each other as best they could, while individually masking their own personal disappointment... hoping for the best, 'the next time around'...

So the improbability ratio of 97% against natural conception of our second baby, as concurred by the combined opinion of 3 medical professionals, was a very real, very daunting figure for us to have to mentally deal with.

Deep, DEEP, down in my heart however, though I had many a day of doubt... I kept a core kernel of faith that somehow, I would again experience the privilege of pregnancy, and again, have a chance at childbirth.

And so, the optimist in me would tell myself, "Well, there have to be people who fall in the 3% bucket... why shouldn't WE be part of the 3%?"

Those who know me well, understand my belief in the Law of Attraction, the philosophy of focusing your mind only on what you want to attract, not on what you don't want, and so even as Kishore and I prepared to go into significant personal debt to attempt IVF in the 2nd half of 2019, I marshalled a last ditch effort to hone in on that 3% chance of natural conception... through research coming across fertility supplements that I ordered from the US and sent to a friend in Singapore to redirect to me because the supplier would not deliver to Malaysia.

I made us as a couple take the supplements in the 3 month 'priming period' in the lead up to the IVF procedure - preconditioning our bodies for optimum results, if you will.

At the same time, I had invested in a sophisticated fertility monitor, with probes and digital sensors for daily tracking of saliva and other unmentionable fluid samples, designed to pinpoint with chemical accuracy my state of fertility on any given day.

(UPDATE: For those interested - I obtained the supplements and Ovacue Fertility Monitor from https://www.fairhavenhealth.com/. Though I had my supplies delivered to a friend in Singapore, and redirected to me here since the US site does not deliver to Malaysia, there are local distributors for these products, you will just have to research the trustworthiness of the vendors yourself...)

I had set an intention - in the 3 months of pre-IVF priming, I would consume what seemed like a pharmacy's worth of supplements, and track fertility religiously... in hopes that somehow, within the 3 month priming period, we would conceive naturally and potentially save ourselves a down payment on a new property... and this was just a projection on financial costs of IVF, not even considering the physical, emotional and mental toll it involves, with no guarantee of a baby at the end of it all...

It was a continuation of an intention embedded even with my first pregnancy, where all the big ticket baby items were consciously purchased for use by a future sibling, in gender neutral colours, in hopes that sibling would be a brother "for a balanced pair", though of course any healthy child would be a welcome blessing.

It was a very conscious determination to always skew my thoughts in service of what the end objective was. For example, when 3+year old Lara would innocently express impatience at not yet having a sibling, at one point suggesting that since we were "taking too long to give her a baby brother/sister", perhaps we should just "go buy a baby from a shop", instead of getting defensive or berating the baby that she herself was, we enlisted Lara's help to pray for her sibling... so in any place of worship, or sacred ground of any kind that we passed thereon, Lara would stop, close her eyes, bow her small head and place her tiny hands together in prayer, reciting earnestly, "Please God, please give me a baby brother or baby sister."

After months and months of watching Lara do this, in the constancy of her childlike chant, Kishore started feeling the pressure of possibly disappointing Lara if her prayer was not answered. Whereas for me, Lara's recitation of her simple wish became like a strengthening mantra, our collective intention imbued with greater power with each repetition, and the goal of a sibling kept very much in the forefront of our minds (hence our calling Lara our 'project manager' in this endeavour).

And somehow in the 2nd month of that 3 month period, a positive + sign appeared on one of the home pregnancy tests I had grown accustomed to taking - my version of the lottery tickets others keep buying in hopes of hitting the jackpot, with all the cyclical anticipation and more often than not, disappointment, that entails...

This time however I was not disappointed.

With God's Grace, (hence 'Kiaen', a variation of 'Kiaan' which means 'Grace of God'), my focus on our joining the ranks of the 3% had materialised.

It seems poetic then, that Kiaen chose to make his appearance on the 3rd May, ironically the same date that his paternal great-grandfather departed this world for the next... such that in the combined words of Kishore and his father Kai Vello Suppiah,

"The 1st generation Suppiah left on 3rd May and the 4th generation Suppiah arrived on 3rd May after 41yrs...
One leaves, another comes, the legacy lives on..."

***

KIAEN AARYAN SUPPIAH'S BIRTH STORY

On Sunday 3rd May, I was 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant.

The baby was, in my mind, very UN-fashionably late past his due date of 29th April, so as much as I had willed and 'manifested' the privilege of pregnancy, to say I was keen to be done with it all was an understatement.

In the weeks leading to up to my full term, I had experienced increasingly intense Braxton-Hicks 'practice contractions' - annoying for me for the discomfort involved, stressful for Kishore who was on tenterhooks with the false alarms, on constant alert for when we would actually need to leave home for the hospital.

Having become a Hypnobirthing student and advocate from my first pregnancy with Lara, and thus being equipped with
(1) a lack of fear about childbirth in general and
(2) a basic understanding of how all the sensations I would experience fit into the big picture of my body bringing our baby closer to us,
I was less stressed - content to wait for the baby to be "fully cooked" and come out whenever he was ready... though I wouldn't have minded at all if the cooking time ended sooner, rather than later.

With Lara, I had been somewhat 'forced' into an induced labour, even though she was not yet due, and that had resulted in a 5 DAY LABOUR, a Birth Story for another post, so I was not inclined to chemically induce labour, even though I was assured that for second time mothers, it would be 'much faster and easier'...

That morning, I had a hunch *maybe* that day was the day, because in contrast to previous weeks' sensations of tightening, pressure and even spasms that were concentrated in the front of my abdomen and occasionally shot through my sides and legs, I felt period - like cramping in my lower back which I had not felt before throughout the pregnancy.

It was about 8am in the morning then, and my 'surges' were still relatively mild ('surges' being Hypnobirthing - speak for 'contractions', designed to frame them with the more positive connotations needed to counteract common language in which childbirth is presented as something that is unequivocally painful and traumatic, instead of the miraculous, powerful and natural phenomenon it actually is).

I recall (masochistically?) entertaining the thought of opting NOT to have an epidural JUST TO SEE WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE...

I figured this would be the last time I would be pregnant and so it would be my 'last chance' to experience 'drug free labour' which, apart from the health benefits for baby and mother, might be *interesting* in a way that people who are curious about what getting a tattoo and skydiving and bungee jumping are like, might find these *interesting*...even knowing there will be pain and risk involved...

Since I have tried tattoos and skydiving (unfortunately not being able to squeeze in bungee-jumping while my life was purely my own to risk at no dependents' possible detriment) a similar curiousity about a no-epidural labour was on my mind...

In the absence of other signs of the onset of labour (like 'bloody show' or my waters breaking), I wanted to wait until the surges were coming every few minutes before we actually left the house for the hospital, not wanting to be one of those couples who rushed in too early and had interminable waits for the next stage in unfamiliar, clinical surroundings and/or were made to go home in an anti-climatic manner.

I was even calm enough through my surges to have the presence of mind to wash and blowdry my hair, knowing if I did deliver soon I would not be allowed this luxury for a while.

Around 9am I asked Kishore to prep for Lara and himself to be dressed and breakfasted so we could head to hospital soon, while I sent messages to family members on both sides informing them 'today might be the day.'

My mother, who had briefly served as a midwife before going back into general nursing and then becoming a nursing tutor, prophetically stated that if what I was experiencing was true labour, "the baby would be out by noon".

The pace in which my surges grew closer together was surprisingly quicker than I expected; and while I asked Lara to "Hurry up with breakfast" with only a tad more urgency than we normally tell her to do, little Missy being prone to dilly-dallying at meals, I probably freaked Kishore out when about 930am onwards, I had to instinctively get on my hands and knees a couple of times, eyes closed, trying to practice the Hypnobirthing breathing techniques I had revised to help along the process of my body birthing our child into the world.

I recall him saying a bit frantically as I knelt at our front door, doubled over as he waited for Lara to complete something or other, "Lara hurry up! Can't you see Mama is in so much pain and you are taking your own sweet time??!!"

SIDETRACK: Just the night before, Lara and I had watched a TV show in which a woman gave birth with the usual histrionics accompanying pop culture depictions of labour.

Lara watched the scene, transfixed.

I told her, simply and matter-of-factly, "That's what Mama has to do to get baby brother out Lara, and that's what I had to do for you also."

In most of interactions with my daughter, I have sought to equip her to face life's situations with calmness, truthful common sense, and ideally a minimum of drama.

Those who know the dramatic diva that Lara can be will know that this is a work-in-progress, but her response to me that night showed me some of my 'teachings' were sinking in:

She looked at me unfazed, "But Mama," she said. "You won't cry and scream like that lady, right? You will be BRAVE and stay calm, right?"
#nopressure.

So as we prepped to leave for the hospital I did indeed attempt to be that role model of calm for her, asking her only for her help in keeping very quiet,
"Because Mama needs to focus on bringing baby brother out and she needs quiet to concentrate...".

As we left the house at 10.11am, I texted Kishore's sister Geetha to please prep to pick up Lara from the hospital, and was grateful Kishore had the foresight to ask our gynae to prepare a letter for Geetha to show any police roadblocks between my in-laws' home in Subang Jaya and the hospital in Bangsar, this all happening under the Movement Control Order (MCO).

To Lara's credit, in the journey over to the hospital, she - probably sensing the gravity of the situation, sat very quietly in her seat at the back, and the silence was punctuated only by my occasional deep intakes of breath and some variation of my Ohmmm-like moans when the sensations were at their height.

By the time we got to Pantai Hospital at around 10.30am, my surges were strong enough I requested a wheelchair to assist me in getting to the labour ward, as I did not trust my own legs to support me... and Kishore would have to wait until Geetha had arrived to take Lara back to my in-laws' house before he himself could go up.

I slumped in the wheelchair and was wheeled up to the labour room with my eyes closed the whole time, trying to handle my surges.

I didn't even look up to see the attendant who pushed me... but did make the effort to thank him sincerely when he handed me over, with what seemed like a palpable sense of relief on his part, to the labour ward nurses.

The nurse attending me at Pantai was calm, steady and efficient. I answered some questions and changed into my labour gown while waiting for Kishore to come up, all the while managing the increasingly intense surges with my rusty Hypnobirthing breathing techniques.

By the time Kishore joined me at around 11am (I know these timings based on the timestamps of the 'WhatsApp live feed' of messages Kishore sent to his family), I was asking the nurse on duty, "How soon can I get an epidural??" thinking what crazy woman thought she could do this without drugs???!!!

The nurse checked my cervix dilation, I saw her bloodied glove indicating my mucous plug had dislodged, and she told me, "Well you are already at 7cm (which, for the uninitiated, is 70% of the way to the 10cm dilation needed for birthing), you are really doing well, if you made it this far without any drugs, if can you try and manage without it... I suspect within 2 hours or less you will deliver your baby and since it will take about that time for the anaesthesiologist to be called, epidural to be administered and kick in... it might all be for nothing... but of course the decision is completely up to you... "

So there I was, super torn, should I risk the sensations becoming worse... or risk the epidural becoming a waste?? And of course I was trying to decide this as my labour surges were coming at me stronger and stronger...

I was in such a dilemma...because as a 'recovering approval junkie' there was also a silly element of approval-seeking involved, ("The nurse thinks I can do this without drugs... maybe I CAN do this without drugs... Yay me!") mixed with that element of curiosity I mentioned earlier ("What if I actually CAN do this without drugs... plenty of other women have done it all over the world since time immemorial.. no big deal, how bad can it be...??") so then I thought I would use the financial aspect to be the 'tiebreaker' in my decision making...

I asked the nurse how much an epidural would cost and when she replied "Around MYR1.5k", I still remember Kishore's incredulous face as I asked the question, i.e."Seriously babe, you are gonna think about money right now? If you need the epidural TAKE IT, don't worry about the money!!!"... and while we are not rich by any stretch of the imagination, thankfully RM1.5k is not a quantum that made me swing towards a decision to "better save the money"...

So in the end, I guess my curiosity won out, and I turned down the epidural "just to see what it would be like and if I had it in me" (in addition of course to avoiding the side effects of any drugs introduced into my and the baby's body).

My labour occuring in the time of coronavirus, it was protocol for me to have a COVID19 test done, so the medical staff could apply the necessary precautions. I had heard from a friend Sharon Ruba that the test procedure was uncomfortable, so when the nurse came with the test kit as I was starting another surge, I asked, "Please can I just finish this surge before I do the test?" as I really didn't think I could multitask tackling multiple uncomfortable sensations in one go.

The COVID19 test involved what felt like a looong, skinny cotton bud being inserted into one nostril... I definitely felt more than a tickle as it went in and up, being told to take deep breaths by the nurse. Then she asked me to "Try to swallow" and I felt it go into my nasal cavities where I didn't think anything could go any further, but was proven wrong when she asked me to swallow again and the swab was probed even deeper. Then she warned me there would be some slight discomfort as she prepared to collect a sample... but at that point all I could think about was:

(i) I really don't have much of a choice
(ii) please let this be over before my next surge kicks in
(iii) if all the people breaking the MCO rules knew what it feels like to do this test maybe they won't put themselves at risk of the need to perform one...

In full disclosure as I was transferred into the actual delivery room at some point after 11am, another nurse offered me 'laughing gas' to ostensibly take some of the edge off... I took the self-operated breathing nozzle passed to me but don't recall it making any difference to my sensations..so didn't use it much as it seemed pretty pointless.

I recall some measure of relief when I heard my gynae Dr. Paul entering the room, greeting Kishore and me, and telling us it was going well and it wouldn't be long now and he would see us again shortly.

From my previous labour with Lara I knew the midwives pretty much take you 90% of the way through the labour and when the Dr is called in you are really at the home stretch, so was very relieved to hear his voice though knowing he would leave and come back later meant it wasn't quite over yet.

I do remember realising when I had crossed the Thinning and Opening Phase of labour to the Birthing Phase, by the change in sensations... it is still amazing to me that as the Hypnobirthing book mentioned, having this knowledge I was instinctively able to switch breathing techniques for the next stage of labour .

Was my opting against epidural the right choice for me?

Overall? Yes.

Don't get me wrong.

I *almost* regretted the decision several times during active labour... especially when I felt my body being taken over by an overwhelming compulsion to push that did not seem conscious and was accompanied by involuntary gutteral moans where I literally just thought to myself, "I surrender, God do with me what you will..." (super dramatic I know but VERY real at the time...).

I think I experienced 3-4 such natural explusive reflexes (?), rhythmically pushing the baby down the birth path, one of which was accompanied by what felt like a swoosh of water coming out of a hose with a diameter the size of a golf ball... this was when I realised my water had finally broken...

The nurses kept instructing me to do different things, to keep breathing, to move to my side, then to move to the middle, to raise my feet... and when I didn't comply, Kishore (who was with me throughout both my labours) tried to help them by repeating the instructions prefaced with "Sayang..." but I basically ignored all the intructions because I felt I had no capacity to direct any part of my body to do anything and someone else would have to physically manoeuvre that body part themselves.

When I heard Dr. Paul's voice again and the flurry of commotion surrounding his presence, I knew the time was close... and when I heard the nurse say to Kishore, "Sir, these are your gloves, for when you cut the baby's cord", it was music to my ears...

I'm very, VERY grateful Kiaen slid out after maybe the 4th of those involuntary pushes... the wave of RELIEF when he came out so quickly... it still boggles my mind that my mother was essentially right and as his birth time was 12.02pm, it was *only* about 1.5 hours between our arrival at the hospital and his arrival into the world.

Kiaen was placed on my chest for skin to skin bonding and remained there for a considerable time.

For our short stay in the hospital he would be with us in my maternity ward number C327... another trivially serendipitous sign for me because he was born on the 3rd (May) and our wedding anniversary is 27th (July).

I was discharged the following day 4th May at about 5.30pm, after I got an all clear on COVID19 and a paediatric surgeon did a small procedure on Kiaen to address a tongue-tie that would affect his breastfeeding latch... making the entire duration of our stay about 31 hours.

I have taken the time and effort to record all this down so that whenever life's challenges threaten to get me down I can remind myself, "Ignore the 97% failure probability, focus on the 3% success probability".

Also that the human condition is miraculous and it is such a privilege to experience it.

To our son Kiaen Aaryan, thank you for coming into our lives and choosing us as your parents.

Even though Papa and I are both zombies trying to settle into a night time feeding routine with you, I look forward to spending not only all future Mother's Days, but every day, with you and your Akka...

And last but not least, to my husband Kishore...without whom none of this would be possible - we did it sayang, I love you ❤️

Photo credit: Stayhome session with Samantha Yong Photography (http://samanthayong.com/)