Helpful Website for Pregnant Moms

For those who are totally clueless about the various birth positions one can adopt for labour and birthing, you may wish to check out Transition to Parenthood and click on Pregnancy, Birth and Newborn Care.

It is a fairly basic website that describes the various stages of labour with graphics on the various labour and birth positions. Direct link to the positions is found HERE.

Please note that I have not gone through the entire website, just the labour and birth section. And I think it is helpful to read it since it offers an overview of labour and delivery for many moms who are not even aware that they can birth in any other positions.

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My personal musings can be found at Building An Ark in Singapore.

Why We Don’t Do Yoga or TCM

I have been wanting to write this post for the longest time but never found time to craft it properly. But with the amount of distraction I have been facing lately, if I don’t write this now, I guess I’ll never write it.

And I do think it is important enough that I am posting this here and on my blog.

In a nutshell, we do not do yoga or TCM simply because we personally feel it does not glorify God and may in fact lead to open doorways for our adversary to enter into our lives.

Why do I say that?

All that I have read about both indicate that the roots of both are based on a religion contrary to our Christian beliefs. Yoga has its roots in Hinduism and TCM in Taoism.

Yes, one may say that one is not praying to the gods of either religion but you are participating in part of their worship ritual. If you ask any one who has participated in yoga heavily, you will realise it isn’t just an exercise. And whether you chant or not, you are participating in something that has spiritual roots.

With TCM, don’t get me wrong. I am not against the use of herbs or even massage to heal and as an alternative to Western treatment. But again, its basis on qi is not biblical. According to what I have read, the so-called qi needs to be balanced – positive with negative, male with female. No where in the bible does it ever mention this concept.

I have no doubt yoga or TCM works – in certain cases – but we need to ask a very important question : WHY does it work? WHO is behind the healing?

You may read more about this lady’s experience with yoga and her conviction against it. Read her interview with CBN.com HERE.

This is an excerpt, “These are postures that are offered to the 330 million Hindu gods. Yoga postures really are; they are offerings to the gods.”

Removing parts of something that has spiritual roots does not remove the fact that there IS a spiritual force behind it. It would be naive to think that there will be no repurcussions on our own spiritual walk. And just because it didn’t seem to have affected you, does not mean the spiritual power is not at work. Just as you happened to dash across the road and didn’t get knocked down does not mean that it is therefore safe for everyone to dash across the road.

So no, no matter how good and effective these alternative options seem to be, we would like to avoid treading onto dangerous grounds. Even if it means being made fun of by those around us who have accepted these practices and swear by them.

If you are interested to explore this further, do check out Living in Deceptive Times by Reverend Francis Khoo. He outlines what our Christian response should be to Deceptive and New Age Medicine, Chinese Traditional Medicine, Acupuncture, Reflexology, Aromatherapy, Yoga, and Non-Christian Meditation. It costs $20.30 for a set of 5 CDs from Covenant Vision Centre’s eStore.

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My personal musings can be found at Building An Ark in Singapore.

It’s Closed!

Yep. It’s final now. The Book Store is officially closed. Someone asked if I will re-open it. Maybe. Maybe not. But definitely not in the near future. Perhaps when our youngest child (whoever that may be ) turns 5 or 6 and I have more independent little ones.

What will I do with the books that have not sold? I do not know – yet There are not that many anyway. Maybe put it on eBay? Or place it with my friend Angie at The Home Library

Thanks again for your support.

* Pending orders are being processed.

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My personal musings can be found at Building An Ark in Singapore.

How We Use SOW

I guess this post should have been posted long ago. There have been so many people writing and asking me about SOW or Student of The Word and how we use it in our homeschooling. I have hesitated in writing since I don’t want to duplicate what is already written on the SOW website.

An overview of the curriculum can be found under Attributes of SOW. Do read that.

I did write about it briefly in Doing Devotionals with the Children and Homeschool Planning. But I guess a more detailed post is required

It is, in a nutshell, a 6 year course of study which you repeat, making it a complete 12-year programme (excluding Maths), taking you through the Bible twice.

Why would one want to repeat a 6-year course all over again, you may ask? Simple. What you take away when you are 7 years old is different when you are 13. Be it for Bible, History or Science. Also the research one does with mom when one is 7 is different when one does it independently when one is 13.

SOW tries to tie in the other subjects (History, Science, Creative Writing, etc) with the Bible reading for each week. Sometimes it coincides perfectly Eg. Genesis with Creation for Science. Sometimes it doesn’t but it really doesn’t matter.

In our 1st two years, I used it as it is. Following their scope and sequence and the books they recommend, except for Phonics since we had been using successfully the phonics programme from Christ-Centered Curriculum. But our family grew! And it became very hard on me to pre-prepare the lessons required.

One thing you must take note about the SOW curriculum is that it doesn’t have any answer key or a Teacher’s Manual. With the Bible portion this is helpful as it then non-denominational. However, with the other subjects, it can get quite challenging especially if you are not strong in that subject. It means you have to do a lot more work to find the answers.

Also while it starts out with reading one chapter a week, the momentum picks up quite rapidly in the later years where, for example, you have to cover the Book of Proverbs in one week!

So what I did was to adapt it to our family and our needs. This is what I did :

• do just the Bible portion (Outline, Topic, Character, Commentary).
• slow down the pace by reading no more than 4 – 5 chapters a week. This means I came up with my own Bible schedule instead.
• use just the Creative Writing and Literature portion only (we even dropped this when preparing for Baby #7’s arrival).

Bible

I love, love, love the Bible portion of SOW. Even if I didn’t use the rest of the curriculum, I would still pay for this portion. It is the best bible curriculum we have used thus far.

Why? For one, it goes through the entire Bible in detail. This is how it is laid out. Each week, one reads a scheduled portion of the Bible (Eg Genesis Ch 1 – 4). Then you would be required to do the following to study the bible in detail :

a) OUTLINE (Mondays)

Each week’s reading asks that you give an OUTLINE of the reading in 4 main points. You summarise the chapters read into just 4 main points. Now you understand why you will miss out much if you rush through the assigned chapters.

b) TOPIC (Tuesdays)

A TOPIC of the week based on the week’s reading is given. You are to provide the definition of the topic chosen (eg. jealousy, temptation, etc) and write 4 main points about it. You are to also provide a Scripture Verse that refers to the topic.

c) CHARACTER (Wednesdays)

One CHARACTER from the week’s reading is chosen and you are to decide if this character is godly or not and to explain the basis of your decision. You would also have to list out the facts pertaining to the character. A Scripture Verse that relates to the character is chosen.

d) SETTING (Thursdays)

There is also a SETTING worksheet that you can do but which I skip since I am not great with Geography and am not focusing on that for the moment. It outlines the location that the week’s reading is set in.

e) COMMENTARY (Fridays)

This gives an overview of the entire week’s lesson. You summarise what you have learnt about God, Man, satan and the main lesson gleaned from the study. Students are required to give a Scripture Verse that summarises the lesson learnt.

And that’s it for the Bible portion. It teaches you how to study the Bible and to think it through. If you do this diligently, week-after-week, you will definitely learn a lot about the Bible and God. For the parts that you are unsure about or are totally lost, you are then encouraged you to seek out commentaries that shed light on it. Better still if your child can do the research for himself.

Isn’t great? You, the teacher learn alongside your child and the result is that both are gleaning from God’s Word, which we know never returns to Him

“void, But it shall accomplish what He pleases” Is 55:11

Prayer Letters

This has been a much raved about part of SOW. It teaches one how to pray according to :

• P – petition
• R – repentance
• A – ask
• Y – yield
• S – supplication

However, I found that our children began to pray in a rote-like manner So I have stopped that and have just asked that they pray just before their bedtime. But others have had better success with it. So it all depends on your child/ren.

SOW also mentions doing both morning and evening devotions. If it makes you feel any better, we don’t. But I do a short devotional with the children after lunch before we end the day’s school. When SOW focuses on the Old Testament, we do our devotionals based on the books of the New Testament. Then we swop over.

Creative Writing

The topics SOW gives are very thought provoking. Examples include Compare the OT & NT Temple of God, to write a Biography of A Christian Martyr, to Explain How we should pray, etc…

Again, there are no answer keys to this portion as with the rest of SOW. There are questions for you to lead your child as he writes but no right or wrong answer. How detailed you want the child to write and research is up to you.

Literature

Although SOW gives a recommended reading list, you are free to use whatever books/poems you have on hand. This way, you don’t have to spend a bomb acquiring too many books. Under Literature, the child is taught how to do a Book Review, analyse a poem and/or biography.

Housekeeping details

You have to order Year 1 of SOW regardless of the age of your child. You should start with it because it lays the foundation for you and the child. Year 1 does not mean Grade 1

The Year 1 package (Teacher and Resource Editions) comes with a CD and a pre-printed set of worksheets. This allows you the option of printing out as many copies as you wish off your computer or to photocopy as many copies as you wish, whichever is more cost efficient for your family.

In order to keep things organised for me, I created a SOW Booklet for each child. This way, papers are no longer flying around or getting lost. Previously each child would hand me his/her piece of worksheet to grade and then it would invariably get lost instead of getting filed! Grrr….

Teaching the Younger Ones

Although the curriculum states that it can be used from Kindergarten level (6 years old), I strongly suggest that you wait till your child is older. Unless you are very sure of his maturity, reading and comprehension ability.

Otherwise, you’ll be doing a lot of summarising and many things will go over his head. That can be rather off-putting for mom (heavy burden on mom to keep simplifying and summarising) and child (too heavy going).

From Kindergarten to Grade 6, the child is allowed to draw rather than write in his worksheets. In the beginning that’s how we start off. As the child gets used to the format of the lessons, I start making them copy out what I write on the whiteboard.

After 6 months of doing this consistently, my 6 and 7 year olds are catching on and are even eager to share with me what they have learnt during the Commentary session. And once when I was not able to teach, my oldest child (10.5) was able to actually lead them in a lesson all by himself! I was most definitely pleasantly surprised.

Few words of caution

Do not expect to know how to use SOW immediately. It is unlike most curriculum out in the market. Do hang around the SOW Boards as well as the SOW Yahoo Group for a better feel of the curriculum.

And once you received your package, do not give up because it seems too confusing. Keep on reading and keep on asking questions. And do the 1st few lessons yourself. Once you do that, things will start falling into place.

If your child has been using another curriculum before, expect some resistance in the beginning. He will have to get used to a lot more thinking for his answers than he was used to!

As I have mentioned before under Homeschool Planning, I would not recommend using this solely to prepare your child for our Singapore school system unless he is not required to sit for the PSLE exams. You would need to supplement with local textbooks and assessment books to keep up-to-date with the local exam requirements.

I think that is about it. If you have any questions, feel free to post it here and I’ll try my best to answer the. Otherwise, you can check out the SOW Board or the SOW Yahoo Group. They have been really helpful for me.

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My personal musings can be found at Building An Ark in Singapore.

Birth Plan for Baby #7

For those who have been wondering why one would need a birth plan, my answer is simple – so that both your doctor and you are in agreement about how you, the paying client, wants things done.

Never assume that your doctor knows what you would like or not like during labour and delivery. You may be in for a shock at the delivery suite which does not make for a pleasant birth experience.

Some doctors prefer to operate on a standard operating procedure (SOP). Any alteration to his/her SOP is met with resistance. Worse still I know of doctors who pooh-poohed the patients requests If your doctor is like that, it is better to know now then to wait till you are about to deliver.

Hopefully though, you would have found out about your doctor’s personality and his/her stance on natural birth way before your 3rd trimester. Otherwise, you would have to take the drastic and oftentimes awkward process of changing doctors towards the end of your pregnancy. (Yes, it can be done!)

A Birth Plan allows you to visualise, to think through, how you want to labour and birth. It allows you to discuss with your doctor what he/she will or will not allow. Remember, preparing actively for labour and birth removes the mystery and fear of the whole birthing process. You can then pray through each step specifically which gives you more confidence because you know what to expect.

A Birth Plan is also for the hospital staff who often have their own SOP. There are certain things the midwives will do out of habit. So anything out of the “norm” needs to be authorised by your doctor.

An example is being asked to change into a hospital gown upon admission. But you can request to birth in your own clothes. Since this is not a regular request, the staff may be taken aback but will go along with your request if it has been endorsed and agreed upon between you and your doctor. It really doesn’t matter what you birth in!

There are many samples of birth plans on the internet. Just google “birth plans” and choose the template you like best. Your birth plan can be a few pages long or a simple one-pager.

Personally, my main issue is to be able labour freely and to birth on the ground and on all-fours, if necessary. This means that the staff need to prepare a mattress of sorts on the floor so that the baby is not birthed onto the cold hard floor So those are the main points I concentrate on.

I know my doctor does not perform episiotomies as a routine procedure so I do not list it down. But if your doctor does, you may want to write that down and make sure he/she agrees with you on it! You do not want to be fighting and arguing with the doctor inthe throes of intense contractions.

After the Birth Plan is agreed upon, the doctor needs to affix his signature to it. It will be sent to the Labour and Delivery Suite. Now make sure you have a copy of it in your hospital bag! Sometimes the Delivery Suite loses birth plans!

Also, make sure your dh knows what’s in your Birth Plan. Why? Unless you are very coherent during labour, the midwives may not be able to get anything out of you during the transitional stage. So your dh is the only one they can check with. AND sometimes, the midwives may routinely perform certain procedures without consulting your Birth Plan and your dh needs to be able to stop them then. Of course if you have a doula then your doula needs a copy of your Birth Plan too.

Here is my Birth Plan in case you are interested

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Due Date: 5^th March 2009
Patient of Dr xxxxx
Scheduled to deliver at xxxx

I understand that birth does not always go to a plan, and my priority is the delivery of a healthy baby. Notwithstanding, the following are my preferences :

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LABOR

• I would like to be free to move around during labour.
• I would like to be in my own clothes and not in the hospital gown.

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 MONITORING

• I do not wish to have continuous fetal monitoring unless it is required by the condition of the baby.
• I also do not wish to have a Vaginal Exam.

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 DELIVERY

• I would like to be allowed to choose the position in which I birth – whatever is most comfortable for me and allows baby maximum space to descend through my pelvis. This may include squatting/upright/kneeling/all-fours/etc.

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 IMMEDIATELY AFTER DELIVERY

• I would like to nurse the baby immediately after birth to aid the expulsion of the placenta naturally.
• I would like to have the cord cut AFTER the placenta is birthed.
• If that is not possible, I would prefer that the umbilical cord stop pulsating before it is cut.

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 BREASTFEEDING

• I want to begin nursing IMMEDIATELY after birth.
• I do not wish to have any bottles given to the baby (including glucose water or plain water) at all.

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 VACCINATION

• Only BCG to be given. Consent to be given by my husband or me before being administered.

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Do take note that these are my preferences. A Birth Plan is not cast in stone. A healthy baby and a healthy mother are more important than following a Birth Plan to the T! Remember Proverbs 21:19, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”

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For my personal musings, visit Building An Ark in Singapore 

Getting Ready for Baby’s Arrival

Here we go again. As I pass the 36th week of this pregnancy, I am eagerly hoping that the baby won’t be late again! But I am also trying real hard not to hold my breath over it since the last 3 babies came 5 days, 3 days and 6 days past their EDD.

In order to distract myself, I have started to slowly prepare myself and the children for the baby’s arrival. Slowly because I am operating on a very low energy mode here

Starting this week, I will be doing the stuff I wrote about HERE and HERE.

But there are other things I need to do this time round as well.

Homeschooling

This year, we are homeschooling 3 out of the 6 children in the primary level (P1, P3 & P5). So I need to be very diligent in making sure everyone (me included!) finish what I have planned for our homeschoolin the next 3 weeks so that I won’t have a backlog of stuff staring at me after I birth.

We won’t be doing any formal school in March and April. But I am planning to do more read-alouds(History & Science specifically) with them. That is, if I am not dozing off in the middle of the day! I am not being ambitious here. If I can do just one hour of reading a day (probably split up into many instalments!) I would be happy.

Why am I doing this? I have learnt from past experience that too much free and play time gets everyone into trouble!

Home Management

I just started a final round of de-cluttering (very little left- whew!) of the entire house, room-by-room, 2 weeks ago. This serves 2 purposes – it removes all the eyesores (piles of papers on my table, stacks of toys all over the house, etc) and it will help the children when they do their chores.

Meanwhile, baby clothes, linens, cloth diapers, nursing clothes, mama pads, nursing pads all need to be pulled out of their storage vacuum bags to be washed and packed into their designated spots.

Confinement

I have also finalised my menu plan and my grocery list. It is just a simple 2 week menu plan that will be rotated from now until I feel bored or have more energy to think. For the immediate post partum period where we’ll be too busy to think about grocery shopping, I have already frozen food for Week 1 and will be freezing Week 2’s meal this week.

I am not freezing cooked food as I think most cooked Chinese food don’t freeze well. Instead I have just frozen the portion required for each meal and packed them into freezer boxes with their marinades. I will then pull the relevant boxes out to thaw and cook on the actual day itself. And since I do not follow any traditional confinement food taboos, this makes life easier on me

Pregnancy

As I approach the tail end of the pregnancy, these are the things I have done to prepare for labour and delivery.

Drinking my Pregnancy Tea

SinceI hit the 3rd trimester, I have been diligently drinking my Red Raspberry and Nettle tea.

Taking my vitamin supplements

I have also increased my intake of Vitamin C and started taking garlic and acidophilus to boost my immune system and to prevent an onset of Group B Strep especially since I am not going to be tested.

Taking it slow

Yes, despite all the things I need and want to get done before baby’s grand entrance, I am forcing myself to take it slow. Kinda contradictory huh?

What I have done is to spread out all the stuff that need to be done slowly over the course of the next 3 to 4 weeks. The important things that must be accomplished before the baby arrives have been scheduled for the next 2 weeks. The rest can be left undone if the baby should decide to come earlier.

Birth Plan

I have also submitted my birth plan* to my doctor so that we are in agreement about how I want the labour and delivery to go.

 

I generally have an extra burst of energy towards the end of each pregnancy (like now ) that allows me to finish up tying all the loose ends but surprisingly, this time round, my energy level is really low and I have to literally force myself to get these basic things done

I hope this post gives other moms-to-be some ideas on how they would like to prepare themselves for the labour and delivery. And if you feel like scrubbing the walls or ironing everything in sight, good for you!

* I’ll be posting my Birth Plan in the next few days. Keep a lookout for it!

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For my personal musings, visit Building An Ark in Singapore