My VBAC story

Becoming a Mother

Becoming a mother for the first time in 2002 was a mix of wide-eyed wonder and total overwhelm. I was a university student in Newcastle upon Tyne, adjusting to married life in a foreign country—just me, my husband, and the North Sea wind. We were far from family, familiar foods, and the comfort of home.

Just weeks before discovering I was pregnant, I’d had a miscarriage. It was painful in a way that’s hard to put into words. So when those two pink lines appeared again, it felt like hope quietly returning. I clung to that hope with everything I had. I threw myself into antenatal classes and devoured every booklet they gave us, determined to have a perfect, natural birth—without so much as a whiff of pain relief.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t quite go that way.

Labour was long, intense, and not the spiritual experience I had imagined. Somewhere between the screaming and the gas and air, I caved and got the epidural I swore I didn’t want. And after all that, my baby still arrived via emergency C-section. It wasn’t the gentle entry I had dreamed of. But the moment they placed him in my arms, everything else faded away. He was here. I was a mother. And though the journey didn’t go to plan, it marked the beginning of a deeper understanding of birth, of myself, and of what it means to surrender.

The System That Believed in Me

The UK’s maternity system, especially in places like Newcastle, is grounded in trust—trust in women’s bodies, in midwives, in the natural flow of birth. I was assigned a midwife early on, and she walked with me through the entire journey: antenatal visits, labour, and even postnatal care at home. Doctors stepped in only if they were truly needed.

That model of care planted a seed in me—one that would grow over the years: that birth could be normal, supported, and deeply respectful. And that women could be trusted to lead the way.

Trying Again—This Time, On My Terms

Three and a half years later, I was pregnant again. This time, I had a new dream: a water birth. Despite my previous C-section, no one made me feel like I had anything to prove. There were no warnings or doubts from my midwife—just steady confidence that I could do this. And that confidence rubbed off on me.

When labour began, I leaned into it—no epidural, no fear. Just me, my husband, and the quiet presence of my midwife. I didn’t even end up using the birth pool! I gave birth on the floor, fully present, fully empowered. My VBAC wasn’t just a “successful” birth—it was a healing one. It gave me back something I didn’t know I had lost: belief in my body.

Quiet Confidence

With my third pregnancy, I carried that confidence like a quiet superpower. I didn’t make fancy plans. I just knew I could do it. And when labour came, I trusted the process again—breathing through each contraction with just gas and air to steady me.

When I held my baby for the third time, something clicked deep inside me. Birth had shaped me in ways I never expected. It wasn’t just about babies being born—it was about mothers being born too. With every birth, I had peeled back a new layer of fear, found new reserves of strength, and rewritten the narrative I once held about what my body could do.

From My VBAC to a New Mission

At the time, I didn’t think of my VBAC as anything extraordinary. In the UK, it was simply treated as normal. My midwife never once made me feel like it was risky or unusual—just another step in a woman’s natural journey through motherhood. It wasn’t until I returned to Singapore that I realized my birth story carried a “special label.”

Here, the maternity system felt noticeably different—more medicalized, more cautious, and less centred on physiological birth as the default. I began to see how rare and even discouraged VBACs could be in this setting. Conversations about birth often carried an undercurrent of fear. Many women didn’t even know VBAC was a safe, supported option. Others were told flat-out that it wasn’t possible.

That shocked me. Because I had lived the opposite experience. I had felt what it was like to be trusted, to be supported by someone who had seen hundreds of women birth after caesareans without drama or doubt. And I knew just how empowering that could be.

So something in me lit up.

I couldn’t keep this quiet. I knew I had to do something. What began as my personal healing transformed into a deeper calling—to support other women who, like me, had questions, hopes, and fears about giving birth after a caesarean. I began walking alongside VBAC clients with one goal: not to push them toward any specific outcome, but to help them feel truly informed, deeply supported, and powerfully capable—just as my midwife once did for me.

Now, with every woman I support, every story I hear, and every birth I witness, I’m reminded why this matters. Because when a woman is seen, heard, and trusted, she doesn’t just give birth—she rises. And I’ll continue doing everything I can to make sure more women in Singapore feel that same quiet confidence too.