The Angel of Bang Kwang Prison by Susan Aldous, Nicola Pierce

Then she ended up moving in to the big house with Niall, me and the other members. She was also a very devoted aid worker and was with me on many projects.
    In the last few months she went that extra mile and made my breakfast every morning—cheese, egg and chilli on toast—absolutely delicious. I was also eating, in the third trimester, lots of home-made, healthy, peanut balls that were full of yeast, honey and milk powder. Although I wouldn’t like to know exactly how many calories there are in one I can heartily recommend them for their nutrients and nourishment. I put on about 18kg, which was fine by me. When I was at eight months, the doctors worried that I was too small to carry, and deliver, a full-term baby so I determined not to worry about calories or extra pounds. Anyway, I lost 11lb giving birth and the rest of the weight seemed to head to my breasts to feed the baby; I was like Dolly Parton for a few all-too-short months.

    I had never really given much thought to the labour itself; it’s inevitable there will be one at the end of the nine months but you don’t need, or particularly want, to dwell on it. Anyway, I met lots of supportive, positive mothers, who reminded me that it would all be worth it in the end, and it’s not as bad as ‘they’ say, and that was good enough for me. I mean, I was vaguely aware that I wasn’t being told the full truth but I suppose it’s like an unspoken conspiracy so that first-time mothers don’t go out of their mind with worry.
    She arrived a week early; it was 7.23am on the morning of Monday, 1 October when I gave birth to my beautiful little girl. She was 7.7lbs and I was in tears at the perfection of this little thing that had finally come out of me. I was going crazy and danced myself into labour on the Friday; that’s right, I actually danced like a mad woman demented by the full moon, with the intention of bringing on the labour early. Friday’s contractions disappeared all day Saturday before finally resuming on Sunday, whereupon they grew in size over the next 24 hours.
    Things were happening at a snail’s pace on the Sunday evening but I refused to take anything to speed up the process. I had decided that I wanted a completely natural birth because I have always believed that that is the best thing for the baby. Perhaps it was still a throw back to my own birth and rejection but I wanted to be fully conscious and ready to welcome her the second she was out. My birth coach, Renee, had been preparing me for weeks on my breathing. During my early labour, she almost got left behind when I spent five hours speed walking around the hospital in order to outrun the contractions. I had really bad back pain, which I hadn’t expected, so I just kept moving because it hurt too much to stay still. This strength just flooded my body and I felt like running a marathon, at least until the bad contractions kicked in. I also didn’t want to be tied up in stirrups or even wear a hospital gown so I remained free and naked the whole time. Fortunately, the dear Thai attendant did an internal check to see how dilated I was and it turned out I wasn’t at all. She didn’t tell me this and instead sneaked in a bone-coloured crochet hook—well, that’s what it looked like to me—punctured the water-bag and whoosh, it was like a geyser. It was also a wonderful relief since the sudden gushing and pouring sped up the contractions and I immediately started to dilate rapidly.
    When she finally arrived it was a bit frightening at first because she was blue and didn’t appear to be breathing. The chord had wrapped itself around her neck twice. Meanwhile, I nearly died myself when the doctor stuck his hand into me to fish around for some of the placenta that was refusing to come out. I screamed and screamed, and actually had my first non-drug-induced out of body experience. He was fortunate I was too weak to avenge my poor, wrecked vagina. I completely understood why women used to go