Clenching the edge of a hospital bed, I took a deep breath as a huge wave of pain surged through me. It seemed to envelop every part of my mind and body and a strange howling sound was coming from my throat.

I gripped my husband's hand tighter, and struggled to find a breath. Could this be what death feels like, I wondered? Yet instead of fear, I felt exhilaration close to ecstasy.

Yes, childbirth hurts like hell, but to me, it's a life experience I value above almost everything else. I'll happily admit that having babies is an experience I'm addicted to.

One big family: Clover Stroud with, from left, her children Dolly, Lester, Evangeline, Jimmy and Dash

I love it so much, ever since I had my first son, Jimmy, 16 years ago, I've found it hard to stop. In July, I gave birth to my fifth child, a son, Lester, who joins Jimmy, Dolly, 13, Evangeline, four and Dash, two. If time was on my side, I don't think I'd ever stop.

While news of my latest pregnancy clearly wasn't a big event to some of my family (when I broke the news to my eldest, Jimmy, he looked up only very briefly from his laptop before offering congratulations, then moving quickly on to more pressing issues, like when he could buy some new trainers), some friends didn't even attempt to mask their horror.

'Oh God, you're not going to go the full Jeremy Kyle now, are you?' was the reaction of a close friend when I told her I was pregnant again, less than a year after the fourth was born.

'A fifth baby? Why on earth would you do that to yourself?' another asked, aghast. We'd met in 2000 at a baby group when our eldest children were very small. Today, she's more likely to be skipping off with her husband on a short break to Italy, something I regard with more than a little envy, while I'm still knee-deep in nappies and gripe water more than a decade and a half later.

Then I look back at my new baby Lester, sleeping soundly in his Moses basket beside me, and a powerful sense of certainty floods through me. This is the feeling I love best in the world.

I treasure the time my husband Pete and I have sitting together, examining each tiny toe and finger

I adore every second of it, not just that sweet, inimitable smell of a newborn's head, or the adorable cooing noise Lester makes when he's lying beside me, or that first shy smile he gave me a few weeks ago — but also the unique pain of labour, breastfeeding, and even the exhaustion of sleepless nights.

Perhaps I'm lucky to have had five relatively fast labours, all at the brilliant maternity unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. My longest was six hours, while Lester was born just 20 minutes after my arrival at hospital.

Although I am now well-qualified at labour, I have never contemplated a home birth, as I value the reassurance of being in hospital — to me it's all part of the birth experience. I put my faith wholeheartedly in the hands of midwives and always leave with a strong connection to the women who have delivered my babies.

I firmly believe that during childbirth a woman can enter a new dimension of existence, where the film between life and death is at its most fragile. During labour, I feel I've been given the extraordinary privilege of entering a strange place that's not really of this world, but a region somewhere on the periphery.

It's not that I don't find it incredibly painful and frightening — of course I do. But I believe that, in the modern world, we lead overly sanitised and cosseted lives. Most of us have no experience at all of the extremities of human existence.

Giving birth brings me as close as I can get to the feeling of charging into battle. It's a physiological challenge, and each time — although I feel very nervous — I am excited and eager to prove myself as both a woman and a mother.

News of my latest pregnancy clearly wasn't a big event to some of my family

By now, I know that my body can handle the pain, as long as nothing goes terribly wrong in a medical sense.

I know, too, that I can handle the experience emotionally. And at the end of it comes the incredible privilege of meeting this extraordinary new person who was, so recently, a part of you.

I'm sure that the euphoria I feel is linked to the huge hormonal surges a woman experiences during labour — of adrenalin, the fight or flight hormone, and oxytocin, which is linked to the overwhelming love new mothers feel for their babies.

I love it so much, ever since I had my first son

But I also believe that the act of giving birth connects me to an inner, spiritual part of myself. It's something that I shared with my mother, who died while I was pregnant with Dash. She, like me, had five children, and was never afraid of the human reality of labour.

She was never afraid, and she encouraged us not to feel fear either.

Her legacy to me is that I always believed, no matter how bad the pain, that I could cope — and I've never had any pain relief other than gas and air.

That's why it's so important for women to speak about and share their good experiences of labour. Yes, it's graphic and gory, but only by discussing the positives can we move past that, and realise the spiritual importance of what is happening.

After all, what could be more strange and wonderful than childbirth?

Each baby has made me feel as if I can be a better version of myself

I adore that ecstatic feeling when each baby has arrived, bringing a rush of new energy into the room. After nine months of expectation and waiting, I treasure the moment staring at this new being, and feeling his or her personality all of a sudden vividly present in the room.

I also love the intimacy of the hours just after the baby arrives, when I am fully cocooned away from 'real' life, enjoying the luxury of being completely unreachable as a brand new love affair develops between myself and my new baby.

I treasure the time my husband Pete and I have sitting together, examining each tiny toe and finger, trying to trace some sort of resemblance to one of the baby's siblings, ourselves, or further back to grandparents and great grandparents.

Those special moments bonding with a new baby are precious, but the aftermath of birth gives me a deep respect for my body, too.

Bloody and battered, it might be the moment my body looks least impressive, but it's also the time when I feel most proud of it, for the babies it's carried and delivered.

There's also the special, intense moment of introducing a new baby to the siblings. Dolly was a little girl herself when Evangeline was born, but with the arrival of Dash, and most recently Lester, I've seen Dolly grow into a young woman.

I'm sure that the euphoria I feel is linked to the huge hormonal surges a woman experiences during labour

Cradling Lester in my arms, I watched with something approaching awe as Dolly guided Evangeline through the highly emotional experience of being introduced to their baby brother.

After Lester was born, Dolly spent the morning at home making a card with Evangeline, and helped her put on her best dress to meet her little brother, so that she should feel just as loved and special as the new baby, too.

Each new baby brings a unique energy and glow of fresh love to the house as well. I enjoy the stream of visitors who visit us, and have watched with delight as my nieces and nephews have cooed over the new baby, imagining a new cousin to play with. For a few weeks after the birth, I feel like superwoman. My usual anxieties and insecurities slide away, and it's as if the baby has given my life a strong shot of optimism.

I adore every second of it

Each baby has made me feel as if I can be a better version of myself — calmer, more organised, more generous. It doesn't matter that exactly the opposite is true in real life, because for a few short weeks the fantasy is very sweet.

I'm also under no illusion about how challenging a newborn really is. I've had post-natal depression twice — an experience far more painful and terrifying than birth. These periods of depression lasted several months, when I've felt overcome with anxiety, and have turned to a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy, diet and exercise to find my way through the darkness.

So far, I've kept it at bay since Lester's birth, but I'm constantly aware of the fact that it's always potentially there, just beneath the surface, ready to pull me down into the deep. Yet still, above everything, the longing for 'just one more' remains.

Of course, science is playing a part here. Mother Nature has a way of making procreating feel amazing, for very good reasons.

I'm also under no illusion about how challenging a newborn really is

Oxytocin, the so-called 'cuddle' hormone that promotes bonding, floods women's bodies during sex, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, and is addictive.

Yet while each 'fix' brings a massive amount of love, there are also sacrifices to be made, too.

My life does not look like a yummy-mummy's Instagram feed: it's very chaotic and very noisy.

Contrary to what I might feel immediately after giving birth, each new baby does not make me more organised, but much less so, and sometimes getting from one side of the day to another feels like running a marathon.

Stretching to seven flights abroad for half-term looks increasingly unlikely and we no longer even bother having the conversation about sending the children to private school.

Evangeline lives in Dolly's old dresses, and Lester has worn the same babygrows Jimmy snuggled up in 16 years ago — and is pushed around in his old Silver Cross pram, now a little battered and rusty, too.

And this, to me, is how family life should be. As the youngest of a family of five, I grew up with a sense that a large family was very normal.

Of course, science is playing a part here. Mother Nature has a way of making procreating feel amazing, for very good reasons

Pete is one of three but has always been completely willing to try for another baby. When I met him, I was a single mother to Jimmy and Dolly, who were seven and ten. He needed no persuading that having another baby — or three — was the right thing to do.

Most of my closest friends are all part of large families, too. But while this might have been true in the Seventies, today it's the exception rather than the rule — especially if the reaction I get when I'm out with the kids is anything to go by.

Recently, a middle-aged lady approached me in the street to look at Lester in his pram. She smiled at him and kindly asked me if he was my first. When I replied he was my fifth, the smile dropped from her face. 'You should be ashamed of yourself ruining the planet like that,' she hissed, then spun on her heel and stomped off. I felt momentarily shocked by the curtness of her response, but then realised that she might have a point.

However since we're not flying anywhere, and all the children's clothes and toys are recycled, I can sleep soundly at night.

As I write this, Lester is eight weeks old. These precious, fleeting weeks with a newborn are slipping past. He's starting to fill out and can hold his head up now. He smiles readily, and it's as if he is becoming a real person, who stares up at his siblings with saucer eyes and is learning to join the family. He is beautiful and perfect in every way.

And me? I'm exhausted and covered in sick. But each baby is a joy, and for all the pain and tears, that's not an experience I'd trade for anything.