A Blessingway Full Of Hand Made Gifts

I recently attended a mother blessing/blessingway for a very dear friend of mine expecting her sixth baby. Despite this baby being her last baby, this was her first blessingway! Our circle of friends was determined to make it a special day.

This friend was a life-line to my family and I when we were learning how to breastfeed. Despite nursing her own newborn at the time she made herself available to metat all hours. I never felt like I thanked her enough, I decided to take this opportunity to thank her publicly and give her a gift to show my appreciation. I sewed her some bamboo fleece breast pads and her baby some crinkle toys.

We sat in a circle and each guest presented the mother-to-be-again with a bead they had selected to be part of a special birth necklace (which we made later in the day for her). I bought a bead hand crafted by another friend who has just started a business from home, selling hand made beads, cloth pads, nappies etc. This bead is of a baby's head crowning:

There were some tears as we made our way around the circle and each woman shared her love for our friend and what they wished for her for her last birth (a third freebirth). We finished the circle with a joining ritual. Our expectant friend made her way around the circle with a ball of red yarn. She stopped and wrapped the yarn around one of each guests' wrists a couple of times. As she made her way around the circle a second time she cut us each free from one another so that we could tie our own piece of yarn into a bracelet. We wear these bracelets until we learn of the baby's birth and then cut the bracelet off. It is a way of remaining connected to each other during her last moments of pregnancy and during the birth. It's also a beautiful reminder of each other, every time we see it on our wrists.

One of our friends brought a bead for everyone there to slide on to their yarn so that when we do cut it after the birth we will keep the bead as a memento of this time.

Something that doesn't usually happen at a mother blessing was I received a gift. A friend of mine knitted me a pair of breasts from wool she dyed herself!

These are going to make a great teaching aid. My toddler enjoys cuddling them. And I, rather strangely cannot help but tweak when I have them near (must be healing from premature-weaning trauma!).

Though it was a very hot day, a lovely afternoon was had by all. Blessingway's never fail at making me clucky, they're always well-attended by little babies. While my pregnant friends and relatives are not enjoying being heavy with child in the recent Aussie heatwave, I gaze at their beautiful bellies dreamily, looking forward to my next mother blessing in the distant future...

(me in my flapper finery at the mother blessing)