Oh, the big 1. What a momentous occasion! E got together with about two dozen of her closest little baby friends to celebrate.
Our amazing flock got together last Sunday to celebrate the first birthdays of all our babies. Most were born in April 2010, some in May and a few outliers in February and March. I met a handful of these wonderful mamas at our excellent midwives office when we participated in a prenatal group that met, at first, monthly and then bi-weekly near the end of our pregnancies. After all our babes were born, we had a reunion and somebody mentioned taking a class at Birth Roots. It was there, at that wonderful space, that the rest of us found each other.
So supportive, so helpful, so caring. It was a welcoming spot that a new mama could descend upon with her screaming infant in tow. Someplace where other mamas would know exactly what you're going through. A comfy chair to sit in, a nursing pillow to use, a yoga ball to bounce that screamy baby to sleep on...I don't know what I would have done without Birth Roots and the ladies (and babies!) we met there.
So now, a year later, we've aged out of the Birth Roots target demographic but we still have each other! We formed a little community of like-minded families with similarly-aged babies and hopefully we'll be here for each other for a long time to come! Where once the babies would just lie on the floor and squawk while we mamas talked about sleep deprivation, nursing and other infant concerns, now they toddle about and steal each other's toys while we discuss daycare, feeding and still, sometimes, sleep deprivation.
I only hope that every new mama in our area has a chance to partake of some of the wonderful resources the community has to offer - like Birth Roots and the various local websites, like Raising Maine and Moms Like Me (which has local websites for many locations!) And if you are reading this from another community, take a look and see what you have available to you! It makes all the difference in the world.
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