Not sure how to start this post.  I looked up my original wording and the connotation is totally different from what I meant.  I’ll try starting at the beginning. Caution – deep difficult subject.

My mother raised me in a fear based living system.  Everything I did was geared to avoid being hit or berated.  Sometimes no matter what I did those things happened.  To keep me from getting pregnant in my teen years my mother told me of her experiences of working in a children’s hospital and that the more severely deformed children were born to teenage mothers.  I married and had my first child when I was 19.  I was so terrified that my child would be so deformed I couldn’t bring the child home I bought nothing.  No diapers, no baby blankets or clothes or anything.  It was in a time before reliable ways of checking on baby before they were born.  I was a teen mom and I deeply believed I would not be bringing our baby home.  Well, further research after the fact, the teen moms referred to in the studies were the 14-16 year old range.  Part of the birth defects were caused by the father raping their young teen daughters and the too closer relationship.  Nineteen to early 30’s is considered the prime birthing age.  Our precious first son was born with all body parts and organs in all the right places.  The nurse asked me what I was going to take the baby home in.  I stared at her blankly.  I borrowed a baby blanket and t-shirt from the hospital.  The look on the nurses face spoke volumes about what kind of piss poor mother doesn’t have a baby blanket to take her baby home in? I felt so ashamed that I didn’t even have one baby blanket.

Fast forward 40 years….I stood at the cutting table in the fabric store while 2 workers cut my fabric for 40 plus baby blankets.  I’ve done this for years now.  I make baby blankets and give them away.   I give them to strangers, friends, and family.  I took back the joy of anticipating a new born baby entering this crazy World.  Several hilarious situations happened when I gave the receiving blankets to fathers and they had no idea what to do with them.  I would tell them to look up burrito wrapping a baby.  Counting and watching the fabric mount filled me with joy.  I would be welcoming 40 babies in to this World with a fun/cute/silly baby blanket to go home in.  My favorites are the monsters and the bugs, however, I learned that 3 year old sisters may be deeply offended by a bug blanket and refuse to have their little brother wrapped in bugs.  I sew the edges then stack them up and when a call goes out for baby blankets I send a stack.  Or someone announces at work or I know somebody that knows somebody they get a baby blanket.  I cannot go back and restore the loss of anticipating with joy our first born child.  I can celebrate with others the joy of their baby arriving.