A special necklace

Some people are hesitant and suspect of online discussion boards. But I've been part of a couple (one adoption, one attachment parenting) boards for... well, since we started the adoption process for Kaelyn. One of the boards I'm on (the parenting one) has a forum for expecting moms. I've never really ventured into that forum for obvious reasons, but once I found out we were expecting, they were the very first people I told. I needed advice, comfort and congratulations and needed to get those things before we felt comfortable telling our "in real life" friends and families. A couple weeks later a group of us on that board formed a February/March Due Date Club within the pregnancy forum. There are about 20 of us and we've gotten pretty close over the past 7 months. We've shared things that we probably wouldn't share with anyone else, gotten lots of advice, talked about lots of "what ifs" and most importantly we comforted each other when one of the moms in our group suddenly was diagnosed with lung cancer and died a couple weeks later. She left behind 9 children and obviously lost the one she was carrying. We really feel as though we have bonded although most of us have never met each other in person.

Several months ago one of the ladies mentioned that she wanted to put together a beaded "birthing necklace". We all thought that was an awesome idea and we quickly decided that we ALL wanted one and that we wanted it to be something special for our little club. So, we all went and picked out beads, sent them to one person, who then divided them up and sent one of each bead to each person in the group. Along with each of these beads the original person sending them sent along a verse or a quote or some words of encouragement to help us get through our labors and deliveries. The purpose of these necklaces are for us to wear them during our births and to remind us all of the people who are out there praying for us while we go through this life changing event. The words are for us to read while we labor, or to have read to us as words of comfort when we need them.

I finally put together my birthing necklace last night. I love it. It means so much to me to know that each of these beautiful women will be praying for me and thinking of me during this birth. To know that I not only have my "real life" family and friends supporting me, but I have people all over the country who are supporting me too means a lot.

And the bead that means the most to me... the small pearl bead toward the top of the necklace. In memory of Mary who is now a beautiful angel in heaven and will never again experience this amazing event of giving birth to a beautiful baby.