Circle of Friends

If we could all meet in person, we would. We'd bring casseroles to put in the oven and gifts wrapped in corny baby paper, featuring ducks and rabbits and pink ribbons. There'd be a big bowl of weird red punch, a deli plate, and jello salad. We'd all talk at once, sharing our own birth stories and random bits of advice. We'd have a lollipop tree, maybe, and many cups of tea, and a cake decorated with something silly.

Perhaps the women in the room who can sew without sticking the needle into very bad places would pull their chairs together to make a baby quilt. We would sing "This Old Man" to your belly. We'd watch you open baby presents and we would make inappropriate jokes about breast pumps. We'd put on the sound track to the Wizard of Oz and make you skip down the yellow brick road. The room would fill with laughter and chatter, and even the child still in your belly would feel the energy, the warmth, the love.

Instead, we meet in this virtual space, sharing photos and song lyrics and anecdotes. Some of us carry Bibles, others books of poetry or CD cases. We offer artwork, prayers, and a recipe for baby wipes. We light candles in the places where we are, scattered about the country, praying for this journey you are on, the sacred path of motherhood. We dance to the rhythm of your child's heartbeat. We sing you our own songs, weaving our own experiences and prayers into psalms. We offer feathers, and seashells, and rocks weathered by ocean waves.

In Navajo, anyone or anything that nurtures – the sheep, the hogans, an uncle, a friend – is called mother. In this space, we are all mothers, hoping to nurture you in this process, in this transforming time in your life. Together, we hold hands across a landscape that encompasses all of us, hoping to be with you as you release this child from the warm cave of your body into a world where hope and love are still viable, wonderful choices.