Preggie Pals
The Blessingway: A Baby Shower Alternative

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Please be advised, this transcription was performed from a company independent of New Mommy Media, LLC. As such, translation was required which may alter the accuracy of the transcription.

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LINDA GOLDSMITH: Many moms are foregoing the typical baby shower and planning a blessingway instead. What exactly is a blessingway and what happens at one? How do you go about planning it? I’m Linda Goldsmith, a labor doula and blessingway facilitator and this is Preggie Pals episode 104.

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ANNIE LAIRD: Welcome to Preggie Pals broadcasting from the birth education center of San Diego. Preggie Pals is your weekly online on-the-go-support group for expecting parents and those hoping to become pregnant.

I’m your host Annie Laird. Thanks to all of our loyal listeners who have joined the Preggie Pals club. Our members get special episodes, bonus content and special giveaways and discounts. See our website for more information. Another way for you to stay connected is by downloading the free Preggie Pals app which is available in the Android and iTunes marketplace.

Now Samantha, she’s going to give us some more information about our virtual panelist program. This is great if you’re not here in San Diego.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: Yeah it’s perfect. So if you don’t live in San Diego but you like to be a panelist on the show, you can participate through our virtual panelist program. Just give us a like on Facebook and follow us on Twitter using the #preggiepalsvp. We’ll post questions throughout the week prior to our taping and then we’d love for you to comment so we can incorporate your thoughts into our episode.

You can also submit your questions directly to our experts. Learn more about our virtual panelist program through the community section on our website www.preggiepals.com.

ANNIE LAIRD: Great! Alright! Well going around the table here, I’m Annie. I’m 35. My occupation I’m a government contractor by day and then I do my podcast here on the weekend, also blog, do some labor doula work, a little bit of everything. I don’t have a due date for once. I have three little girls, elementary school aged daughter, a toddler and a small toddler.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: There you go.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah so which is not toddling. Not walking quite yet in five months.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: I’m Samantha. I’m 22. I’m a barista by afternoon and a producer by the weekend. I do not have a due date although I wish I did. I have one 18-month-old named Olivia, cute little girl but quite the pistol. Type of birth I had a cesarean section unplanned hoping for a VBAC next time around.

ANNIE LAIRD: Awesome.

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ANNIE LAIRD: Alright. So today on Preggie Pals, I don’t think this is from news of the weird but the owner of the new mommy media, Sunny, she forward this to me and should belong on news of the weird. I think it was actually from Huffington Post.

So the title of the article is “Man expecting quintuplets find out his girlfriend isn’t pregnant”. He’s in Canada and so the Toronto Sun reports that Paul Servat was expecting his girlfriend to deliver triplets. Her stomach swelled, she began lactating and the whole community really pitched in and take a look at the picture I mean she looks like she’s pregnant and she I guess had the there’s a picture the four, the two of them holding each other and there the four cribs behind them and his poor paul.

He says “We’re so happy, even my parents they were looking so forward to having grandchildren and I lost my whole life”. So I guess she’s in the psych ward now so Geneviève, who’s a mother of the triplets. She’s a mother of triplets herself, she befriended the couple you know in a kind of a friend of multiples type of thing. So she was a little bit suspicious because this woman kept adding to the number of expected children so at first she said oh I’m having one baby, oh it’s two it’s twins and then oh it’s triplets and now it’s four, now it’s five then…

SAMANTHA EKMUND: They’re all just hiding behind each other.

ANNIE LAIRD: I guess so like you know every ultrasound she got a new baby. Oh this was amazing you know so I guess the doctor that actually went in to deliver her and there were no babies and so the doctor was saying like that he’s heard about it before like it’s called phantom pregnancy were the physical signs of pregnancy manifest. So if you see in the picture it looks like a pregnant belly now certainly not…

SAMANTHA EKMUND: Not quite so big.

ANNIE LAIRD: Not what I mean if you have five babies in there it will be bigger than it was but I mean she looks pregnant. It’s crazy. So she’s in the psych ward now.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: The power of the mind is amazing to me.

ANNIE LAIRD: It is.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: That she can believe this so hard and actually start to exhibit “symptoms”.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: Is amazing to me.

ANNIE LAIRD: Well I didn’t lactate during my pregnancy but I’ve heard of that happening.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: Oh I started leaking like 15 weeks.

ANNIE LAIRD: Oh merly.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: Yeah so what happens…

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: But I don’t think it would have happen if I wasn’t pregnant at all.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: The power of the mind.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. That’s amazing.

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ANNIE LAIRD: Well today on Preggie Pals, we’re talking about blessingways. It’s the alternative to the typical baby shower. Joining us today is our expert Linda Goldsmith. She’s a labor doula and she’s a blessingway facilitator. Linda owns the Pregnancy Sanctuary in Encinitas, California and she facilitates sacred pregnancy circles. Linda welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Thank you for having me.

ANNIE LAIRD: Now with my last baby, actually from my two last babies I had blessingways, a baby shower and I just think that more people need to know about this alternative and now my baby shower is amazing for the first one to get all the stuff.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right. It’s important.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah but then after the second one I’m like well I got all the stuff but I still want you know gather everybody around so I think if you can explain to our listeners you know actually what is a blessingway and how is it different from that typical baby shower that pretty much everybody gets you know from your mom or your sister.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well in like you said the baby showers are important because you get the stuff but on the second baby you still need to get the stuff but it’s emotional. You still need the emotional goodies.

You’re really not getting a lot of the emotional goodies on a baby shower. You’re getting practical stuff for the baby. And again that can be important to a lot of people. So I think baby showers are not, I mean blessingways are not the exclusion of baby showers. I want to be clear about that.

I still think there is plenty of room for both. The difference is at a blessingway or mother blessing, you can call it either one, the focus is on the mom and at a baby shower the focus is on as we all know the presents right? That’s what you do on a baby shower. You open them up and you get the presents and the focus on the baby and a lot of times a baby showers, moms tend to warn up each other on how bad their birth was.

So this mom unfortunately is marinating for about 3 hours in bad birth stories a lot. And a lot of women leave a baby shower their happy with their stuff but their emotional cup is beyond empty. So a blessingway or a mother blessing is I think it’s getting more and more important in our society. I think moms really need to be pumped up before they go into their birth about the fact that their awesome and they can have the birth that they want and they can feel empowered.

ANNIE LAIRD: Especially so we’re so disconnected in the society.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah so disconnected.

ANNIE LAIRD: A lot of us you know here in San Diego but I don’t it’s just a San Diego thing…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Oh yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: With being a military community, we’re all separated from each other. Nobody lives near their families here.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: But it’s not just a thing, there’s a lot of people that you know you leave home when you are an adult and you moved away from your family.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah and you’re gone and the communities aren’t the same as they were in the 1930s and 40s were families gather around all family members that’s not really the case we define our own families nowadays.

But a blessingway is very different. The invitation list is very different. So for example on a baby shower you would invite probably everyone from work and your mother in law and all of your best friends then maybe even your neighbours. But that’s not what a blessingway is.

A blessingway is to pick out I think optimally six to 12 people who really believe in the kind of birth that you want, who will be understanding about your fears and invite them to be your circle of support. And so nobody brings a present. Their presence is their gift to you. And so we come and we share.

And a blessingway or a mother blessing it has 3 components, a beginning, a middle and an end. And you can do anything you want. That’s the joy of this. You really do anything you want but the meat and potatoes is the honouring of the celebrant, the honouring of the mom and the sharing with her and her sharing with you.

She needs a community to express any fears she might have and those people just hold it for her. They don’t fix it. They just hold it for her and then she draws from them a beneficial collective energy that she calls on a second time when she goes in to labor.

ANNIE LAIRD: What’s the origin of this ceremony? Is it native American or….

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah. Yeah it was the Native Americans have had this type of ceremony honouring the mother for you know ever and it was this the midwives in the 70s in America brought it back and started practicing it. And I think when birth moved to the hospital about 75 years ago we lost a lot of traditions that would go along with just having your baby at home like everybody was born at home prior to hospital birth.

And we lost a lot of that because mommas was sort of just swept away you know the husband dropped her off to the hospital, people in white from head to toe picked her up and took her to a room and she had a baby and then the dad was notified that the baby…

So a lot of rituals changed because it didn’t line up with the kind of birth that was going to happen. Well in the 70’s you know we have had been about 30 years of hospital births some people were like you know. I want something richer. I want something deeper. I want something more. And so we tried to marry the two I think well I’m going to have a hospital birth but I want to feel loved and I want to feel powerful and confident and so I think the midwives bringing the blessingway back was a good step in helping the woman bridge the gap.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: You know between what she needs and what she’s getting from maternal care…

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: In America.

ANNIE LAIRD: Now a lot of times that baby shower is a surprise party for a mom to be but as I understand that a blessingway is not you know a surprise….

LINDA GOLDSMITH: No.

ANNIE LAIRD: To the mom and the mom is actually involved in planning it right?

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah it strikes me as like a surprise funeral, surprise! No. No. No we’re not going to do that. So yeah she’s very much involved. This is - it’s really important to her because we’re not worried about colours and themes we’re not worried about any of that. It’s all the emotional work that is happening.

So we need to find out from her you know in a planning meeting what do you want to get from your blessingway? What is it you need to receive from the people that you’ve asked to surround you? And a lot of times she gets the opportunity to share her fear you know during the planning to really pinpoint what it is? Why do I feel this need to collect with other women? What is it I’m trying to get from them and this can really help her be clear.

So yeah if it is was a surprise, she wouldn’t have time to think about it and really know what’s important to her and what to get out of it plus she’s in charge of her own rituals and I think that’s really, really important because there are some women who they don’t want that it’s a little too much from them for laying off of hands or brushing of hair or walk about you know those kinds of things and other women they love it.

But if you surprise somebody and you’ve gave them something that they were uncomfortable with, it would not be a memorable way and good way for her.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: I think she would be stressing about it.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. We talk about planning it but there’s also the element of your facilitator of…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yes.

ANNIE LAIRD: Blessingway so can mom facilitate her own or is it a better idea for her to get someone who can facilitate it for her.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: So I’m a big fan of somebody facilitating for you. Having said that I did facilitate my own back in 2005 because I didn’t know any facilitators and I really wanted to have this kind of a ceremony. And so I had way too many people I had like 20 people but I was also sort of I think - I was educating other people instead of really doing it for me, I was also sort of you know doing it for them so that they would know about this too. It wasn’t fun because it’s like okay well now it’s the time we honour me and….

ANNIE LAIRD: Come over here and brush my hair.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right. Exactly!

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: It’s totally awkward. So yeah I’m a big fan of facilitation and if it’s being done properly then I really think that the celebrant has a chance to tap in to some deep emotion which usually is connected to tears for women. That’s a source of empowerment and release and productivity to cry and release. So if you have to do both it’s too much work. You really need to be the one receiving and feeling and let somebody else move it along for you.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: I’m a big fan of that.

ANNIE LAIRD: Now you talk about a little bit about the guest list but other people who should be definitely left off the guest list like a….

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yes. Yeah so the people who don’t believe in the kind of birth you want to have whether it’s a natural home birth or planned caesarean they should probably not be there because you don’t need to manage what they think is reasonable. You need to be collecting at your blessingway emotion and energy and love. And if you have to manage anybody, that’s not a good candidate for somebody to be there.

ANNIE LAIRD: That’s probably not a good candidate for someone to be at the birth either.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah good point, good point. Baby showers they’re important but they’re not, what’s the word I’m going to say, you can take a gift from anybody but when you’re taking an emotional gift from people it has to be somebody specific usually you know especially when it comes down to birth. So I you know you may have just met three new people in a child birth class and three new moms at the park and those are your six people. It doesn’t have to be…

ANNIE LAIRD: Your lifelong friends.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Exactly. It can just be people that you can feel that you can draw benefit from.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. And what about men, would this be something that the dad would go to or not?

LINDA GOLDSMITH: No. Sorry guys. It’s not. It’s the female energy is what we’re after and just even having one men in the room can throw it a little bit. I remember one time a client really wanted her husband to take pictures and you know we went of course it’s her decision if she wants him them she can have him there but just said I think that women will not open up as much.

ANNIE LAIRD: Right.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: They’re just going to…

ANNIE LAIRD: All the blessingways that I’ve been at are very emotional.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yes.

ANNIE LAIRD: Tears for everybody…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: For the participant.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: All participants.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: And I think that we don’t feel the need to explain that or feel embarrassed about it if we’re just with other women, because that’s what we do.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: That’s what we do you know and…

ANNIE LAIRD: I was at a blessing were recently with the husband was say I think it was one that you were facilitating Linda and he said something very stood afterwards he said he almost felt like he was invading…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: On a sacred space.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: And he was just off in the kitchen and making wonderful food.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah he was in a different room but I definitely notice the presence. I because I think he had - well you could hear the tinkering or something and you knew he was listening and it was sweet because he was on the other room but yeah I don’t know I’m not a fan. I just I would prefer that it will just be all female energy.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: I really would.

ANNIE LAIRD: Now Linda you also facilitate my blessingway so I just like to speak a little bit about children.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yes.

ANNIE LAIRD: And of just I’ve been at some very sweet blessingways and it wasn’t really planned right from my oldest daughter but we had a very special moment of where and she lost it completely. I’ve never seen her emotionally loose and she was what 8 years old, 8 years old. I’m getting teary I notice -

LINDA GOLDSMITH: I am too.

ANNIE LAIRD: But it was you know it didn’t I definitely wouldn’t want my child were there you know because I think she was distracting but I just kind of left it open of saying hey if you want to be part of it fine and if you don’t whatever go off just don’t be distracting and but we just had a moment during there were just I could acknowledge her and the relationship not with the any other kids but just her and me. It was so special.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: And what a gift to her, I mean to be able to feel totally free, to connect with her mom and cry in front of a group of women and to feel totally supportive on that I think that’s going to serve her for her whole life. I mean to understand the value of other women and other girls. That was a very special moment like you said totally spontaneous.

I think that everybody in the room was sort of taken a back and just fell into a silence which was beautiful and just let the two of you hold each other and cry and yeah it was very beautiful. I had my daughter was 7 when I had my blessingway.

I had to wash my feet and that was always really special to me. What I did was I washed my mom’s feet and then she washed my feet and then I said I hope one day you will have a daughter that will wash your feet. And so sometimes there’s a purpose for having them there because they have a job to do.

Again know your child, know what they are capable of. I agree with you I think that a certain age there’s going to be a distraction that’s not actually going to be a benefit to the child but yeah when you get a little girl of four, five, six, seven, boy that can be really special and yeah your daughter is really weigh down all of our hearts that was really, really sweet. Very special so…

ANNIE LAIRD: Well the one blessingway that I just had recently with you you’re little girl was not even 2 years old…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: And I thought that was very special…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: As well of just you can tell from the pictures from the birth to already she has a connection with her little brother.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: Of just she loves him so much.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: Since she was so little. So...

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: Could have gone either way though right with the 2 year old?

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

SAMANTHA EKMUND: Could have gone either way.

ANNIE LAIRD: And who knows.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yup.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: But I think it’s very, very sweet and again it’s the strength of women and our patriarchal society values the male side of the brain and the logical side. And the women side is the intuitive side and it just doesn’t get - I don’t think it there’s enough value on it in our society so when we have this circles, and we can really help a girl understand at a very young age the value of being a female and the value of intuition and the value of emotion and art and creativity.

I think that’s a gift that we need to give our girls at a younger age because in regular school systems they’re not they’re getting the whole left side and so I think that’s a nice opportunity for them.

ANNIE LAIRD: Great.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: Well when come back, we’ll be discussing the elements of a blessingway.

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ANNIE LAIRD: Welcome back. Today we’re talking about blessingways. Linda what are the primary elements of the blessingways? I know you said that you know beginning middle end but what are some different things that you can do to blessingway?

LINDA GOLDSMITH: There’re so many different things so one of the things you can do is music, whether it’s singing and chanting or drumming or toning, anything like that. You can do invocations so you can do smudging, you can do silence, you can do an invocation, you can do guided meditation.

Then there’s grooming, now some people like grooming some people don’t but foot washing, hair brushing, head raise belly art, adornment right? And then the meat and potatoes again is the sharing circle. So in then the sharing circle there’s too many to list different rituals you can do.

Usually starts with you know general introductions to get the female vibe going in the room. You can do bracelets of connectedness, candle lightings, greetings, storytelling, you can do bead bracelets, bead necklace, gifts from the heart, wish is for baby, you can release fear, you can do belly mask, you can do quilt, you can do crafts. There are so many different things you can do. You can incorporate religion if that’s important to somebody you can do prayers. You can plant a tree. There’s no end to the things that you can do. There are several books that you can…

ANNIE LAIRD: I was going to ask…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: So someone is planning a blessingway what kind of resources do they have? I see you have several books in front of you here.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah. So I have a lending library and I loan out books to women who are here locally but you can go online and just research blessingway rituals and you’ll be fascinated. It’s fun to do the research. You can also, this is what I do, I go on ebay and I buy the books. You can get them so inexpensively. You know you can get books for $7.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: And get three different books on I know a couple one, one’s called Blessingways, one’s called Mother Rising, one’s called The Smudging and Blessing book. Now that one has a lot more different ceremonies not just for mother blessings but other things too. But it’s very - I think it’s really fun to look up all your options.

ANNIE LAIRD: I know when I was planning my blessingway Samantha it was like Linda looked at me and was like we’re not going to fit this in you know like…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: [inaudible]

ANNIE LAIRD: Exactly. Well you know and I knew that going in I’m like…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: Well I like this I think that it’s three pages typed long because I invited like 30 people…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Is like crazy moms like…

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Birthplan.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well there are so many fun things to do and they’re all meaningful and that’s why it’s really hard to cut down but if you make it too long you start to the people that are tend it’s like okay enough you know.

ANNIE LAIRD: Right. How long do they usually as it very long?

LINDA GOLDSMITH: You know for years I was always saying 45 minutes so…

ANNIE LAIRD: Oh. Oh.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: What I would tell people to do is think in turn of a church service.

ANNIE LAIRD: Oh.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: So if you went to a service, after 45 minutes you’re ready to go right? It’s enough ritual and thankfulness and you’re ready to go. But honestly they’re going much longer. They’re 2 and 3 hours.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah well a typical baby shower you’d come and expect 2 to 3 hours give and take.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah and that’s not any real deep emotionally rich connections happening…

ANNIE LAIRD: No you often get…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: This is like really important stuff going on…

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: That you again you wouldn’t want to cut it off…

ANNIE LAIRD: Right.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: And so I think that I’ve definitely changed my tune that they definitely need to be a little longer and then there’s so much value to breaking bread together.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: You know whatever it is.

ANNIE LAIRD: I was going to ask because food is always a favourite topic of mine…

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: So how do you incorporate food in the blessingway?

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Oh I think it’s a lovely opportunity to do. I think a potluck is lovely or if you want to do a theme I mean you and I we’re at the another blessingway were there was an Indian theme…

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: And they’ve catered an Indian food and it was amazing.

ANNIE LAIRD: That was really good.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: And to die for. But yeah the women coming in I guess it depends on your invitation list. If these are women that don’t know each other well and you pluck this one from there that one from there and that one from there, we’re probably not going to have as long of people you know when they first get there hanging out and chatting as you would when they all do know each other.

So I think you can kind of gauge it on that. But if you do set a little if you say an invitation like 4 to 6pm or whatever it’s going to be, I think that helps that expectation. You know that it’s going to end…

ANNIE LAIRD: Right.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Because if you say 4 to whenever…

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: You know.

ANNIE LAIRD: Until it’s over.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah that gets to be a little much.

ANNIE LAIRD: Until the baby comes.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: This will be a little bit much.

ANNIE LAIRD: What do women who have had a blessingway say that the most special part of the ceremony was?

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well that’s funny just you asking that question makes me like choke up because the women that the feedback that I get is that it’s the whole ceremony. It’s the day. It’s a day they’ll never forget and it wasn’t even a day. It was a couple of hours but it’s a couple of hours in their life that had such intense meaning and clarity for them and friendship and love and support and they don’t say oh I love that or I love they loved it all. They loved everything. They loved communing with other women and I think that they who doesn’t who doesn’t like to hear wonderful things about themselves right?

ANNIE LAIRD: Right.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: So that happens.

ANNIE LAIRD: Now you said on the previous episode that you know we should all have always have a ceremony.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah once in 20 years.

ANNIE LAIRD: For how special they are.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah once every 20 years you should have one.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

LINDA GOLDSMITH: That’s what I said that I did one for my daughter she’s 15 like that would serve her for 20 years. I’ll see you again if she’s 35 I’ll give her another one. But yeah it’s very meaningful so I can’t say that they pin point one thing that was better than another but they just loved everything.

ANNIE LAIRD: Thanks Linda for joining us today. For more information about Linda and her Pregnancy Sanctuary as well as information about our panellists, visit the episode page on our website. This conversation continues for members of our Preggie Pals club. After the show Linda will discuss how fear releases incorporated into the ceremony of a blessingway or mother’s blessing. To join our club, visit the website www.preggiepals.com .

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KRYSTAL STUBBENDECK: Hello Preggie Pals, I am Krystal Stubbendeck, maternity fashion expert and founder of Borrow for your Bump where you can buy or rent designer maternity styles for a monthly rate. Today we are going to talk about matching your body type with the perfect dress styles for summer. When it is challenging enough dressing your body type let alone with the growing bump. You not only want to look fabulous but you want to feel fabulous too. Before basic body types, we will match the dress style that would flatter and accentuate all the right places especially for the upcoming summer months that are full of weddings, showers and barbeques.

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The key is to make sure that the dress is loose and flowing towards the bottom. Whether if it’s above the knee or above the ankle. We like to lower our maxi dress by Numph which is strapless and will show off the assets on top while covering up a wider bottom half.

As an inverted triangle, your shoulders or bust are actually larger than your hip. This is a chance to actually show off your shoulders with an isometric dress style. Hiding the shoulders under a sleeve dress can make you appear larger. And with the one shoulder number you will create a balance.

For more formal occasion we like the asymmetrical sequel dress by seraphim.

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An hourglass body type is when your shoulders and hips are around the same size and you have a defined waist. The best dress that fits this shape are pieces that hug not hide your curves and growing bump. A perfect match is the Darren Tri-Maxi dress by Numph or if you like a little more coverage around the arms there’s a grey and white stripe Theresa maxi dress by Numph.

The final body type is a rectangle shape were your shoulders, bust and hips are similar in size and you lack a defined waist with this try to create an hour glass figure with an empire waist or side rousing. Also try choosing materials that are fitting which will flatter your bump. Our recommendation is the Sophie dress by Numph which is available on charcoal or black colours. This style is perfect for almost any occasion and a cat fleece creates a soft look.

A belt can also be added to many dress styles to create flattering curves to an otherwise straight waist. Overall remember you are beautiful no matter what your body type. Embrace your assets and balance your frame with a dress style that will flatter and make you feel sexy. Don’t forget to check out our summer dress styles mentioned at www.borrowforyourbump.com and be sure to listen to Preggie Pals for more great pregnancy tips.

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ANNIE LAIRD: That wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to Preggie Pals.

Don’t forget to check out our sister shows:
• Parent Savers for parents with newborns, infants and toddlers
• Twin Talks for parents of multiples.
• The Boob Group for moms who breastfeed their babies

Next week we’ll be discussing the use of homoeopathy during pregnancy and birth.
This is Preggie Pals, your pregnancy, your way.

[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media production. Information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. Though information in which areas are related to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional, Medical or advisor care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medications. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.

SUNNY GAULT: New Mommy Media is expanding our line up of shows for new and expecting parents. If you have an idea for a new series or if you’re a business or organization interested in joining our network of shows through a co-branded podcast, visit www.NewMommyMedia.com .

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