July News

I know it often seems that we are having a terrible time and that each visit to the hospital is wrought with emotion, pain and sadness but we visit new mothers, and that in itself is filled with joy and hope.


What I find the most incredible of all, is that these women, these mothers, are so overcome with love, awe and affection for their newborns. God and nature are such an incredible force that the love we all have for our babies is instant and overwhelming and pure.  But so is the anxiety and fear and anger when things go wrong.


When I meet people without children, it is hard to explain this wonderment and love to them. I know women who have adopted and their love is by no means any less than those of us who have ‘natural, biological’ kids. The only thing they don’t experience is the birth, whether by caesaerian or natural, and with it, that first few hours of getting to know the new baby, this human being that has for 9 months lived inside of you and is a WHOLE person. That’s incredible, indescribable, beautiful and frightening.


At Bosom Buddies we meet the mothers when they are in this space, when they have just experienced this, the most life-changing and life-affirming experience of their lives. What a powerful platform! We have such a great opportunity to minister and to love and to pray and to bless. Wow.


I have learnt so much in my time with Bosom Buddies. I am astonished by the strength of women, by how much we overcome and achieve in spite of circumstances. The women we meet at HH and Macassar are the poorest in our communities. Yet they are for the most part calm and cheerful and exceedingly loving and caring of their babies. They are open to meet and to chat with our volunteers and most of them welcome a prayer, thanking God for their little miracle.

Look at this woman in the picture. These twin boys were born on 2 July. They were born premature and are still very small, but they’re healthy and strong and they should be fine. It is a generally known fact that kangaroo care (skin-on-skin) is the absolute best for premies. They grow and develop better, they are nice and cosy and warm against their mother’s skin and it creates a womb-like feeling when they’re all cuddled up inside her clothes on her chest against her heart. The astonishing thing about this woman and these two boys is that she is not their mother. She is their granny and will be raising them as her own. She realised that it will be impossible for her daughter to care for these twins without leaving school and they decided that daughter should stay in school. She will have to stay in hospital, doing kangaroo care with the boys for quite a while, until the boys are big enough to go home. When I spoke to her and told her how much I admire her for sacrificing so much to raise her grandchildren and spend weeks in (a really not very comfortable) hospital, she looked at me like I’m the crazy one and said that she didn’t even consider otherwise. It is not a sacrifice! How blessed are they to have TWO boys to add to their family. She would do anything for them, anything at all. 
Love and dedication, seen on the faces of the maternity ward at Helderberg Hospital and Macassar clinic.

Please join us for our Women’s Day celebration, a brunch we will be hosting with School of Hope on Women’s day, 9 August. It is entitled “I am Woman, Being a woman in SA today” and will be interesting and enlightening.