Guest Post from the Wrap Your Rainbow Project

Happy Saturday, Midlands Babywearers!

Today we're pleased to share a guest post. Introduction is written by one of our admins, Chris N, and the post itself is written by Kristi Bothur. You can read more from Kristi at www.citymomsblog.com/columbiasc

Babywearers of the Midlands is all about spreading the babywearing love.  But our purpose runs deeper than that.  We love to talk about carriers, wraps and slings, but our real goal is to support families in their parenting journeys.  Sometimes those journeys can take unexpected and difficult turns and we want to be there to help support your family as a babywearing community through both the good times and hard times.

Infant loss impacts many around us and yet we often have no idea.  It can be a lonely experience that people are uncomfortable talking about or acknowledging right when someone most needs support. That grief can be a deep, dark place. 

Just as after a dark and terrible storm a rainbow gives us hope and reminds us of beauty, the birth of a child after a loss often brings joy and hope into a heart that has been shadowed with grief.  For this reason, a child born after a loss is called a Rainbow Baby.  A rainbow does not erase the changes brought by a storm, but instead brings light and hope.  Babywearers of the Midlands is happy to support Naomi’s Circle in their ministry of reaching out to families in times of loss and celebrating rainbows babies through babywearing.

Kristi Bothur is the founder of Naomi’s Circle, the creator of the Wrap your Rainbow Project, and a mother of five children, three angels and two who are here with her on earth.  Read more about her journey and the Wrap your Rainbow Project below.

 Wrap Your Rainbow - by Kristi Bothur

My first tentative steps into baby wearing were after my daughter was born.  My mom had given me a ring sling she had picked up at a consignment sale.  I figured out how to use it as best I could and carried my baby everywhere in it for the next several months.  Unfortunately, it never quite felt like it fit.  The edges were padded and I could only tighten it so much before they got caught in the rings.  Once, I saw a magazine picture with a mom carrying her baby in a different kind of ring sling, and it looked so much cozier than mine, but I could never figure out where to find one, and no one else I knew had anything like it, so by six months or so, babywearing had faded into a sweet memory of something I'd had a taste of, but never really got to savor.

Four years later, I was preparing for the birth of my son.  In the intervening years, we had lost three children during first and second trimester miscarriages. I was scared, anxious, excited, thankful, apprehensive...you name the emotion and I probably felt it!  But I was also eager to try different things with this baby, things I hadn't fully experienced the first time around.  Like cloth diapering and babywearing, in particular.  A good friend, Dawn, got me started by letting me use her Moby wrap.  Another friend, Chris, loaned me some of her ring slings, and one of them - a Maya Wrap - was just like the magazine picture from when my daughter was a baby!  Yes!  I had found my sweet spot of babywearing.  For the next year, I explored as many kinds of carriers and wraps as I could find or make, I joined The Swap on Facebook (dangerous, but fun!), and had a blast learning how to wear my sweet Rainbow baby, as a baby born after a loss is often called.

Wrap Your Baby's donation: an Easycare Rainbow

Then one day I was checking out the Wrap Your Baby Facebook page and found that they were advertising a new rainbow wrap.  The description of it included mention of the strength that it takes to move on after a loss and the hope that a rainbow represents.  I was suddenly seized by the beauty of a rainbow baby being worn in a rainbow wrap.  An idea tickled my mind.  After our losses, we had begun a local ministry called Naomi's Circle (www.naomiscircle.org) for fellow bereaved parents.  What if we could acquire several rainbow wraps and, through our ministry, loan them to local rainbow moms as an expression of the love of God and hope for the future?  I wrote to Diana of Wrap Your Baby to tell her what her post had inspired, and she immediately offered to donate a wrap for our outreach, an act of generosity that encouraged me to pursue this idea.

Shannon: the 1st Wrap your Rainbow Recipient

Over the next several months, we acquired several more wraps and ring slings, and in September 2013, our first Wrap Your Rainbow mom was selected.  The way the outreach works, we open a form on our website for requests from Rainbow Moms every two or three months.  If there is more than one applicant, we choose someone at random.  Recipients, who must be local, receive a woven rainbow wrap to use for a year, after which time they are asked to return it to Naomi's Circle for a new Rainbow parent.  Other details can be found on the Wrap Your Rainbow page of our website.

Carolynne: another Wrap your Rainbow recipient

If you are a parent who has lost a baby in pregnancy or early infancy, my heart goes out to you.  I hope you will check out our website for information about where and how to find support for the journey you are on.  It doesn't matter how long ago your loss was - sometimes reaching out to others even years later can be incredibly healing.  If you are the parent of a Rainbow baby, I encourage you to check out the Wrap Your Rainbow page.  We want to offer support to you, too, at a time of both intense joy and surprising tears as you celebrate your baby on Earth and remember your baby in Heaven, and this was the most tangible way we could think of to do it.


We hope all of you - whether you are parents of a rainbow baby or not - make your way to www.naomiscircle.org to check it out and see if there is a way you can find or offer support to other parents who have been through so much.

Next up on BoTM calendar is our weekday meeting on Thursday, February 27th at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Broad River Road and we will discuss the Ergonomics of Babywearing. Our March meetings will focus on Babywearing on a Budget!