Baby Shower

My baby shower was one of the most beautiful days of my life and something to be remembered for all time.

There is a group of ladies whom, like me, have fallen in love with an Argentine man, married him, and have decided to stay here in Argentina to build a family.
All together I think we are about 7 that live here somewhat permanently. We have all met in different ways, and are all very different, but we all have one thing in common. We are foreigners in a culture that is not ours, that will never really be ours, who all miss our families and friends, and have found a special kind of friendship and support group amongst each other.
From left to right: Kim, holding Lucia, Adrianne's youngest, Valeria (my best Argentine friend,) Susan, Me, Janette, Gordana and Anisa.
Again from Left to right: Kim, holding Lucia, Gordana, Valeria, Me, Adrianne, Janette, and Anisa.

Adrianne, a lovely Mormon mother of two made me this two layered cake of diapers and pads to prepare me for the first week of being a mommy.
Susan, an inspiring Human Resources consultant that has worked all over the world, made the real cakes, banana cream cheese cake, (the best ever ever!) and Chocolate poppy seed bunt cake. Susan used to live in Fiji where she owned and ran her own cafe, that is when she wasn't doing team building for th UN. Just an amazing woman!

As we found our seats around the table, we began by first stuffing our faces with sweets, and continued with a game that the ladies had organized. Adrianne had tracked my mother down, called her and questioned her on things like, "What was Stephanie's favorite toy as a kid?" "What was Stephanie's favorite food as a kid?" "Who was Stephanie's first best friend?" "What was Stephanie like as a little girl?" etc...

All the ladies had to write what they thought the correct answer was and then they read off the answer my mother gave to them. It was so beautiful to remember that my favorite toy when I was a kid, was not a toy at all, but were my books! I remember reading for hours and hours! Not much has changed I suppose. And how my favorite food was strawberries. Not only where they my favorite, but at 18 months old I apparently crawled into my mother's strawberry patch and ate every berry on the vine. Later that evening I broke out into a sort of alergic reaction of blisters all over my mouth, hence impeding me from continuing to suck my thumb.

The funniest thing of all is that I was very prissy as a child! Hahaha! According to my mother, I didn't like to get dirty, I always wanted to wear a dress, and I spent hours "primping" myself. A far stretch from the Stephanie of today. hehe

When we finished the story telling time, the girls did something I had never heard of before. They formed a birthing chain for me.
This is where every woman places a bead of their choice onto a wire. While placing the bead on the wire they declared a wish or a desire they have for me and my soon to be born child. Making it's way full circle, it was then ended forming a chain to grip onto while I am in labor as well as a way for each one of my friends and loved ones to be present with me in the labor room. As you can imagine, there was a steady flow of tears that was only exaggerated when Adrianne appeared with the telephone in hand and my mother on the other end. They had set aside two beads, one for my mom and one for my sister so their wishes and presence could also be felt labor room.

Have you ever seen anything so lovely in all your life?

I could not stop touching it for the first few days, thinking of all the lovely things each one of my friends had hoped for me, feeling myself overflowing with love over and over again.