Mothers, Ra**bows and Babies

I am a ra**bow baby. Up until a few years ago, this term, "ra**bow baby" was new to me. I was first exposed to it when one of my favourite photographers posted a picture of a new mom with her newborn baby, wrapped in a ra**bow-printed blanket. It was celebratory melancholy, which seems like an oxymoron, but in reality, that's exactly the feeling the photographer captured in her photos. It turns out a ra**bow baby is a baby born following a previous loss through miscarriage or a stillbirth.

My family of origin is large by today's standards. I have four older sisters and a younger brother. I have another sister who was born three years before me, but due to complications with her delivery, she passed away several hours after she was born. She was full-term, with no apparent complications leading up to her birth. I can only imagine the grief my parents experienced through this loss. It's a type of grief I have not had to endure personally, because to my knowledge, I have never experienced a miscarriage.

Growing up as the fifth (living) daughter, I often questioned my mom regarding my gender, thinking they secretly hoped I was a boy, after having so many girls already. Apparently my dad declared early on in their relationship that he wanted 13 daughters. Well, he got about half of that number. When questioned, my mom would always reply, "No, we didn't want you to be a boy. We just wanted you to be healthy." Of course, me in my child-like narrowmindedness, had no idea of the nuances behind that statement, because there is no way I had a sniff of understanding the depth of pain behind those words. "We just wanted you to be healthy." In other words, she was relieved she had her ra**bow. I was alive and well. I got to come home from the hospital. I was brought up with 4 excited older sisters who have always looked out for me. I was somehow a promise about God's faithfulness, even after a devastating event---like the ra**bow promise given to Noah and his family after they left the ark. Followed by the destruction of every human on the planet, minus the 8 in Noah's family, in Genesis 9:13-16, we read:

"13 I have placed my ra**bow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth.14 When I send clouds over the earth, the ra**bow will appear in the clouds, 15 and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life. 16 When I see the ra**bow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.”

This eternal covenant--God's promise to mankind.

A new, living, breathing baby girl named Kimberly Renae--God's promise to my parents.

To be honest, I didn't truly believe, or appreciate my mother's words, "We just wanted you to be healthy", until I experienced giving birth to my own children. Both of their deliveries brought about potential complications, as my oldest son was born just an hour after arriving at the hospital in expedited fashion, and my second son was born on our bathroom floor because of how quickly he decided to enter the world. Neither of these close calls were due to my negligence on acting at the first sign of a contraction . . . my body just responded to labour and delivery in an abnormal way, going from 0 to 10 in a matter of minutes, apparently. Baby one had meconium, so the neonatal unit was ready and waiting to care for a potentially sick newborn--but he was fine. He was more than fine. He was amazing. Baby two, despite his exceptionally quick, and medically-unsupervised delivery, was also fine--also more than fine. He was also amazing. These boys, these gifts to me, the promise of God's faithfulness. And a really cool part of baby number two's story is that my Mom got to deliver him . . . the one born on the bathroom floor. She was the first one to see him, to touch him, to hold him. I wonder if that was somewhat therapeutic for her soul. She told me she was praying, "Just let this baby cry, just let this baby cry", as the chaos ensued with this unexpected home birth.

God has kept his promise made to Noah thousands of years ago. He has not destroyed the earth and its inhabitants with another flood. Every time a ra**bow appears, it's God's love letter to the world--His promise of faithfulness; His promise of hope. And He has remained faithful to me personally as well--promising His eternal presence through His son, Jesus, who is my hope every single day!

Growing up and into adulthood, ra**bows have always had a special appeal to me. I only made sense of this in recent years--after discovering the meaning of a rainbow baby. I believe the Holy Spirit has given my heart a special appreciation and love for ra**bows, possibly because I'm a ra**bow baby? I'm not sure. What I do know is that during the start of the pandemic in 2020, we had a very rainy spring and summer, and I was able to witness the fullness of an entire ra**bow in the sky (not just partial colours), numerous times, capturing these images with my phone's camera and posting them to social media, with an underlying desire to encourage those who needed a reminder of God's promise that He is always faithful---after the "storms" of life; DURING the storms of life. I think we all experienced the storm of 2020 in different ways, but I was so grateful every time I witnessed a ra**bow that spring and summer. The ra**bows reminded me that God had not left even when the world was reeling.

So, what does this all have to do with my baking business? Well, nothing. But yet, everything.

Mother's Day is fast approaching, and it's often been a hard day for me. I was estranged from my stepson on-and-off for many years, but again, God is faithful in this and making a new way of opportunity for rebuilding that relationship. My own relationships with my biological boys as well as my own mother, have, at times, been strained. But God has remained faithful.

So, in honour of my mom, who has a very generous heart, I decided to offer Floral Buttercream Cupcake Boxes as my very first promotional offer. My mom loves flowers. She was an avid gardener and I grew up in a home where our yard looked like a park. My mom has an exceptionally green thumb. My thumb is black and no matter how hard I've tried to create parklike space on our acreage, I have failed--and that's okay. I recognize it's not my gifting to nurture living flowers. BUT, I can create flowers out of buttercream and for me, that warms my heart likely as much as tending to her flowers and plants warms her heart.

You can find more details about this special promotion on the Products & Pricing page here. There are only a few days left to place an order for a Buttercream Floral Cupcake Box! I'll be taking orders until midnight on Sunday, May 7th. If you have any questions, please reach out by e-mail: pinksignaturebg@gmail.com

To close, I quote something from a fridge magnet I once received from my stepson when he was about 6 years old, with an applicable addition to the wording . . .

"If Mothers were buttercream flowers, I'd pick you."

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms reading this post! You are loved and you have inherent value in the lives of your children, and in the eyes of God!