Socks.
I try to include a gift for the mom in each of the memory boxes I’ve put together over the past year or so. Most would think it’s just a nice gesture. I mean, the mom may be arriving at the hospital with no overnight bag. With no personal belongings. And then have to go through an earth-shattering life event. She probably really could use some beyond hospital-provided basics.
But really, there is more to the story of why I include a few key (in my opinion) items.
In the “mom bags”, I include three simple items: A pair of fuzzy socks, lip balm, and hand lotion. Again, these may seem like just some basic comfort items, but as I said…. there is a reason.
The socks. They are what really hit home for me and felt like a requirement in the “mom bags”. I am brought back to January 24, 2016. When I went to labor and delivery and heard those devastating words. But then… hours and hours passed after labor was induced. And medications delivered. And delivered again… not only to induce labor but to try and “fix” (because I don’t have a better word) the preeclampsia with severe features I had developed…and ohhh that nausea…and everything else that goes with your world crashing down. When I delivered my Adalynn, in the very early hours of January 25th, my first-time-worn pair of Valentine’s Day socks from Kohls were also no longer. It sticks out in my mind. I should have taken the hospital provided grippy socks twelve hours earlier; but I didn’t until post-delivery because I wanted that single sense of “normalcy” during the induction period. Something that was mine to go along with the hospital gown.
Does that sound silly and dramatic? Yes. But it’s the reality that (may) comes with an unexpected delivery. Were they really that important? Probably not (since ultimately, it didn’t make things better). Expensive? Definitely no. Replaceable? ….. Ehhhh… Clearly, no since they are still, five years later, stuck in my mind and were disposed of by the hospital.
That is why I include a pair of fuzzy socks in each bag. No matter what happens to the mom’s socks during delivery, a change of clothes will be needed. Those gray, grippy-on-both-sides, hospital ones seem so sterile and generic for what happened. Or, if the bag is opened at home while opening the memory box, I know that there will be many “fuzzy sock” days ahead, where they will be valued. Chapstick and hand lotion are just basics for delivery. I remember that I had a plain lip gloss in my purse that was sufficient because it’s what I had; but not labor-sufficient (moms know what that means!).
Really, I just want to make sure the moms know that someone else, who has been in their shoes, thought of them during a time that feels so lonely, and wanted them to have the better than hospital-provided basics. And that is how the “mom bags” became a part of the memory boxes I assemble.
