My mum knits yellow booties.

While I’m trying to digest all that has happened this last week and work my way into the next round of tests and doctors scratching their heads, I thought I could give you this…

My mum knits yellow booties.

She started knitting them after William died. She doesn’t do it for money, she does it because she loves me and I asked her to.

When I was trying to conceive I read about an old wive’s tale. It went something along the lines of; a pair of yellow booties knitted and given to a couple trying to conceive, would bring them good luck in fertility and a pregnancy would occur soon after the gifting.

Pffft, you might be saying, that’s stupid, just a myth… but is it?

The first pair of booties she knitted was for a friend, who was struggling to conceive.

She fell pregnant the month after they were given to her. When she and her partner started to try for number two, the booties went straight into their pillowcases and now another baby is on the way.

She has knitted about a dozen pairs now, all of them resulting in beautiful babies. The second last pair she knitted was for a friend who had already done three cycles of IVF and nothing had worked. I knew she was very fragile, not knowing whether to try again and so it was with trepidation that I gave her the booties with the story attached.

I didn’t see her again until late last year, with her daughter.

She came up and gave me the biggest hug and said that they had taken the booties home and slept with them leading up to the forth and final cycle. When she went for the transfer of the embryo, they were in her handbag and in there still when she got a positive blood test. She said they brought her hope.

Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it is the symbol of hope, these tiny little yellow booties that brings about a mindset, a little bit of magic.

You want more proof?

Still not a believer?

The last set of yellow booties she made were given to me on Mother’s day, 2005. Not one pair but two, presented in a little box.

On June 1st, I discovered I was pregnant again and about two weeks after that, I found that we were expecting twins.

Got gooseys?

I always get them when I think of all the babies that have worn mum’s yellow booties home from the hospital.

Now she’s knitting them again because there are new friends who need to hope, just a little.