Where it all started
I became a Mommy for the first time on the 10th September 2015 to my beautiful little girl Emily. I had it all planned out in my head (I’m a bit of a control freak), how her birth would go, what type of mom I’d be and so forth. I planned, prepared her nursery and read a certain baby book – because I’m a researcher at heart. I had it all figured out, I was in control and ready to meet the little baby we had been praying for.
Well to say nothing went to plan is a bit of an understatement. Emily’s birth plan went out the window when we ended up having an emergency c-section due to a placenta abruption which happened in the hospital as I was being accessed for induction. By the grace of God we were where we needed to be and a very scary situation was avoided.
But… I was not mentally prepared for this surgery. I was in the recovery room for an hour, an hour that I was separated from my little girl, and the thought running through my mind was ‘this is not how it’s supposed to have happened’.
Fast forward a few weeks and I was in a very anxious space, completely out of my depth with a little newborn who didn’t sleep like the book I had read said she would. I regret reading that book immensely. Because later (after listening to my own mom) I realised – babies don’t read books, they don’t all react to this new and scary life in the same way and they all have different personalities. So why on earth would they all sleep a certain amount of time a day and do things in an orderly fashion?!
My beautiful Emily Iris (named after my beloved Granny), came into this world bright eyed and bushy tailed. She was alert, awake and ready for life. And after the initial shock of realising I didn’t have a sleepy newborn wore off, we settled into our own routine. The love I felt for this perfect little girl was indescribable. And once I relaxed more and went with the flow, everything just fell into place.
I loved being a mommy, I loved my daughter with an intensity that actually scared me, but I also was in limbo a bit – trying to find me again. I realised I needed to become a new version of my old self. The one thing that sparked this transition was my need for creativity. And Emily fueled this creativity, through her energetic and vibrant nature, I learned to enjoy the small things in life again.
As a breastfeeding mom, with a baby who would only sleep in my arms, I was often glued to my bed or couch. This ignited a love/hate relationship with….online shopping. I love it, my credit card though – not so much. Showeee I fell deep into the hole of ‘adding to cart’, and I started searching for beautiful clothes for Emily online. I love supporting local, I still to this day buy clothing from other local clothing brands. But when Emily was tiny I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for. I also remember buying her first birthday outfit and being bitterly disappointed when it came apart after one wash.
So the idea of Rosie Bee was formed in my head. My mother runs a successful ceramics business on our farm, one of her employees, a gentleman named Baptiste was taught how to sew by my Granny and my Aunt Gillian. He was in charge of packing up orders at that stage and I just thought he is so creative, let’s try make a few clothing items and see what happens. I took a little dress of Emily’s to him one day and asked him if he could try sew one for me using an old piece of fabric. He made the dress, without a pattern so perfectly that I decided to give this idea of mine a chance.
This is the first little dress that we made.