love, friday (knitters unite edition)

• Love discovering that our health insurance company will pay for 100% coverage on everything related to Amelia's birth - regular stuff, "out of the ordinary" stuff like our midwife, complicated stuff like extended stays for either of us, and complete post-natal care for both of us. We have a different insurance provider now than when Jackson was born, so this was a relief to learn.

• Don't love that so many women and babies around the globe do not have access to the same type of care. Love that there is a knitterly protest to bring awareness of these issues to light. Here is the Ravelry link for the project, but I've also pasted the text below for the non-Raveling knitters amongst us. Love that there is something I can do - sort of like giving back - and that it involves my knitting needles. Cast on, my friends, cast on!

love, friday
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From the Ravelry group: Oxfam Blanket for Maternal Mortality

"The nice people at Oxfam want to enlist the help of knitters everywhere to knit or crochet squares for a giant baby blanket, which will highlight the lack of appropriate health care for mothers in Africa and South East Asia.

Every minute, a woman with no midwifery or medical care dies in pregnancy or childbirth.

Millions of mums in poor countries get low-quality health care, or are forced to go without it altogether. High fees, a shortage of hospitals and clinics, and not enough doctors and midwives mean that women struggle to get the care they need and that all too often they don’t survive to look after their babies. In Africa and South East Asia pregnancy and childbirth represent the biggest causes of death amongst women of childbearing age.

Each 9-inch (23cm) square that you can knit, loom or crochet will represent a newborn baby, left needlessly without a mother because of lack of health care. These squares will be joined together and handed into the UK government in September. After this protest, your beautiful squares will not be wasted: the giant blanket will be disassembled into normal sized blankets and auctioned off to raise money for Oxfam’s campaign.

Send your squares (with your name, address or email, so that Sarah can thank you for your support) by 1st August 2008 to:"

Sarah Blakemore
Oxfam campaigns
47 Park Square East
Leeds
LS21 2NL
UK