New Year brings a new moms’ group

MT. PLEASANT — Two moms work together to create a new moms’ group in Mt. Pleasant, this year.

After benefiting from other moms’ groups in the Mt. Pleasant area, Tamara Zechin and Amy Bly decided it was their turn to take on a leadership in creating a new moms’ group in Mt. Pleasant.

“My friend and I actually met each other at another local moms’ group that was held in New London at the New London Christian Church,” Zechin said. “We attended that for a few years. We also attended the moms group that was held at Calvary Baptist church last year.”

“My friend Amy and I were reflecting on how much we missed those monthly opportunities to get together with other moms,” Zechin said. “We just really felt the Lord putting on our hearts that if this was something that was really important to us that it might be really important to other moms in the community.”

So, that is what they are doing as they start the mom group, Mom Café.

According to Zechin, the first meeting is this Monday, Jan. 9 from 6-7:30 p.m., and they plan to meet the second Monday of the month, at the same time, going forward.

Thanks to Bly’s involvement with St. Alphonsus Church and the support of the church’s leadership, the Moms’ Café will meet in their church building.

“Our group is very open,” Zechin says. “I am a mom of a 4-year-old, and Amy is the mom of five ranging from ages 2 to 10.”

“We really are looking for any moms in the area that just feel like it would be helpful to them to meet with other moms in the area,” she said. “It can be people that are brand-new moms. It could be moms that have been moms for several years.”

The group will not have child care, but will provide fellowship and snacks while moms connect with one another.

“At least for me, moms’ groups have really been something that have really helped me as I was a new mom,” Zechin said.

“As I entered motherhood there’s just a lot of ups and downs,” she said. “There’s just a lot of joys and challenges.”

For Zechin, mom groups like the Mom Café supported Zechin in her most difficult moments of motherhood.

“For me personally, these groups have been so important,” she said.

“About six months after my son was born I experienced some postpartum depression,” Zechin shared. “My mommy mentor from Cradle of Hope told me about the moms’ group that was meeting in New London.”

“It was so lifesaving for me,” she said. “It was very refreshing and just helped me have an opportunity to talk to other moms and understand I wasn’t alone and just have encouragement from them for what I was facing.”

“Our second child had Trisomy 18 and we actually lost him stillborn May 1, 2020,” Zechin said. “The moms’ group was so instrumental in walking with us through that journey and supporting us.”

After both the New London and Calvary Baptist groups had to stop meeting due leadership and volunteer needs, Zechin and Bly felt called to take on leading a group of their own.

“We felt maybe it was our turn to step up and take on the leadership roles that other people had done before for us,” she said.

“We were praying about it in a Women’s small group meeting,” Zechin said. “All the women in the Bible study group said ‘we really think you should go for it.’”

“So, here we are, because of the nudging of the Holy Spirit, I guess,” Zechin said with excitement.

“We just want to get together and be able to share honestly where we are at in our journeys,” Zechin said. “Hopefully we will be able to offer words of encouragement or words of wisdom or at least words of empathy with one another over those different parts of the journey.”

“We hope to focus on where the joys are at in the midst of the challenges,” she said.

Zechin and Bly plan to get to know the other moms at the first meeting and create ways to focus on those joys in motherhood with blessing jars.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com