An unexpected delivery

I was very surprised this morning when husband brought 2 parcels, both wrapped in brown paper, into the living room and announced they'd just been delivered for me. I was mystified and even though I'm very forgetful at the moment, I knew I definitely hadn't ordered anything online and I wasn't expecting anything in the post.

I unwrapped the parcels to find a brand new MAM microwave steriliser and a set of MAM bottles. How. Bizarre. I'm breastfeeding the baby and a little voice in my head wondered whether someone had sent them to me anonymously in the hope I would move him onto bottles so he, and in turn I, would sleep better. Nice bit of paranoia I've got going on there, right?

With no invoice or other note accompanying the parcels, I resorted to scrutinising the address labels for clues and this is when I quickly realised they were connected to a "helping hands" raffle. I racked my brain some more and then realisation suddenly struck.

Back in November 2011, I'd bought tickets in the "...a helping hand" raffle organised by www.iwantmymummy.co.uk (formerly known as www.booandme.co.uk) to raise money for the Joanne Bingley Memorial Foundation.

You can read more about the Joanne Bingley Memorial Foundation here but in a nutshell, it is working incredibly hard to raise awareness about postnatal depression as well as campaigning for improvements to perinatal mental health care.

If I'm honest, I hadn't expected to win anything. I never win. But there it was on the website, one of my numbers had been drawn and I had indeed won a prize. The steriliser and bottles were mine, all mine! Okay, I may not actually use them but I do have a friend who's due to give birth in a few month's time so I plan to see whether she would like to make use of them.

If I'd seen the email confirming my good luck, I'd have known to expect today's delivery. As it was, it was much more fun opening the parcels and then figuring out where they'd come from and why. All in all, it was a very unexpected morning.