Upsitting

In the firſt place, I muſt heartily congratulate thy happy condition, and muſt rejoyce at thy upſitting, whom God hath raiſed from the bed of deſpaire:

I am once more, bleſſed be God for all his Mercies to me enabled to dedicate to you the firſt Fruits of my Penmanſhip, on my Upſitting, to thank you, and my noble Lord for all your kind Solicitudes for my Welfare.

I have been present, stretched on the floor in a blanket (asleep, apparently, no doubt), when two upsittings have been going on, at opposite corners of a large room, all still as the grave but the subdued whisperings of the happy pairs.

And yet she developed a sympathy for the Boer families among which she lived and enjoyed their social rituals, as we see in the Boer upsitting and wedding described in African Farm.

Lying-in, remember, customarily proceeded by stages - the upsitting, going out of the chamber into the rest of the house, and the going abroad to church.

A woman's upsitting was a social event and a further step in her recovery. It signalled that she was on her way towards a full recovery, and it was a time when more people could visit, and gifts would be brought for the mother and child by well-wishers.