Vicky's Blessingway...

Yesterday, Loz and I went to the gorgeous Vicky's blessingway, who we met through our meetings held through the Maternity Coalition.

She herself is a midwife, and while we haven't seen her work first hand, I imagine her to be a calm and wonderful support to have at such a moment that is as important as the birth of your child ;)

We began by offering Vicky a candle, to burn within her labour time in her birth space.

Everyone of these had beautiful meanings behind them, and I particularly loved the candle that is painted with the butterfly and "Embrace change", who her midwife Janey did.

Mine is the one to the left of the vessel...more pics of it are following...

Aerial shot of all the candles and vessel full of gorgeous beads

This is my candle, which I carved myself!

I'm a bit chuffed with the result, never having done it before.

I forgot to take a pre-carve shot, but it was a simple plain white candle.

I chose white as Vicky had chosen white for the candle she gave to Sarah at her blessingway, saying she was drawn to the purity if it.  As you can see, many of us chose a white candle to give to Vicky ;)

Into the top of the candle, I carved a flower sort of shape, seen above ^^^

Then on one side, I carved a preggy muma holding her rounded belly

And the other side, a muma breastfeeding her babe

Underneath, a little message xx

The gorgeously eclectic range of beads offered to Vicky to make up her birthing necklace

Mine is the rainbow bead near the top...chosen because I like all things rainbow, and rainbows to me symbolise unity....something you need to have within you for birthing power ;)

Isn't this devine?!!

Vicky's own artwork, her own little tree of life

Here's the glowing muma!!

Last bare belly shot before the henna

Leah, first penning the design onto Vicky's belly, as Teagan and Coopa do some drawing at the table

An awesome part of blessingways, is all the delicious foods to munch on!!

I did the sausage rolls in the bowl at the left, which Loz made me promise to bring to her blessingway, what a compliment!!

See the truffles at the bottom right there?  Vicky's hubby Wayne made those, oooh he's a keeper!! lol

Vicky asked us to design our own apples on a piece of calico, that she will attach to a tree she is going to paint onto a bigger piece of fabric....she has very much been drawn to trees.

We set to work using paints and texta's

I made a very rainbowy apple....all the better to munch! lol

The beginning of the henna

Finished master piece!

Great job done by Leah, following a design that Vicky herself had sketched.

The middle is supposed to be an "evil eye" which is symbolic for warding off evil

Fabulous belly art

One very happy muma!

After the paint dried on my rainbow apple, I wrote on some words of encouragement

Loz starting off the binding of the circle of women

Binding the circle....symbolically joining all these women together to unite in sending all their positive vibes to Vicky for her home birth

My turn to be entwined into the circle of women

Completing the circle

And now, before the unity is cut, we all took our turn in saying what we wished for Vicky's home birth.

By the time it got around to me, many a beautiful word had been spoken and I thought I would struggle to not repeat what had already been covered, words that brought tears to Vicky's eyes of new love between her and her hubby found, embracing the moment, focus to deal with the pain....but then something came to me that I experienced during my birth.....that if you don't already, you will fall in love with yourself. I had a life time of body image issues prior to pregnancy, having that baby in my belly was the first time in my life it was ok to have a tummy, but then the moment everything inside just kicked into action and my body just knew what to do to get my baby out...I've never been so in awe in my life!!  All those years of hating my body just melted away, seeing what your body is capable of is truly amazing!!  I hope that Vicky feels that too ;)

This is now my 3rd Blessingway!!

The green string could have been cut off two days ago, as that baby is now Earthside, but I chose to keep it on til after this one, just to see them all on! lol

Vicky didn't have a bead to add to our strings, and thought it too thick, but as we cut them all she said it was coming apart easily so I scrounged around in my bag and found some special beads to offer......my good friend Jenni found these rainbow beads when looking for beads for Ebz blessingway, she said she thought of me when she saw them so bought them for me as a present, aww!  Little did I know, that when I found them in my bag before I left to pick up Loz, there was a reason why I decided they could stay in there ;)

Now we all have a bead on Vicky's string that comes from a muma who has home birthed four babies, how perfect!!!

The completed apples.

Well, some of them, just realised Janey's isn't in this pic, whoops.

And Leah took fabric home to do hers as she spent her time doing the henna belly ;)

Close up of two of the apples

And another two apples

We called Vicky's hubby Wayne into the room to have some shots with her while the henna was fresh.  And their gorgeous little pup Charlie ;)

See the string bits on the table there...these are our offcuts, after we tied our wrists, and Vicky is keeping them to decorate her fabric apple tree

Muma and Daddy xxx

Half the women there were pregnant, can you believe that ratio?!!

Oh and Janey, the midwife, is muma to seven children, woah!!

Hope some of the buby vibes floated in my direction ;)