I got up and went to yoga and had an awesome practice. I can always tell when I'm in my practice and not in my ego when I get dizzy after Prasarita Padottanasana A. (note to self: include tidbit about yoga and midwife on Friday night). Then my day started... I had to shop for appetizers I was making. My menu consisted of: Blue Cheese Brandy Butter, Fig & Pine Nut Crostini; Mushroom Croustades and Curry Polenta Carrot Butter Squares. My plan was to assemble everything before hand so that the hour before the Blessingway, I could simply cook everything. Things worked pretty well though I timed the Carrot Butter wrong and ended up finishing just a tad late -- after the first few people showed up.

The Blessingway was beautiful. Can I just pat myself on the back and say, those appetizers were phenomenal. If you ever have to make some appetizers, these three were huge hits, easy to make and fucking tasty. We started the Blessingway with appetizers and wine and painting the mother-to-be's belly with various symbols. I had removed all the furniture from my living room and placed tea-lights in votives around the entire room, on the window sills, on the stairwell, on the foyer steptansu. I had a row of luminaries outside leading up to the door...candles throughout the kitchen and family room. After the appetizers we lined up to walk down a path of tea-lights from my dining room to the living room, each woman being smudged then sitting in a circle with the mother-to-be in a throne at the head of the circle. We then did this amazing chant to Tara -- It was so amazingly beautiful. We chanted for about 10 minutes. The chant was this: OM TARÉ TUTTARÉ TURÉ SO HA and you can listen to it here. I can't even begin to describe the energy, the power and the beauty of 20 women in a circle, our energies mixing chanting this over and over.

After the chant we each presented our beads (one from ourselves, one from our children) and any poems or other words for the mother. There were moments of utter tears and joy -- it was beautiful and moving. The mother-to-be is on a beautiful path, a practicing Buddhist with one little girl already. This will be her second homebirth. After her first homebirth, she took her placenta to the top of rock mountain in Colorado and placed the placenta on the edge, let it slide down the mountain and back to the earth. She is such a light and just "has it" inside her. I was so honored to give my home over to her Blessingway and share in her beauty. We ended with dinner and the opening of gifts.

*side note* So, Friday night I'm at yoga. There are 3 of us in the room, we begin our sun salutations and as we are almost through, the door opens, in strides this woman. In a basically empty room that holds 40, with 4 us in it, she puts her mat down 5 inches from mine and plops down. She had a huge amount of perfume on (a no-no in yoga) and proceeded to talk, laugh and chat through the entire practice. As I was entering Marichyasana D, she is asking me questions. As if I could talk in Marichyasana D. At some point she is talking with the instructor and another man about open hips. The man says, if I could have a baby my hips would open... and she goes off on a tangent about how many women's hips don't go back to normal after childbirth because they don't breastfeed. We worked on headstand and my center is really weak. I have come to decide that I believe this is due to breastfeeding... my boobs are so much huger than my body is used to and I always feel top heavy. The instructor was asking me about it and I told him my theory. The women is suddenly interested in me... begins telling me how blessed I am, she nursed all 4 of her children until they were 2.5. Later I'm talking with the non-open-hip-guy about how, when I was preparing for The Daughter's homebirth, I spent 20 minutes a day in deep squats and how open that made my hips. As I'm about to walk out of the room, the women says "Who delivered your babies?" I really wanted to say "Um, I delivered my babies. Do you mean who was my midwife?" but I chose to answer her intended question and gave her my midwife's name. She responded by saying "Oh, didn't Insert-Name-of-my-Ex-Midwife here train her?" I don't really realize what I should have at this point and say "Oh, I used to be with Ex-Midwife but I left her practice after having some issues when I was 6 months pregnant." It wasn't until I looked up that I realized this woman obviously has a connection with said midwife. In fact, she then tells me she's her sister. Oops. I didn't go into many details in my pregnancy journal at the time but the issues with my midwife did not turn out pleasantly. In fact, she basically yelled at my husband, hung up on him, lied about it and then told us that my new midwife was a danger to my unborn child. I knew there had been bad blood between them but to actually say that was so ... unprofessional. At this point, I don't know what to say to this women at yoga other than "Gee, tell her I said hello." -- I can't even imagine her being in my yoga classes. If she is, however, I suppose that will be a chance for self-discipline.