mini art journal challenge: weeks 36 and 37

It's been very interesting doing this challenge (and trying to stick to it!), I've found quite a few of the weekly themes related closely to my personal situation at the time. It's never been so true with the card for week 36. The theme was "strength". It took me a while to figure out what I was going to do, but I knew it would resonate.
When I was pregnant with Tahi, I got this condition called obstetric cholestasis. We only found out I had it the day before Tahi was born, and it kind of triggered a series of events that made my birth experience a bad one, or rather a non eventful one since it ended up being an emergency cesarian. I have to add that on top of that Tahi was breech, and even though we were ready and willing to have a vaginal breech birth (call me crazy), the obstetricians wouldn't have a bar of it.
Anyway, three years later and pregnant again, I knew it was highly likely I'd get cholestasis again, and I was wasn't looking froward to the complications it involved. It is considered "high risk" and as such has to be supervised by obstetricians and specialists. Since my first experience of a highly medicalized birth wasn't that great, I am willing to avoid having to deal with hospitals and doctors as much as possible.
When my liver functions came back high, I found it hard to think positively. I'd felt it coming back a few weeks before and had started taking some herbal remedies and watching what I ate (I'll get into more detail in a future post). Josh was away working in Wellington and I was on my own with Tahi, cycling everywhere since we only have one car. I was pretty tired (still am actually!). I knew this card had to help me keep my head cool. I think this is my favourite card so far. I stuck it on our computer, so I see it everyday and it really uplifts my spirits. Just for this card, I'm glad I started this challenge and managed to stick to it (so far!)!

I painted the card with yellow and red paint then cut out a fabric butterfly and sewed it on the card. I also sewed a cross I cut out of some nice paper I had, then stuck on a yin and yang sign, a tree and a foetus wearing a high hat (!). I used an alphabet ruler to write the words "believe" and "be positive".

Week 37 also helped upflift my mood: "life is beautiful". Nothing like looking at what's positive in your life to help you feel better. I realized I am pretty lucky to live the life I am living, sometimes I feel like I'm living on a little fluffy white cloud. I am blessed, in a lot of ways. And I am still two months away from my due date, which means I've got that much time to try and minimize the seriousness of my cholestasis (which I have managed so far!).

I cut out a drawing of a girl out of a magazine, then used some purple stars from some wrapping paper I've had for years (yes I'm a hoarder). I cut some strip out from a purple balloon left over from Tahi's birthday and finally sewed a cute blue heart shaped button.

On this note, I would like to wish everyone a very merry Xmas, filled with joy and happy moments with loved ones. We started this little family tradition of planting a tree (instead of killing one!) at this tiem very year. So tomorrow we'll be planting a Tahitian Lime and a Kefir Lime in our garden!