Someone asked me the other day why so many women try yoga for the first time when they get pregnant and I had to really think about it.

Why does anyone try it?  It’s like broccoli – good for you and you can’t say you don’t like it if you’ve never tried it.  There’s a certain guilt carried by people who haven’t.

“I really should…,” they say, trailing off.

Some people will try it once but get a teacher or style that’s uninspiring.  Then when someone asks, they can state with a clear conscience that they don’t do yoga – they tried and didn’t like it – even though there are hundreds of different styles.

Or there is always the excuse of being too busy – the fitness coordinator at my gym is wound as tight as a yo-yo and has had several surgeries for overuse injury, but has never once in 4 years taken my class, even though she’s told me she “really should…she is just so busy…”

Pregnancy is different.  If you aren’t taking care of yourself, then by extension you aren’t taking care of your baby.  For a lot of people, that is the motivation to finally find the time to get thee to a class and maybe even stick with it, because a committment is more acceptable when it’s an obligation to someone else.

That’s why penciling in personal time hasn’t ever worked.  If you aren’t letting someone down by not showing up it’s easy for you and other people to assume that committment is flexible and expendable.

Today, I will teach my last yoga class until September.  And although I sometimes practice alone, much of my practice is rooted in planning my classes, reading related books, and teaching.

I’m wondering how my yoga practice will change for the last 10 weeks of pregnancy and post-partum.  I’m wondering if I can commit to it without the obligation.

I’ve studied pre-natal yoga and I could easily continue practicing on my own, but just like with vacations I need to get out of my house and head to be effective.

Pre-natal yoga videos and classes for the most part are designed for the woman who has never tried yoga.  There is only one class in my area anyway – on a Saturday when I’m usually napping.

I could attend my own classes with the substitute instructor but that doesn’t feel right either.  It’s hard to attend a class that you built up and watch another instructor owning it.

What I’m most afraid of is that my practice will slip away altogether, eroded by chores and errands and TV and life.

I recognize my excuses in each of the options above – not right, bad time, too busy.  If nothing else, teaching yoga while pregnant has taught me about what it’s like to be the overweight person or the injured person in class.  Soon, not teaching will test my ability to go beyond the excuses.

I teach about making the committment to practice, now I’ll see if I can live it without the obligation of teaching.

I barely flinched when I turned the actual age 30.  As I sit here I’m trying to remember what I did.

With this 30, I’m starting to feel vaguely uneasy.  Not freaking out, just a slight fraying of the edges.  I like knowns and plans and lists. 

The first time there was a little romanticism in imagining the middle of the night contractions and poking Brett to let him know “it’s time!”  That didn’t happen. 

I’m comforted by plans and so far I have none.

Let’s compare 30 weeks the first time vs 30 weeks the second time.

Then:
Nursery outfitted and decorated.  Crib ready and waiting. 

Now:
Alex is moving out of the nursery and into this room:

Baby sister will take up residence in Alex’s current room but with new furniture.  Her furniture will be delivered somewhere around week 34 or 35 assuming the stars align and it’s 32 degrees in hell.  It’s possible, even likely that her room will be totally empty and that the baby store will not return any of my hormonally charged and progressively more hysterical phone calls.

Then:
Bags packed, pre-registration at hospital done, maternity leave paperwork approved and filed.

Now:
Uummm.  Yeah.

Then:
Shower gifts and baby clothes unpacked, washed and ready to go.  Car seat installed and approved by local fire department.

Now:
Baby clothes scattered throughout house including attic, bathooms, Alex’s closet, and playroom.  All are unwashed and not sorted into “definitely boy-give away”, “definitely boy but so cute can’t bear to part with”, unisex, or girl piles.  Car seat in pieces waiting for me to finish cleaning crumbs out of base and reassemble.

Then:
Brett and I had lengthy baby name lists in separate Excel spreadsheets which we merged then ranked and eliminated ruthlessly.  We tried out name combinations and made sure the initials didn’t spell PEE.  We talked about how much easier it would be if we were having a girl, because duh!  Girl names are sooo much easier!

Now:
Girl names are not easier.  Our spreadsheet has been looked at and revised only once. Baby girl is screwed. Brett likes a name that two of our friends have used to on their dogs and I am incapable of letting go of Emily but I will. not. use. the name that has been number one for the last 10 years.

Then:
I still wore high heels and cute stretchy little maternity skirts to work.

Now:
I pile on more makeup so people don’t look at my inappropriate footwear flip flops, non-pedicured toes, and maternity shirts with mysterious stains on the belly. 

Then:
The fitness director at the gym came into the yoga room when I was warming up for a class and promptly freaked out when she found me in a handstand.

Now:
“Hey Brett…grab my knee and roll me over wouldja?” 

Then:
Labor and delivery was just an unknown, hypothetical concept.

Now:
In the same way that the best scary movies are rooted in real life experience, I know exactly what’s coming and I REMEMBER.  My first labor was short and I am hoping and praying for Groundhog’s Day in the delivery room except this time with the epidural working. 

Is it too early to be thinking about this?  Or should I – seriously already – stop watching So You Think You Can Dance, get off the couch and get busy?

I was prepared for a directive to get more rest, or hang upside down for 10 minutes, or sprinkle magic fairy dust on my pillow and it will all go away.  Even a doctor’s note to take a few days off work!  Something…anything…

What I got was the nurse midwife, who I love but haven’t seen since my first visit, waddling in at least as pregnant as me.

I looked at her and said, “Wow, can I still complain?  Because you have to be at least as miserable as me.”

Turns out, she is due not even 2 weeks after me.

You know me though, right?  I complained anyway.

Tired.  Totally normal.  No, really exhausted, beyond all reason.  Totally normal.

Baby all up under my ribs.  Totally normal.

Hard to walk, and roll over in bed.  And I’m trying to exercise but after even the lightest workout I’m soooooo sooooore.  Caused by loose ligaments and, you guessed it – totally normal.

Crying all the time, at everything from commercials to traffic.  Totally normal.

Wanting to kill someone when I’m not crying.  Totally normal.

Damn. 

I should be, and I am, grateful for totally normal. 

Grateful is just hiding deep in my little Grinch heart right now.

So then we talked about vasectomies and I felt better.

Simultaneously, I realized that I have no worries about exercising or watching what I eat to try and drop a few pounds before we go.  I probably should try on the maternity bathing suits I already own just to make sure my butt is still completely covered, but that’s it!

For the next three weeks, I will: 

• still send Brett out to do DQ runs
• eat bagels for breakfast and yummy carb heavy sandwiches for lunch
• exercise when I feel like it, which lately has been every other NEVER

Now you on the other hand…do you realize that Memorial Day is less than four weeks away?  That soon it will be time to unpack your thighs in all their white, flabby glory and bare them to the world?  Time to get out last year’s bathing suit and see if it shrunk over the winter?

Sorry.  I’m only being mean like that because I really wanted a margarita this weekend.

Ah the sweet freedom of pregnancy.

My first pregnancy I was all about the cute baby bump, eating perfectly and working out regularly, still wearing heels to work.  Nothing slowed me down.  I taught yoga until a month before my due date.  I got certified to teach cycle at 7 months and was still doing handstands at 8 months.

This girl is slowin’ me down.

This weekend I managed to take a cycle class, taught a yoga class, and went for a walk.  After that workout frenzy, I’ve been hobbling the funny pregnant woman walk.  You know, duck-like-side-to-side, knees not bending quite right.

Before you ask me again, I promise I’ll post a picture (this week) of the 25th week belly.  It’s definitely there, but not HUGE or anything.

Every time I have to get up – from a chair, out of my car – it’s prefaced with an “Ooof”.

I’ve started sitting on a little baby step stool when I need to get something out of a low cabinet instead of squatting or sitting on the floor.  I make Alex fetch the stool and bring it to me.

How, I ask you, do women handle more than 2 pregnancies?  

How do you chase a toddler when you turn around as fast as a cruise ship?

Why am I completely unconcerned about things like purchasing a crib when last time I made myself insane trying to choose a nursery theme and paint color?

To write that sentence about posting a picture, I had to look in my date book to see what week I was in.

I have yet to crack a single book about what’s going on with me or the baby.  I find myself irritated when I have to wait at the doctor’s office for an hour to listen to 10 seconds of heartbeat.  “She’s fine!” I think.

I am, gasp, eating lunchmeat.  (Like a normal person, without microwaving it first.)

Perhaps the answer to the first question is in the last few musings.  You don’t really handle it, you just let it happen. 

How very profound.

pregnancy and I
we do not get on so well
heartburn – it burns me 

 Things I Forgot About Pregnancy That I Am Just Now Remembering:

• If you spill coffee on yourself, it doesn’t just go in your lap.  It gives you an awesome stain in the shape of Florida on your huge boobs and a South American, or at least Chile-shaped stain on your big belly.  (Although come to think of it, maybe this one also applies to potbellied men.  Justice!)
• Maternity clothes that fit one week will not fit you the next.
• Constantly having to pee.
• Constant hunger followed by…
• Omnipotent heartburn.
• Not being able to cross your legs and being forced to sit like a man with your knees apart.  I can still cross, but when I had to pick up my leg and move it the other day a little bell went off that said “Ding ding! Enjoy it while you can!“
• Jealous envy of new spring clothes.  So pretty!  So frilly!  Because you can’t wear frills or fun prints.  You wear black, because it’s slimming.  Har har.
• The thirst for a summer margarita the first time the temperature gets above 70 degrees, which you won’t be partaking in.
• Sushi…see previous.
• Nesting.  I would have little flurries of cleaning and organizing, which culminated four days before Alex was born with me moving all the appliances in the laundry room including the fridge and washer so I could scrub the walls and woodwork and floors with bleach.  BLEACH!  This time I would definitely like to nest, but I’m so damn tired I clean out my purse instead.
• Did I mention heartburn?  I heart Tums.

New to this pregnancy:

• People constantly asking me if I read the study about coffee and pregnancy and miscarriages.  Yes, I fucking read it, and you are the 50th person to ask me and NO I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP COFFEE SO DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE.
• More fat in different places.

Oh all right.  I suppose I could stop whining.  There are a few good things, like…

• Baby kicks
• Decorating the nursery – in purple!
• Getting to dodge things “because you’re pregnant” that you don’t really want to do anyway
• Showers (not water – baby, duh)
• The miracle of new life?
• Umm…

Somebody remind me of some other good things.  If I open my mouth, heartburn flames will shoot out like a dragon, I swear.

 Haiku Friday is brought to you by Le Binky Bitch over at Playgroups Are No Place For Children.  Go play!