A Dawn of Understanding

Eleven (11) weeks ago (when I was 20 weeks), I ventured to pregnancy yoga by our flat (in Primrose Hill). Still feeling very nimble and fit myself, I entered the room filled beautiful 30+ women with perfect baby bumps, large diamonds and designer workout wear. Most were 27 weeks+.

Struggling to break a sweat or raise my heart rate after the first half of the course, we were put into pairs for a few exercises. When making small talk, my partner who was 28 weeks said “Wow, this is quite the workout, don’t you think?”. A moment earlier, I had just been thinking that the whole thing was a bit surreal…a cake walk, really, and a tad pointless. But to fit with British custom, I did my best to be polite and find something to agree with…but it was hard.

A few minutes later, the only other person in the class who was 20 weeks laid down instead of carrying on with the exercises. They were too hard. Meanwhile, the rest of us carried on and finished the class with a 5 minute ‘healing nap’ complete with pillows between the legs…the whole shebang.

It felt a bit like a candid camera sketch. I got more exercise walking uphill home than participating in the class and opted to go to my usual gym for a ‘real’ workout later in the day. I felt pretty smug.

Though my trainer and I chalked the whole strange pregnancy yoga experience up to my being in the midst of the anorexic Primrose Hill set (there are two ways to stay fit…workout, or don’t eat…), I think there was something more at play. Now, eleven weeks on and 31 weeks’ pregnant myself, I’ve come upon a dawn of understanding. Our little guy’s growing up a storm these days, but as he’s a large baby, his weight and position is beginning to do strange things to my body. Within the last week or so, Baby’s begun to sit on nerves leaving me with a numb bum and achy tight thigh. And he’s crunching my lungs, making breathing a bit of a challenge. And eating enough for us both is a challenge due to my near constant heart burn and my stomach’s confinement, or so I would assume based on the position of Baby’s tickling toes…

I’ve continued to workout with my trainer once a week to ensure Baby’s safety and we’ve dialed things down to about 50-70% of what my routine used to be. But I feel that I now need to eat a bit of crow. While I’ve sailed through the first 7 months and really have little to no room to complain, bring on the pregnancy yoga and my nap