A New Yoga Class

I went to my first prenatal yoga class last night. I've been doing yoga for years, but lately I've been finding the regular classes are not working as well for me with some of the positions. During the last standard class I went to I ended up having to modify 2/3 of the poses, so I decided it was time to drop in to the prenatal class and see what all the buzz was all about.

I've been experiencing a lot of fatigue in the first trimester, so in order to make it through the evening class I made sure I had a good nap after work and a light meal to keep my tummy from feeling queasy. Yoga pants on... thank goodness those still fit. Now I was all set and ready to go. Was I though? This is uncharted territory I'm entering. Would I fit in with all the regular pregnant people after years of yearning for a membership to their club? Because I'm still "in the closet" so to speak with this pregnancy, I was also bit worried that I'd see someone there from work or other connections. I timed my arrival so as not to be too early so that I wouldn't be spotted by anyone leaving the class immediately before mine. When I entered the room I did a quick scan of the faces. Whew, there was nobody there that I knew thank goodness. As I glanced around, I was surprised to notice that I was one of the youngest women there. I think fertility treatments can really make a girl feel older than she is!

Before we started the class, the instructor asked us to go around the room and say our names, how far along we were, and whether this was our first or subsequent baby. There were people at 16 weeks all the way up to 39 weeks -quite a variety of belly shapes and sizes. Some were expecting their first, some their second, and one woman was even having her third! I was of course the only one still in the first trimester with a tiny bump. Before it was my turn to speak, I rehearsed what to say in my head. "Hi, I'm Silverdollar and I am 10 weeks + 3 days, so I just look fat and not really pregnant yet, oh, and this is my first and likely only baby." Whoa, wait a minute -10+3, nobody in the non-fertility world talks like that. Edit: "Hi, I'm Silverdollar and I'm about 10 weeks along with my first."

There were lots of references to various exercises helping with labour and delivery (apparently the biggest pain a woman will ever go through) Hmmm.. I guess if you've never had your tubes flushed with dye, adhesions removed from your reproductive organs, your eggs extracted from your body, or your uterus scraped out without any pain management, then labour would be on a whole new level of pain. Not that I'm in a place of thinking about labour yet, or have illusions that it will be easy, but it honestly doesn't worry me too much because I know I'm being cared for by a great OB. OB's -right most normally pregnant women are under the care of a midwife or GP -I better not mention my OB, hospital birth, whatever intervention is needed to get the baby out safely plan. I thought everyone there would be all about having au natural, unmedicated, home birth style labours, but one woman mentioned how great Fentanol was -Ha ha, yes I had that drug during my egg retrieval, and it was a goodie.

It ended up feeling like a really welcoming bunch. The woman next to me even commented on how impressed she was that I was getting out to classes already at 10 weeks. Really? Could I actually fit in with these pregnant people? Even though I still feel like an imposter in this sea of calm glowing pregnant women, when I'm just anxious to get though every week of this without something going terribly wrong. I decided I'm going to go back again next week and keep working at it. Maybe their energy will rub off on me?