Daily Note: June 1, 2009

Last week I made a valiant return to prenatal yoga. It was good on a number of levels. Prepare yourselves for some reflections:

It felt good moving around and not just lounging on the couch after work, but more importantly it really got me thinking. I sometimes have moments of feeling isolated since none of my friends are really playing the whole “breeder” role with me (at least not quite yet). Before being pregnant, I thought pregnant women were all adorable. But when it’s actually YOUR body that’s bumping into shit and pulsing with extra hormones, it sometimes doesn’t feel quite as cute. But last night I was surrounded by women complaining casually about feeling big, itchy and awkward and it was so refreshing when everyone just nodded. No canned responses or platitudes were offered, just agreement. There were women of all shapes and sizes there and unlike last time, when I was still essentially looking and moving like the pre-pregnancy Jill, this time I found myself laughing along with everyone when we would change positions and you’d hear grunting from around the whole room as we all tried to strike a new pose.

I felt both curious and scared when we did a bunch of poses on all fours and the instructor made references to using this or that pose in labor. Labor! Oh God. I’ve put off thinking about the actual labor for a while now. But in the last week it’s crept back into my consciousness now and again. Since getting pregnant, I immediately stopped watching The Baby Story on TLC. I’m certainly in denial on some level, but I think that denial is almost necessary in order to take the leap of faith with pregnancy. In fact, when I could think about labor and feel it was worth it anyways was when I knew I really wanted a baby. So that night, while hanging out on all fours and rotating my hips around in a circular fashion, it was strangely familiar and totally foreign at the same time. I mean, I’ve seen women doing it on TV and in movies for ever, but this time it was ME doing it.

Oh, and I also fell for the whole dirty hippy moment at the end of class where we communed with baby by holding our bellies instead of touching palms at “heart center”. I was holding my hands on my stomach and breathing when Edie started squirming and kicking and for a minute I felt all Mother Earth-ish. At least until I started thinking about what I was going to eat for dinner when class was over. Then I remembered that there was a really good Chinese place next door. We had mu shu and chicken with broccoli for dinner.

Oh the ironies of complaining about weight gain and then wolfing down a giant plate of shrimp mu shu. And let’s not even mention the bowl of Butterfinger ice cream that Jeff encouraged me to eat as a finale to my salty Chinese food.