Friday night was my first prenatal yoga class and it was a great experience and I know I’m going to love it. There’s about 7 of us in the class ranging from first trimester to far second (I think). The first thing I thought when I entered the room was that even though this was my first time laying eyes on these women, most likely I will know them for years to come in one form or another because our babies are going to likely go to school together! I am assuming this because this is a new class that opened up in my community and would be out of the way for someone to come unless they lived in the area, although it is possible too. It was kind of neat to think of it that way!
Some of the ladies were already chatting away as if they knew one another, so I kept quiet and didn’t really talk to anyone since it was nearing the beginning of class and just wanted to listen to the other ladies and get a sense of who they are and what I may or may not have in common with them. A few of them were talking about their “Doulas” and asking each other if they “have theirs” and while I do know what a Doula is (although haven’t really researched it thoroughly), I noticed right away that I wasn’t the only one getting anxious by their conversation because one of the other girls (I think she’s a week behind me) looked confused and asked them what a Doula was. The reason why this snippet of conversation stressed me out in the first few minutes of class is because while it was comforting to be in a room with real women who were all going through the same things I was, it made me feel like I was “falling behind” in getting prepared! I know that I’m only into my 12th week and that’s why I am still enjoying the “honeymoon” stage of sharing the news with everyone, but it made me feel like soon enough that stage will be over and it will be time to prepare, prepare and prepare some more!
Our instructor was fantastic and I like her a lot! She’s new to the yoga studio and is from Japan. In the first class I have already learned so much about prenatal yoga. Like how many exercise classes are there where she’s recommending and encouraging you to bring snacks! :-D She explained that in “regular yoga” the object is to “create heat” within the body, while in prenatal yoga, the object is to “cool your body down.” I found that very interesting! Lord knows I’m usually feeling warm all the time these days and it’s the dead of Winter (can hardly wait until a hot summer third trimester!) I’m not exactly sure how the “cooling down” part is achieved at this stage, because many of the poses that we did were much the same as I am used to (sun salutations, runners stretch, legs up the wall, tree pose, table, cat/dog stretch (Love those now. Apparently these poses can turn your baby around if s/he is breach!), Warrior I, Warrior II, twist (modified and she noted how “not” to do this while pregnant if you’re in a regular class), squats (how not to do this past 36 weeks because it can induce labour) and a few others. For Shavasana she asked us to lay down on our left side (from legs up the wall), right knee bent and to place the bolster under the bent leg.
Apparently lying on your left side is best for you and your baby (especially for sleeping), but the only thing about this for me is that I have bursitis in my left hip, so laying on my left side is quite uncomfortable most of the time. At night, I’m constantly switching left to right. As if it’s not tough enough to sleep as it is, here I am worrying about my positions and if I’m doing something to harm the baby! I can already tell these kinds of worries are not going any where soon! Speaking of tough sleep, for some reason I keep waking up at 4:00 a.m. unable to fall back asleep until around 5:45 and when the alarm goes off at 6:30, I feel completely zonked. What’s up with that?
I’m already looking forward to starting my Friday evenings with this class for the next two months. There were many moments when I felt that it already was a wonderful bonding experience with the little one in there 🙂
