my pregnancy in the movement world

disclaimer: i am not a medical professional. ask your doctor if you have medical questions!

pregnancy felt like years. weeks before i took a test to confirm pregnancy, my body knew. i already had morning sickness. if you're reading morning sickness as only nausea in the morning, you are wrong. it was all the time.

first trimester was the worst. i maintained my PT job, teaching yoga classes, and weightlifting, but the constant nausea made everything difficult. i was determined to continue biking everywhere despite the sickness. i practiced deep twists (shoutout to side crow) up until week 14 and practiced yoga under infrared heat until week 10. all my free time was spent attempting to "nap it off." i lost weight, i got covid, and i contracted the norovirus. any reasonable person would read this and think, "oh, no way she wants to do this again!" you are potentially wrong. i'm 6 months postpartum and already have another list of baby names...

trimester dos was amazing! the nausea left. my energy came back. i actually had a baby bump! other than feeling like i couldn't breathe and symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD) joining the chat, moving felt amazing. sure, i slowed down and certain movements started to become difficult, but i was so empowered. cue the "wouldja look at that?" meme. i felt less afraid that i could hurt baby in movements and led my life choices by intuition - often guided by the book Expecting Better. i'm a STEAM gal.

lord. third trimester. whew. still better than first tri, but MY GOD did general movement become laborious. i maintained work/yoga for the first month then dropped my active classes. i attempted to lift. we went hiking for our baby moon and if you talk to my husband, he will tell you our hikes were very long and full of patience. also, i had at least one breakdown per hike. from a fairly active lifestyle to considerably more sedentary, i was having a tough time emotionally. if i'm remembering correctly, my last "heavy" lift was 135lbs sumo DL.

third tri gets a second paragraph. i used to walk the dogs up to 2 miles per walk. third trimester walks were about 3/10 of a mile and i genuinely felt as though I could not walk any further. between difficulty breathing and weight gain, every day was a high gravity day. baby was a big guy in my little torso. my pregnant belly grew large in all directions and my once mobile hips became challenging to move around with control. i was simultaneously super flexible (relaxin hormone) and super tight.

pregnancy was hard. i learned to slow down, ask for help, and let others help me. i read Transformed by Birth and changed my perspective of pregnancy, birth, parenting, the whole shebang. by the end of it, i felt entirely new. did i enjoy this part of having a baby? NO, NOPE, ABSOLUTELY NOT. would i do it again? 100%. i would do anything for my sweet little guy.

anyway, why blog about all this? because it is very normal to not enjoy pregnancy and our culture is hush hush about it. also, the unsolicitied advice of "DO THIS" and "DON'T DO THAT." i'm here to say i did a lot of things that people tried to fear-monger me about and my baby is super healthy. so if you wanna lift, cool. if you are a runner, great. do it lady!!!

TLDR; pregnancy ain't it for me. i stayed relatively active in yoga, weightlifting, walks/hiking.

k, see y'all around.