When You're Due, Not Where You're From
Yesterday evening, I went to my first prenatal yoga class, in the conference room of a hotel behind the back parking lot for a shopping complex that includes Best Buy, Michael’s, and Toys R Us. Not exactly an environment that seems conducive to a) yoga or b) thoughts about birth. But the instructor was nice, very California-y; and the room wasn’t too awful. As we went through a series of modified yoga poses, she explained which ones could be beneficial in a labor situation. And while I can’t imagine myself dropping to all fours for some cat-and-cow while I’m writhing from painful contractions, I can’t actually imagine labor at all quite yet, so who knows.
During the final relaxation, the instructor put on a recording of Pachelbel’s Canon overlaid with digital birdsong. I found it a bit distracting, though one pregnant woman began mildly snoring, so perhaps it was just me.
At the very beginning of class, we all had to introduce ourselves—name, due date, sex of the baby (if known), and planned hospital for the birth. I’m still working on identifying myself this way. It took everything I had not to add “And I’m from the East Coast!”—a detail that even I have to admit is irrelevant in a discussion of back labor, epidurals, and the timing of contractions. But somehow that detail still feels more real to me than the fact that in 5 months I’ll be perhaps draped over a birthing ball, trying desperately to breathe.
During the final relaxation, the instructor put on a recording of Pachelbel’s Canon overlaid with digital birdsong. I found it a bit distracting, though one pregnant woman began mildly snoring, so perhaps it was just me.
At the very beginning of class, we all had to introduce ourselves—name, due date, sex of the baby (if known), and planned hospital for the birth. I’m still working on identifying myself this way. It took everything I had not to add “And I’m from the East Coast!”—a detail that even I have to admit is irrelevant in a discussion of back labor, epidurals, and the timing of contractions. But somehow that detail still feels more real to me than the fact that in 5 months I’ll be perhaps draped over a birthing ball, trying desperately to breathe.
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