Slowing down

At the beginning of my eighth month of pregnancy and life is starting to get harder. Risk factors and potential complications aside (all of which turned out to be nothing), I’ve had a relatively easy pregnancy. Sure, December was an unpleasant month between exhaustion and nausea. But compared to many other women, I got off really easy.

And I’ve felt great since January. My energy has been surprisingly good, I’ve been sleeping well, and heartburn and back pain have been minimal. Until about four days ago. Slowly, this pregnancy is starting to get harder on me. Like last night. I went to Michael’s to get some adhesive, and I had to stop twice to catch my breath. I really can’t believe how hard it is to do such simple things, like bend over to pick up things on the floor, close the car door, or get myself up out of bed. And now I wake up at least every two hours with back pain. Fortunately, I still don’t have much pain during the day, but I would like to sleep through the night while I still can. I think, overall, though I still feel pretty good. I guess I just need to slow down a little bit and realize that some things will take me a little longer than they should.

I did start taking a yoga class at the strong recommendation of a good friend. I thought it would be too late for me to start something like this, but I talked to the instructor first and she convinced me that it would still be worth my time. The prenatal series is a six-week class and I should be able to make it through all six weeks. The first class wasn’t too bad. There’s about 10 ladies in the class, all at different stages of pregnancy. I’m the furthest along in the class, which is kinda nice because it helps me to get away with the fact that I really suck at it. I haven’t been able to touch my toes (without bending my knees) since I was 11 anyway, but now I can just blame it on the belly.