The Reality of Practicing & Teaching Yoga Pregnant, Part 1

This is not a photo of me.

The pre-pregnancy image I had of myself practicing and teaching yoga while expecting was me drinking green smoothies, practicing yoga everyday in addition to daily cardio, barre classes and a light weight-lifting regimen.

I would be glowing and gain no weight except for my cute baby bump.

Fast forward to what really transpired: I had morning sickness every day for 3 1/2 months. The only thing that remedied my constant nausea was eating, namely dairy or carbs. Exercising (or any nonessential movement) was out of the question.

This left me at the beginning of my second trimester 10 lbs heavier and more deconditioned than I had ever been in my life.  Other glorious symptoms included large patches of eczema that covered my face, neck, shoulders and arms, extreme fatigue and daily naps that left me feeling worse than before.

Some women experience severe acne outbreaks - I experienced the driest skin of my life. I felt like a fat, walking lizard rash.

To top it off, I wasn't visibly pregnant. So while I was barely able to maintain the 20 or so classes I was teaching per week, my students thought I was just gaining weight, looking terrible and out of breath all of the time.

I also thought that when I was pregnant there would be all of this wonderful reading material available that would keep me inspired - high on life and on being pregnant. Nope. Despite my exhaustive quest I was unable to turn up such a body of literature.

In fact, I was only finding things that were making it worse. Teachers who have never experienced pregnancy giving advice like this made me want to scream. The vanilla, regurgitated advice that people put out there is not helpful and at times quite infuriating. While some yogis have blissful pregnancies and are able to practice like this, I felt more like this.

The only advice I can give is to hang in there. Around week 14 I started to feel like myself again, although I don't know if I truly will ever be "myself" again after this. 

My husband's job takes him to Philly three days per week and I am still in Miami working full-time through the end of May. This blog still has it's training wheels on while I get it up and running. In these early posts I'm still really just trying to find a voice. I'm guessing this summer lots of baby-having and farmer's market-visiting hilarity will ensue.