Infertility and prenatal yoga

I am taking a prenatal yoga class that I happened upon basically by accident.  I attended a New Parent Network meeting at our food co-op, which I don't even qualify for anymore because of the age of my kids, but they were doing a special presentation on biking with kids, and since we're about to add another kid to our bike-friendly family in this bike-friendly town, I felt it would be really useful to go and find out my options, in addition to supplying my own information about what has worked for my family.  While there, they had a bunch of fliers out for other services, and one of them was this prenatal yoga class.  I had just read in my babycenter email about doing prenatal yoga to stay in shape, and considering that running had been tough since I got pregnant, and I still can't seem to find time for a good bike ride, yoga seemed like a nice option.  Plus it's something you can keep doing after the baby is born, with the mama and baby yoga classes.


Anyway, I would like to say that I just LOVE this class.  I'm sure they are not all created equal, but firstly I was surprised upon arriving to realize that I recognized the teacher.  She regularly gives my friend massages, and my friend arranged for me to get a massage with her the day after my marathon last December.  She is just awesome.  Each class is an hour and fifteen minutes, which includes a quick check-in with everyone on how their pregnancies are going, some meditation, plenty of yoga that includes both stretching and strength, discussion of some particular thing for the day to help with labor and birth and also post-partum care, and a short relaxation period at the end.  I find it to be very spiritual (without being religious at all), relaxing, empowering, and calming, and it's helping to assuage my fears about VBACs, labor intervention, and all the high-risk crap I dealt with in my last pregnancy.  I feel so at peace when I leave.  I mean, I've only been twice, but I already love it.

Yesterday, the teacher said that sometimes she asks her students to send their thoughts, prayers, etc. to someone she knows who needs it, and she was asking us to think of one of her clients who was undergoing an embryo transfer in 15 minutes.  She said it was her last shot at a baby, that she had a positive feeling about it, and wanted everyone she knew to send positive energy to the woman, if there was any chance it could help her.  She briefly talked about the stress of infertility and treatment, and I swear I almost cried there in class.  It was a moving moment for me, I felt like things had sort of come full circle.  I'm on the other side now but I have so much more compassion after my journey.

Anyway, I am just writing a quick update because that class yesterday was so wonderful in so many ways.

Also ... I've been feeling little Gecko moving lately - just like little bubbles in my stomach, but it's pretty cool.  I'm looking forward to Turtle and Tadpole being able to feel it too.

And tonight it their first violin concert.  I'm pretty excited ... I think they'll do great!