Bladder Shrinkage and Crazy Dreams

With pregnancy comes a decline in bladder capacity. All of my pregnant female friends have prepared me for that. For the most part, I’m within close proximity to a toilet so aside from the inconvenience of having to go three times an hour, there’s really no problem. That is until I have to teach a one hour spinning class or until I hit the bush. I think a one hour spin class might be pushing it for my bladder these days but I did make it through with some minor discomfort a couple of weeks ago. When I’m in the trails with the dog, it takes me all of 15 minutes before I start scoping out the perfect pee spot off the trail. I think my dog things I'm charting my territory just like him. So far, I think I’ve been pretty good at plotting out my spots – I haven’t been caught yet. To be honest, I’m not sure that I’d really care if I was caught. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

The crazy dreams I didn’t really know about and I have no idea if it’s related to pregnancy or not. For those of you that have been pregnant….do tell. I have been dreaming crazy things recently and things that I never even knew I was capable of thinking. Imagine Alice in Wonderland but 20 times crazier. Last night I dreamt that I was luging but the luge track was through a lake. As I was scotting long this massive grey snake came out of the water and bit me. In my panic to get the fanged beast off my skin, it bit me again. Now, what in the heck could that mean? I’m not sure that I want to dig in to the depths of my psyche by analyzing my dreams but I have do have to wonder!?

Other than that I'm ticking along at 26 weeks and getting larger by the minute. This week I hate to admit that it's actually been difficult to bend down and tie my shoes!

Searching for Swimwear

Well, summer has finally arrived! With heat like this, most people want to be near water – a great way to stay cool. Jump in and you remove that sticky sweaty feeling that makes one feel lethargic. I’ve been thinking about swimming a lot lately especially given that running is out of the question and riding my bike to work is also off limits.

I’ve also gained a whopping 19lbs so far in this pregnancy so let’s just say it’s a little more effort to move this body around. Yes, pregnancy is this beautiful thing and every woman’s body responds to pregnancy differently. But 19lbs!! Holy crap – some people gain that much throughout their entire pregnancy. I may still have 18 weeks to go!!! I was not a big person to start with but man, my expanding largeness is seriously challenging my self confidence. It also doesn’t help when I walk in to teach spin class and the first thing someone says to me is “wow – have you every put on a lot of weight”. Like duh! It’s as though it’s supposed to be a surprise to me or something.

So let’s just say the thought of putting on a bathing suit is not all that appealing. However, I’m determined to get in the pool to be weightless again. So, I figure – hey – my speedo is pretty stretchy…that should fit! Well, what a sight that was. Imagine yourself trying to fit into your bathing suit that you wore when you were 10 years old. Well, that was what it was like. Not a pretty sight! So, off I go to the maternity shops to find that perfect suit. After trying on several suits with no success, I am no longer in search of the ‘perfect suit’ – I just want a suit that fits! My ass has definitely expanded but in most cases I’m a small or medium maternity bottom. The top half of my body is a completely different story. I know some of you really don’t want to hear me talk about my breasts but it’s kind of an impossibility when they are growing at an unbelievably ill-proportioned rate. Let’s just say that when I finally find a bathing suit that fits, I have my own life saving devices attached to my body. It’s really not that funny....for those of you that haven’t been pregnant before, imagine your chest growing 3 sizes bigger in a matter of 5-6 months!

So, I’m still on a quest for a suit that fits but at this rate, I’m thinking that I may have to resort to a regular sports bra and some boy shorts and expose my white preggo belly to the world.

No longer on the run

I started this blog with the primary intent of posting ramblings about life, yoga and my journey to the 2008 Knee Knacker trail race in July. I had begun with an outline of several race goals to keep me inspired along the way to KK. Instead of a year of race adventures and accomplishments, this year so far has been about balancing work, school, injury, volunteering and trying to stay above water. As a result I have not accomplished a single event that I set out to enter this year. I believe that is a first for me! However, I am trying not to be too hard on myself - life has been busy.......and somewhat draining.

In the midst of all this busyness, somewhat of a miracle has entered our lives. My partner and I are expecting our first child in November! As a result, Knee Knacker is not in the cards for me this year. I'd really hoped that I might be able to do this race before leaving BC but as you might guess, I'm no Paula Radcliffe and doing 4 hour training runs up and down mountains is probably not the best for babe. Regardless, I had been running through this pregnancy up until the last month or so. I ran the Pacific Spirit 10km race with a friend from work - nice and easy and slow. The next day I couldn't walk - the pressure on my pubic bones was unbelievable. I had felt this a little bit after running before but nothing to this extreme. As it turns out, my pubic bones have begun to separate and upon doc's recommendations, I am not to run or do impact exercise or even walk for too long of a distance for the remainder of this pregnancy.

Normally it would be unlike me to adhere to such severe recommendations against participating in one of the few activities that keeps me sane, but of course I want to do everything I can do to keep babe healthy and strong. For as long as I've been doing it, running has been my sanity. It is also the most convenient way of fitting in time to exercise myself and my dog in the midst of a busy schedule. Right now, I just don't have time to walk the dog and exercise myself. So those of you that know how much I love my dog can probably guess that Otis gets priority. However, I have been trying to get him used to the mountain bike so we can go out together - now, that's an adventure all on its own as he is so afraid of bikes! I'll write more on this in another post.

Most runners go through withdrawal when they can not run. It's during those times of injury that you swear you'll never have a moment of being unmotivated or complain about running in the rain. I have sort of felt a bit of withdrawal but to be honest, this does not compare to anything I've felt when I've been injured and unable to run. I know I'm not running to preserve the health of this new life inside of me. That is a pretty cool feeling and I'm thankful for that. To be honest, it feels damn uncomfortable even when I try to run to the bus stop right now so I could not imagine running for any distance.

The challenge now is motivating myself to do other forms of activity (that I'm not all that crazy about) to stay active and healthy so that I can return to the trails after baby is born. I wonder how good those baby strollers would cope on the Baden Powell trail....ha ha.

So, now this chick is no longer on the run for the remainder of this pregnancy. For the next 5 or 6 months this blog will be more about the tales of a pregnant yogini chick mostly likely rambling about her growing belly.

Peace.

Have you laughed yet today?

"A good, real, unrestrained, hearty laugh is a sort of glorified internal massage, performed rapidly and automatically. It manipulates and revitalizes corners and unexplored crannies of the system that are unresponsive to most other exercise methods." ~Author unknown

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." ~e.e. cummings

I remember getting into trouble as a kid for laughing at the dinner table. My sister and I would get into uncontrollable fits of laughter where we were on the verge of having food fly out of our mouths or milk come out of our noses. Usually, there wasn't one thing in particular that inspired the laugh. The joy must have been so bountiful that we just couldn't contain ourselves. So...we got in trouble. That made us laugh even harder! As much as we tried to squeeze our lips shut, the sounds would squeek out and lead into another belly-aching outburst that might have ended in a race to the bathroom to pee.

I've been caught laughing in church at my cousin's baptism and at a family reunion gathering where one of my relatives was delivering a sermon. In this instance, my aunt and I were laughing so hard we had no choice but to disguise our laughter by pretending to cry - we thought tears would be more socially acceptable as it might appear that we were emotionally moved by the sermon. (As you can probably guess, this was not in fact the case). I'm reflecting on this because of all the times in my life where I've felt so joyous to laugh, I've felt pressure to contain this fantastic expression and conform to some social rules about adult laughter. Those that know me may say otherwise particularly if they've watched a movie with me. I've been known to laugh at things that the audience doesn't find nearly as funny or laugh a little after the punch line. Regardless of whether or not a laugh is timed right, why are we sometimes compelled to quell such a powerful expression?

I think this laughter suppression is why we see the rise of laughter yoga, laughter meditation, laughter therapy, humour therapy and laughter clubs. Don't you find it odd that we have to structure laughter back into our day? It's kind of parallel to the fact that we've engineered movement out of our daily routine and now we have to re-integrate exercise back into our day in order to keep ourselves healthy.

I'm reminded of all this because of my yoga class today. We closed with a laughter yoga session - the instructor suggested that we 'fake' laugh as fake laughter generates the same beneficial physiological response as genuine laughter. Blood flow increases, good hormones flood the body, and our immune response is enhanced. From my yoga mat, there was no need to fake it - after the instructor let out the most hilarious gut-busting laugh, I joined right in with pure genuine laughter. We really should not let a day pass without one of those abdominal aching laughs! I read somewhere (can't remember where now) that 100 laughs is equivalent to 10-15 minutes of aerobic exercise. Can't you just picture it ..."4 more now... ha..ha..ha..ha...okay only 96 more to go......

Let's Pick up the Phone!

Okay, I'm on a bit of a rant today. I think it started with the horribly stinky feet smell in the gym at lunch. The smell near the cardio equipment was so intolerable; I nearly gagged out loud and ended my workout early. With running being off limits as per the doc, I quelled my gag reflex and continued on the X-trainer in the quest for a little sweat.

However, the negative olfactory incident was the apparent impetus for more objectionable experiences for the remainder of the afternoon. I will refrain from providing an inventory of all my pet peeves but I will just mention one that reached a breaking point for me today: overuse of email carbon copy!! I call over users of “carbon” copying: cc happy. I don’t know if the motivation is to remove responsibility or to keep people informed but I do believe that too many of us hit “reply all” without really thinking about whether we need to send that email to 20 people. However, some believe that if you are not cc happy, you are not being transparent! Come on…we already get more than enough email to respond to in a timely manner.

On another note, if you can avoid sending 10 emails back and forth (and to 20 people 10 times), pick up the phone. One conversation can clarify a lot especially when there may be underlying tension in the email exchange. Why so reluctant to pick up the phone or walk to the next cubicle? Please, let’s bring humanity back into our offices before I go nut bar……..

Okay, I’m off to check my email…..no more rants tomorrow……..

Divinity is in Everyone

Yoga means 'union'. The goal of yoga is to create 'oneness' - within ourselves, with each other and with our natural surroundings. Yoga does not believe in divisions yet our western mind likes to categorize and segregate and classify things and people. When you pass a homeless person calling out for spare change, what do you think? When you pass heroine addict passed out in the street, are there judgments that run through your mind? If I have money in my pocket and am free of addictions, am I so different from these people. Yoga says that we are one with each other - we are a part of everyone and everything. I think I am beginning to understand this concept more and more.

Through my practicum experience this semester, I have had the fortune of meeting some amazing women. These women have had very different upbringings than me and many of them lead very different lives with numerous struggles that I could not even imagine myself going through. They are more courageous and brave and inspiring than I could ever hope to be. Yet on many levels, we are one and the same with the same needs for love, connectedness, self esteem and the opportunity to contribute. It is only the mind that points out all the differences - the heart quickly discovers that we are so similar.

Out of the storm!

School has consumed most of my time over the last two months. Endless hours of reading, web posting and paper writing have led to the scarcity of blogging of late. This kind of busyness had led to breakfasts for dinner, mounting piles of paper all over the house, growing laundry piles and basically ignoring whatever is not necessary. Even running and yoga have fallen into those categories on too many occasions. My two essential life giving practises have been overtaken by paper deadlines! Uggh!

No longer - I have come out of the storm! Hallelujah! I submitted my final paper on Tuesday – I expected to feel elation and boundless energy but instead my body became consumed with unbelievable fatigue and a great desire to sleep. Instead of feeling frustrated by my listlessness, for once I need to honour the need for my body and mind to recover from the last four months. Of course, I still have an astounding ‘to do’ list (as you may recall, I am somewhat fanatical about lists..) of all the things that I have not had the time to do over the last semester! Most of the list is filled up with house chores, gardening chores, banking tasks and the like… I had planned on scheduling these tasks on my few days off next week. At the top of the list, I think I need to focus on the ME tasks and then whatever else gets done is a bonus……sleep, eat well, do your yoga practise………read fiction (yes!)…….perhaps then my energy will surge back to what I once knew it to be.