Category Archives: Mindful Pregnancy

4 Weeks Pregnant: First Symptoms of Pregnancy

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July 13 – July 19: 4 Weeks 0 Days – 4 Weeks 6 Days.

Before I was ready to have a baby, I must have fearfully Googled “first symptoms of pregnancy” on dozens of occasions in months when my cycle lasted unusually long. Here’s how those early symptoms actually showed up for me when I did get pregnant (thankfully, it happened when I was good and ready!):

Bound Side Angle

Days before finding out I was pregnant I spent a wonderful weekend doing onderful weekend of outdoor yoga in the mountains at the Wanderlust Festival.

On the Wednesday of this week, my friend Stephanie and I headed up to the Wanderlust Yoga Festival in Squaw Valley. My breasts were sore and I was feeling the teeniest bit nauseous, and I kept telling Steph, “My period is going to start any day now.”

As we walked through the vendors scattered throughout the Olympic Village, Steph kept pointing out free samples: turmeric juice, coconut milk ice cream bars, multigrain crackers with vegan spread—it was a yogis paradise. Carbs—and sugar in particular—are an unshakable vice for me: more than once in university, I polished off a kilogram of wine gums during a single night of studying. But at Wanderlust, every time I imagined eating any of those samples it made my belly ache. As Steph enjoyed her pineapple popsicle, I told her that with maturity and experience I had realized sugar didn’t really serve my body. Yeah right, I should have know something was up. I think the only free samples I got all weekend were juices and when went to acquire them I asked a question my lips had never-before uttered: “What’s your least sweet option?”

Chin Pose.

Chin pose. We progressed into a deeper backbend—bending the knees and reaching the toes toward the head—before rolling back into upward facing dog.

In my yoga classes, I pushed my body in a lot of ways I may not have had a known I was pregnant—mostly in a class taught by a pregnant lady, actually. For example, we did a transition from chin balance backbend to upward

Upward Facing Dog

Upward facing dog pose.

facing dog, rolling along the belly—summary: thud. My practice didn’t feel too different from normal, but I did feel disconnected from my core. Handstand has never been my forte, and I was even less stable trying to kick up into it than usual. I remember telling the partner that I was working with that my core just didn’t seem to feel like turning on, and had the distinct thought, maybe I’m pregnant. However, a week and a half earlier I’d taken a pregnancy test with a negative result, and besides, Richard and I had just barely started trying.

I did a couple amazing guided meditations with Lora McCarville that focused on removing barriers and forming a clear vision for the future. The images that came up for me included me, Richard, three children, and a larger dog than I’d ever want to own. My stance has always been that one kid might be enough—we’ll see how the first one goes and maybe have a second, but that’s it! Who knows what surprises and transformations of opinion the future holds!

17 Weeks Pregnant: Big Feelings

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October 13 – October 19: 17 Weeks 0 Days – 17 Weeks 6 Days.

I may have freaked out this week.

A few years ago I took a yoga training with Hala Khouri about teaching at-risk youth. She explained kids’ emotions in a way that stuck with me: kids have big feelings. When little Jimmy drops his ice cream on the ground, his emotional response is not the same as an adult’s. We may dismiss him: “Don’t get so upset. It’s just ice cream;” but for him, it’s a death in the family, an amputated limb, the rapture and he was left behind. In order to hold space for little Jimmy to process this experience, we must acknowledge that what he’s feeling is enormous. A more compassionate response might be, “I understand that it’s hard to lose something. It’s okay to feel upset.”

I don’t know if it’s the yoga or just my personality, but I usually have the opposite of big feelings. Rage and jealousy are rare for me, I can’t be bothered with grudges that last more than a couple hours, and I’d describe my experience of excitement more as joyful anticipation. Pregnancy put an amplifier on all that.

In my first trimester I was introduced to pregnancy crying. I’m okay with shedding some tears and all, but, just like little Jimmy who dropped his ice cream, once I start crying I can’t stop! On top of that, it escalates: sniffling progresses to sobbing, sobbing progresses to wailing, and when I was at the height of my nausea, wailing progressed puking. That equanimous part of my psyche that stands back to observe my experience understands that my reaction is way out-of-proportion to whatever the trigger was, but instead of doing anything about it she stares on in helpless disbelief and mutters, “WTF.”

This week wasn’t my first freak out: early on in pregnancy, I got mad at some movers for having too long a truck (our apartment building had two large parking garages, and they either had to block one garage door or the other). When I confronted them I wasn’t trying to leave the building, I was just upset on principle. Maybe this reaction would be normal for people with a more confrontational disposition, but I wouldn’t usually expend energy and circulate a bunch of stress hormones over a problem that would most likely solve itself. Sure enough, after moving the truck back and forth several times to let tenants in and out, the movers separated the cab from the trailer to accommodate both garage doors. What happened this week had less of an external me-telling-people-off component, but the internal emotional experience was immense.

Patio before and after

I replaced my patios wood mulch gardens with black Mexican pebbles.

When we were looking for our new home, the intention was to find The House. You know, the one you pour blood, sweat, and tears into making your own, raise your kids in, and retire in. The house we bought and now live in has plentiful outdoor space, and my first blood, sweat, and tears project is to zen-ify the front patio.

Last Saturday I picked up my fourth and final 200-300 lb load of black Mexican pebbles, which Richard diligently loaded and unloaded for me (my low back hasn’t been tolerating heavy lifting well). As soon as I poured the first bag into the garden, I knew something was wrong—they didn’t match the other rocks. I dug them out of the garden and put them back in the bag. A couple days later, Richard loaded the rocks back into the car for me, and I took them back to landscaping store first thing in the morning to suggest that my pebbles may have been mismarked. After examining the rocks through the dusty bag I’d packing-taped shut, the man at the landscape store kindly insisted that the stones were black, but offered to exchange the bags for different ones anyway if I really wanted to. “No, it’s okay,” I sighed, feeling kind of silly, “I must have overreacted.”

Mismatched stones

I poured water over the stones compare their colors. The stones on the left are the ones in the rest of the garden, the ones on the right are the last batch. (See, they -are- different!)

I took the bags home (where Richard had to unload them yet again), and immediately dumped all six 50-lb bags into the garden. And then I really overreacted. The new rocks definitely did not match the others. The old rocks were exclusively shades of gray, the new rocks included shades of green and orange. Overwhelmed, I ran back inside the house and took a couple deep breaths, then went back outside hoping to have a fresh perspective. I kid you not, when I saw those motley stones my life literally flashed before my eyes: I saw 5 years, 30 years, 50 years into the future, how every time I stepped out into my patio for the rest of my life I would cringe at the sight of the rocks. I put my hand over my mouth and ran back inside.

I repeated this melodramatic (but very real to me, at the time) sequence several times, each round featuring a different train of thought tragically crashing in an explosion of big feelings and sending me running back into the house near tears:

Maybe it was just the lighting… Oh God no, they’re so different. Why do they only have men working at the landscaping store?? Men are much more prone color blindess!

They look like rainbow-colored aquarium pebbles! My patio is lined with giant aquarium pebbles. I can’t even…

The colorful rocks aren’t so bad. I can just mix them in with the others so the garden looks more uniform. Then I looked at the side of the patio that was completed to my vision. No! Green and orange accents were not what I had in mind. These rocks are a bastardization of my vision. I hate them and I can’t even handle looking at them! But they’re already all in the garden. What am I going to do??

By the time Richard told me it was time for me to drive him to his bus stop I was beside myself, fanning a hand next to my temple like a swooning southern belle. While driving, I tearfully redirected my frustration toward myself, “Why didn’t I trust my intuition? I knew those rocks weren’t right, but I didn’t exchange them even though the guy said I could. Why didn’t I trust myself enough to just exchange them! I was right there, it would’ve taken less than ten minutes.” I don’t think I was actually expecting an answer, but I got one anyway. Richard said plainly, “Because you don’t like asking for help, and you didn’t want to make those guys unload and reload the rocks for you.” In that moment, that didn’t make me feel better and didn’t stop me from continuing to lament (I think Richard was pretty glad when he got to get out of the car), but wow, how accurate.

In retrospect, that clear statement from my husband, my mirror, was invaluably informative. I was willing to completely disregard my knowledge and intuition to avoid inconveniencing someone, even if the result would be life-shattering (or at least feel that way for an hour). I will have to reverse that habit before attempting a natural birth in a hospital setting where medical interventions may be offered as often for your health as for convenience, comfort, and liability reasons. From everything I’ve read and learned, natural birth is all about intuition and self-trust; one of my affirmation is: my body knows exactly what to do.

By the time I got home I’d calmed down and started focusing on the solution rather than the problem. I went to work digging the rocks out of the garden and repackaging them. I put my low back out of commission for the rest of the day by lugging one of the bags down to the landscaping store and exchanging it for a bag of black Mexican pebbles that beautifully matched the rest of my garden. The next day Richard obligingly loaded the rest of the offensive rocks back into the car and then unloaded the ones I exchanged them for. I tried not to feel guilty about asking him for help.

My patio

Here’s how to patio looks now. Looking forward to adding more plants!

My matching rocks were all in place or the housewarming party on Saturday and I even had time to put in some more potted plants. My vision is coming together! As for the big feelings: I’m continuing to take them in stride, allowing myself to laugh about them in retrospect, and trying to remember to thank my husband for being so incredibly supportive.

Succulent cupcakes

Succulent cupcakes for the housewarming party to match the plants in the patio.

ps – If you’re interested in making the succulent cupackes, I used this tutorial.

3 Weeks Pregnant: Pre-Conception Nutrition

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July 6 – July 12 : 3 Weeks 0 Days – 3 Weeks 6 Days.

I have an irregular cycle (one of the reasons I was sure I was going to be infertile), so it takes me a while to worry about being “late.” By the second week of July it had been six weeks since the beginning of my cycle, so I took pregnancy test—just to check. It was negative, which makes sense since pregnancy tests don’t accurately detect pregnancy until nearly two weeks after conception (which is called “4 weeks pregnant”). I assumed I’d simply skipped a period due to the stress of closing on our new home over the last two weeks.

Wedding at Yosemite

Even though I’d made no indication Richard and I had even talked about trying, months earlier, my mom insisted I get this flowy dress for the wedding in case I ended up pregnant by then. Little did I know I was!

That weekend my two-week old embryo got some fresh mountain air when Richard and I drove up to Yosemite National Park for our friends’ elegant outdoor wedding. I felt oddly emotional while there, and I remember telling Richard I was definitely PMS’ing and that my period would start in the next week.

One of my New Years resolutions last year was to cultivate space in my heart and life for a child. Richard and I had talked about having kids, but I hadn’t really let that intention fully integrate. As part of that process, I read the memoir Having Faith by Sandra Steingraber, which is an amazing read about the impact of environmental factors on prenatal development. One of the points the author drives home is that many fish are contaminated with heavy metals, industrial chemicals, and pesticides, which can be extremely harmful to the embryo and fetus. These substances are arguably more harmful than alcohol, but for some reason booze gets all the attention. Since heavy metals take six months to leave the body, I chose to start immediately shifting my seafood consumption to fish known to be the least contaminated, such as salmon. Needless to say, when Richard and I selected our wedding reception meals months before the Yosemite wedding, I diligently selected “vegetarian” instead of “fish.” When we got our plates at the reception dinner, although my lentil cakes were delicious, I eyed Richard’s lemon-crusted salmon enviously—I’m going to assume it was farmed salmon to make myself feel better.

That weekend, I was more tempted than I’ve been in a long time to have a flute of champagne and a splash of dessert wine—especially since I’d just tested negative for pregnancy—but I settled for lemonade. I stopped drinking alcohol a year or two ago for several reasons, including the possibility that I might get pregnant. The evidence around exactly how much alcohol is safe during pregnancy is mixed, but if alcohol is going to cause damage, it does its worst early: between three and eight weeks after conception when the embryo is rapidly morphing and organizing into a human shape.

It has always made me nervous how vital and sensitive the early stages of development are, considering that it might take me several weeks to realize I’m pregnant. Another example: a folic acid deficiency during early pregnancy can cause severe neural tube defects.  For that reason, I also started taking prenatal supplements well in advance (well, intermittently anyway).

By the time I found out I was pregnant, I was grateful for the preconception care I’d committed to because I didn’t feel any guilt or worry that I’d exposed my embryo to potential damage. I felt I’d done the best I could with the knowledge I had, and with a diligence that didn’t create a ton of extra stress in my life (e.g. At a sushi restaurant, I would order a roll that contained some tuna if there weren’t enough salmon-only or vegetarian options available, and I never bothered asking if the salmon was wild or farmed).

Although I believe I made the best choices for me, I’m not about to stand up behind a podium to prescribe my way to all pregnant mamas (or pre-pregnant mamas). Maybe I should have done less: I just read that most prenatal vitamins have trace amounts of lead in them, so maybe starting them so early has done more harm than good considering I already have a pretty balanced diet. It’s impossible to know. Maybe I could have done more: I didn’t make a concerted effort to preemptively avoid BPA, caffeine, salmon sashimi, or cats. Pregnancy is hard enough—especially with how equivocal all the research is around it—there’s no room for us to be making each other feel bad because we choose different paths.  Each woman makes the perfect decisions that make the most sense to her.

16 Weeks Pregnant: So When Do I Get That Baby Bump?

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October 6 – October 12 : 16 Weeks 0 Days – 16 Weeks 6 Days.

I’ve put on seven or eight pounds during pregnancy, which is apparently right on track for a healthy, normal-weight pregnancy. However, the voluptuousness seems to have gone everywhere except my belly. I’ve now got the voluminous breasts I’ve always dreamed of having (not complaining) and curvy thighs that can bust through cargo pants (I’ll post that story soon), but still not much of a baby bump to speak of. I got this hilarious maternity shirt, and wore it out this week only to be met with confused glances:

I Ate A Seed

Funny Maternity Shirt from DJammarMaternity on Etsy. I’ll grow into it!

Throughout pregnancy, the most common comment I’ve gotten has been, “Oh, I can’t even tell you’re pregnant!” In the first trimester, this was lovely. I would respond, “Check back in a few weeks. My belly is supposed to pop around week 12!” During that time, suggestions that I didn’t look pregnant were preferable to the less common alternative: “Oh yeah, I thought you’d gained weight, but I didn’t want to say anything.”

Now at the end of my sixteenth week, my belly still hasn’t really popped, and my perspective has shifted. Pregnancy is hard work, and I want something to show for it! Today, I got one of those rare remarks from someone I’d just met: “Oh, I thought you might be pregnant, but I didn’t want to say anything until you mentioned it.” It was all I could do to keep from gushing, “Really? You noticed?? Yay!”

To put it all in perspective, when I express my bump-impatience to women who have been pregnant before, they reminisce, “I remember thinking the same thing in my second trimester. Then by the middle of the third trimester I was so big that I wished I could go back!” And there it is. At every stage of pregnancy there’s something I could choose to be insecure, obsessed, or discontented about. I could also choose to focus on all the things to be contented and joyful about (i.e. the yogic practice of santosa). I have a healthy body, a healthy baby, a supportive partner, tons of resources at my fingertips, and live in an area where I can choose how to move through pregnancy and give birth. Letting my vanity overshadow all of that amazingness would be wasteful. I listen to a recording of 150+ “Joyful Pregnancy Affirmations” for my Hypnobabies course every day, and I will add one more to my repertoire: “My baby knows how and when to create a bump and I will be patient.”

Besides if I eat a several bowls of soup and drink the glasses upon glasses of water I’m supposed to be drinking daily, it pushes by belly out far enough to get a pretty convincing bump shot:

Week 16

My book baby, my fur baby, and my baby baby.

2 Weeks Pregnant: Conception

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June 29 – July 5 : 2 Weeks 0 Days – 2 Weeks 6 Days.

Sold!

We conceived while in the process of closing on our new home. So many changes at once!

Since most women ovulate two weeks after their last period started, at conception we are considered two weeks pregnant (regardless of when an individual woman’s last period actually occurred). Counting back from the estimate of the baby’s age we got via an ultrasound at week ten, we must have conceived around June 29th or 30th, which was a stressful week. My husband and I had spent three months looking for a house, and were elated when a bid we made was accepted on June 25th. However, the competitive two-week closing period we’d committed to had us on edge. If anything was delayed we might have lost the house and our deposit, so we were at the beck and call of our lender, escrow company, and real estate agent to sign, date and wire on command.

The plan was to stop not-trying to get pregnant once we officially closed on the house on July 10th. I guess our stress and excitement about maybe, probably, almost having a new home manifested as us not not trying a little early. I always had a nagging feeling that I would have a hard time conceiving and that it would take a long time, so it blindsided me when I found out I was pregnant less than two weeks after successfully closing on our house. If you’re thinking of starting to try, know that it really can go either way—be ready accept, embrace, and run with anything!