Sitting on the floor as class begins, a bolster pillow under my sitz bones to make more room for my growing belly, I close my eyes. My hands naturally move to my middle, cradling this strangely turgid sack that my body has created to encapsulate the life it’s growing. There was so much anxiety and heartache on the path to pregnancy for us. Sometimes I still feel my mind habitually drifting into anxiety. Synapses firing on a superhighway of fear. But in this moment, connecting with my breath and the energy in this room, I feel the sacred and vulnerable trust of growing life and the life growing inside me. The room is thick with it. I am sharing space with women at different stages of their pregnancies, anywhere from eighteen to thirty-four weeks. Life-bearers all.
The first prenatal yoga class I attended, we were twelve weeks pregnant to the day. Though our families and a few close friends knew where we were in our fertility process, it still felt both vulnerable and bold to go to a semi-public space built specifically for pregnant people. I had been feeling so gross during that first trimester and wanted to find gentle and safe ways to stay moving, healthy, and strong. A friend who is a mom of two, was a college athlete, and is my movement inspiration/aspiration recommended Sandi Hoover’s Roots Prenatal Yoga right here in Des Moines. There were only six of us in that first class and the intimacy helped me move from the anxiety of someone who could barely believe this pregnancy was real to the deepening trust of just another person who was regular pregnant. Which is still a miracle.
Each of Sandi’s classes begins with a guided meditation to connect with self, the life growing inside, and the hopes, feelings, anxieties, and questions that swirl around during this sacred time. There’s a ritual of sharing out briefly – our names, where we are in our pregnancies, and something that emerged from us during that time of reflection. It’s amazing what that simple ritual—of sharing names and pregnancy growth, and then our very specific hopes, fears, and questions—does in terms of creating community. In a very short time, I went from feeling fairly isolated in pregnancy to realizing that my questions, fears, and hopes were more universal than I knew. And each week I was actively being bolstered by a community of trust for questions, resource sharing, commiseration, movement, and lots of laughter.
I learned from other women farther along that the creepy dream stage of early pregnancy would pass. Together we practiced challenge poses lasting roughly 90 seconds, the length of our longest contractions. We got in touch with our bodies and our growing babes, shared recommendations for doulas, pregnancy books, and birth classes, and practiced the mantra: “If you don’t know your options, you don’t have any.”
This session in the new year, there are fifteen of us gathered. The class may be less intimate, but it is no less sacred. Just last week Sandi asked us to reflect on the fears we were carrying about pregnancy, labor, birth, and beyond. Not to let fear work overtime in our lives, but to give voice to it in community and (hopefully) defang it together. As we went around the circle, there were knowing nods, compassionate space holding, and the laughter of recognition. The companionship of other women going through the complex changes of this life stage at the same time is a true gift. It’s my weekly reminder that we never journey alone.
Much love and companionship for the journey,
Lindsey
Thanks for sharing on your honest and healthy experiences Lindsey! It’s very inspiring! I just recently began attending a group-fitness class with many of the same benefits!