The Pregnant Card

10-29-09

Yoga is sparsely attended. Instead of the usual 10 people in class, there are 5.

“Lots of attention for you guys today. Lucky you,” my teacher jokes.

He trains his eagle eye on me. First it’s the hellish wide-legged squat that he says will help strengthen my lazy, pain averse legs--I call them lazy, not him—and allow me to backbend to my heart’s content without the lower back pains that have plagued me the last few years. I squat. I breathe.

“Lower,” he says. He kneels beside me and holds his hand against my knee. “Press out.”

I lower and press and try to breathe through the howling in my inner thighs. This…is…good…for…me. Even my thoughts are panting. Every time I feel the pain amp up to grimace levels in yoga, I remind myself that an even more painful event is on the horizon, a mere 3 months and some change away. If I can’t stay centered and breathe through some screaming thigh pain, I’m screwed.

After 8 breaths, my hands fall to the floor. I straighten my legs. Sweet relief.

“Maybe try it again with your legs wider,” he says.

“Tomorrow,” I gulp.

He doesn’t smirk and wisecrack about how tomorrow may never come like he does with my yoga buddy, but mercifully lets me go on to the next pose and the next unbothered…until Warrior 1.

“Kt. Deeper,” he says, walking towards my mat.

“What does that mean?” I ask, knowing exactly what he means but not wanting to admit it. Deeper = more ouch.

“Your knee. Bend deeper.” Again he is kneeling beside me pressing my hand on the outside of my knee as he coaxes me lower into the bend. “Still not parallel to the floor,” he says.

I go farther, cursing my long legs that require such deep bending to get anywhere close to parallel, “Still not parallel.”

I lose my balance and fall to my hands.

“Oh your center of gravity is shifting,” he says.

I look up from my fallen warrior. “That and the 20 or so extra pounds I’m carrying,” I say.

“The extra human you’re carrying!” he says, pushing himself up to standing.

Thusly the unspoken has become spoken in yoga class: I have played the pregnant card. My teacher has gone easier on me since I gave him the news a few months ago. I no longer feel a churning gut before approaching a pose he’s been known to “help” me with, and I’ve enjoyed him telling me to take it easy. Not that I have much of a choice in the matter. I feel like I’m carrying around rocks in my pants. Plus Purvis likes kicking around during my yoga practice. I imagine her striking fetal poses along with having a few WTF is going on here moments.

At home I whip out the pregnant card with increasing ease.

“Can you do the dishes?” I ask Mr. Crud during our post-dinner plop on the couch.

“I like how you start rubbing your belly when you ask that.” He says.

I shrug. “A lady’s gotta do what a lady’s gotta do.” I rub some more.

The one area where I’ve yet to play the pregnant card is transportation. I’m still biking into work to the consternation of some of my coworkers.

“You sure you should still be biking?” An elder prof asks.

“Yup, my doctor says as long as it feels okay and it still feels okay.”

“You didn’t bike in today, did you?” My student worker asks on a particularly rainy and breezy morning.

“Aw yeah.”

I try not to get my panties in too much of a bunch over their concern. I know that they only want me and Purvis to be safe. They aren’t trying to tell me that I am careless or don’t know how to handle my own body. (Which is the bratty place my mind goes whenever I am offered “helpful” unsolicited advice about pregnancy.) I smile and nod and say, “I still have a few more weeks in me.”

I’m trying to make it to December although I am perfectly willing to bow out earlier should my body dictate it. I am slow on the bicycle, slower than I ever thought I would be. The Wicked Witch of the East passes me regularly and I don’t care. Whenever I am pedaling fast enough to pass someone I think, “Damn Sam, you just got served by a pregnant lady.”

In some ways I look forward to playing the pregnant card and buying a parking pass. It will be interesting to see how the other three-quarters live. I won’t miss the blowing rain, the soaked boots, and the final slog up the hill to my house in the afternoon. I will miss plenty though, most of all feeling like a tough girl.

“Darn, Kt. You’re burly,” my yoga teacher said on a particularly blustery, drenched morning.

And don’t you forget it. Well, until I’m practicing asana and then you should really go easy on me.