Alright circus girl, show us what you got.

Week 20

I’ve been taking a pre-natal yoga class. Generally it’s been great. Mostly I love it. I appreciate that there are other women in the room who have embraced the fact that their brains and waistlines are deteriorating as rapidly as mine. Today was different. Our usual Thursday instructor was out for her second week in a row and we had a sub. It’s not entirely unpleasant to have a sub but I never know what to expect, what their style will be, their breathing techniques, what stretches and poses they’ll have us do and sometimes, honestly, it can be more stressful than relaxing.

The sub asks for introductions after our initial warm-ups (‘warm-ups’, can you tell I’m not a guru?) She wants us to say our name, how many weeks and how much yoga we’ve done. Name and weeks? No problem, but amount of yoga? Do I rate myself like a skier about to rent a pair and say I’m ‘intermediate’ but not ‘expert’ because I don’t want the shitty skis? Do I say “expert” and hope she doesn’t expect me to stand on my head? Do I add up in my shrinking brain how many times I’ve done yoga in my head and squawk out an exact number? Do I include the number of times I’ve drunk a cup of yogi tea and followed the instructions on the side of the box? Up until the sub today, introductions meant name, how far along and how pregnancy is going or just sharing about anything. I liked it. It was a chance for hormonal verbal vomit. Sometimes some of us cry, sometimes some of us laugh, we share our bizarro pregger dreams, how bad our acid reflux and heart burn has gotten, how our husbands and partners have given up fighting the pillow pirates that we’ve become, and generally anything that may or may not be appropriate or related to the small humans in all of us. Not today. It was all biz-nass. The other two students in the room, neither of whom I had ever seen before, had me second guessing that I was in the right class. Pregnant female in far left corner had a perpetual look of annoyance on her face, pursed lips, tight jaw. Female next to her was as cheery as a mall Santa at Christmas, but with a black eye. (Don’t know, didn’t ask.) So maybe Santa post Black Friday scuffle. Miss Pursed Lips stayed that way the entire class. I would steal glances in between poses just to make sure. Black Eye apparently had done a lot of yoga before and was hell-bent on showing all of us just how much she could do. She started off by taking off her shirt, revealing her thick muscular abs. (None of us strip down to our braziers.) Not your typical thin sinewy washboard Boulder yoga abs either; they were like a circus performing heavy weight champion’s. I thought, maybe she’s just taking this yoga class for the fun of it or maybe she’s not very far along, because according to her belly, there was very little evidence of a baby inside. She gave her name and pregnancy in weeks and her yoga resume. She’s how far along? Further than me? Did I hear her right? If she is that many weeks, where’s the damn baby? In her butt? She further wow’d us by incorporating every move and then going all out, full blown splits, back-bend, feet over head. I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or annoyed. I am fully aware that everyone is different, every pregnancy is different but it’s hard not to compare yourself every once in a while. I mean, c’mon. The only back-flips I’m doing are the ones in my head when I’m trying to climb, dig, grapple my way out of bed to go pee for the umpteenth time in a night and even then I sometimes have to ask Paul to give me a little shove. And just when I feel like my stomach can grow no larger I’m hit with the realization that I’m only half-way and expected to more than double in size. Yay, stretch marks. Cheers to belly butter and cheers (reluctantly) to preggers who can still do back-flips at week 21.