Maternity Yoga

It is usually not called that, but when Rob referred to it that way, I thought it was a good twist. I went to "prenatal" yoga last night at a studio a few blocks from our house. The first thing I noticed was the swept porch that invited me into an open room. Flip flops lined up under the bench and handbags dangled from the hooks above. A small line of cheerful women was formed at the restroom, the first feature our teacher pointed out to me. A row of dimmer lights hung on one wall, pegs for another class lined the other. We could see out to the street where college kids toted laundry to the building next door, but the tinted glass did not hint to them that the studio was filled with pregnant women. As Ryan and the boys dropped me off after T-Ball, they had never seen so many mommies-to-be at once, all heading to the porch.

It was my first yoga class. Many years ago, when I was training to get a Boston time, I would wake before the sun watching a DVD of three completely toned human beings stretch as they gazed over Montana mountains. It felt good afterwards, which was the only thing that kept me doing it. After the marathon, the yoga and pilates came and went in rhythm with the semester's work. I eventually could do the routine without the DVD and the mountains, but it was solely to keep me up and running.

Maybe yoga is meant to be shared in a class, because after last night I had a new sense of what it was about. Or maybe it is that since I'm pregnant, it feels even better to stretch and breath deeply and be still in my body. But I think the real power was simply being in the presence of a group of 15 other women approaching childbirth. Everyone in different stages of the journey, carrying different expectations of birth and parenting but all carrying a child. It was many of the same moves from the DVD but I felt rooted and connected, not just to the cushy mat under my bare toes, but to the power of childbearing that we all shared.

The mat I have in the basement has a train track, airport, small town, and football field on it. It works just as well as the roll-up mats I see peeking out of bike baskets as people make their way home from the yoga studio in the mornings and evenings. Maybe the energy of being with these women will be the encouragement I need to start up a practice again. And it just might keep me running, too.