Mini marathon

In 4 weeks time I am off to Macau to watch the Boy run the Macau half marathon. At the same time my friend, F, is doing the full marathon and her husband is going along as a supporter too.

It was a few weeks ago that I found out that there was a 5k race in Macau at the same time. Pre-bump I used to run once or twice a week, always more than 5k. So, when I was talking to F's husband about what us hangers on would do at 7am while our spouses ran, and I had the bright idea that I would run the 5k and he would keep me company.

Now, this was a few weeks ago, before bump revealed her presence externally on my front, and when I was still happily running a couple of times a week. It would be easy, I thought, and so happily set my goal on the 5k race. Which, yes, takes place only six weeks before I am due.

A lot has changed since then, around 10 lbs to be exact, and is getting bigger each week. I've not really done much running since I got stuck up a hill about 5 weeks ago - hills surround our apartment, but I hate running them at the best of times and with the extra weight and wobbly joints it was all a bit hard. So I turned around and ran on the flat for 3 more km and it was fine.

But, since then, I've not run at all. I've cycled, rowed, canoed, even chanted and fallen over, but no running. So, today, I headed to the gym for 5k on the running machine just to make sure I could actually do it.

It started very well, I was at my usual pre-bump pace for about 1k. Then the problems set in. In fact one large, painful problem on the right side under the bump where something had stretched or pinged. I slowed down, bent over and ran with my bum in the air for a bit (the obvious response of stopping wasn't one I was going to consider), and then eventually started walking. After a few minutes it eased a bit, so I started running again, for about 30 seconds before the left side joined the party and I had to slow down again. I then spent the remainder of the "run" trying out various approaches to walking quickly - in the end finding out that slightly bending over and waddling rapidly seems the best. I may look very stupid, but I can keep up a sufficiently fast pace.

Of course I am now on the sofa, feeling a bit stiff and sore. However, with practice, the inelegant pregnant waddle technique should get me through the race just fine.

Of course the most blindingly sensible thing of not doing the race at all has never entered my mind.

The most fertile place in the world

It is with some sadness that I have today waved off S, who works with me, on her maternity leave. It comes at the end of a particularly tough week for us both, reminding me of why I love working with her and have asked her to join me in not one, but two companies since I moved to HK.

However, in our team meeting this week we realised that there is clearly something in the water they give our team (Evian, in case you were wondering). The HK portion of our team only has 6 people. Of these, 3 of us are pregnant at the moment, and one has recently found out his wife is pregnant. This leaves only one single girl and our team leader who are without child.

Two thirds of the team expecting at the same time has to be some sort of record.

It prompted a comment from one team member, however, that if we keep going like this we will need some form of quota system to ensure we have enough staff in the office. I hope he was joking.

Mother's wise words

I am being increasingly convinced, watching more experienced Mums, that there is an unexplainable bond between mother and child (especially daughters) that kicks in at the most appropriate times, regardless of distance and time. How then, to explain the below extract from an email from my Mum, I think written before my posting yesterday?

"If you are wondering what to do with all that spare time after the birth can I remind you that - Jana Rawlinson won the world championships gold medal this year in August for the 400 m hurdles having given birth eight months previously, Liz McColgan won gold in Tokyo in 1991 nine months after first child's birth and Ingrid Kristiansen finished first in 1984 London Marathon, seven months post birthing. This means that we shall look forward to a single sculls attempt at Beijing, a mere 7 months following the birth, but we don't expect the medal necessarily to be a gold one."

Reality bites (or rather, she kicks)

I have been working some fairly long hours recently, and weekends. It's a busy time of year and I have a major project finishing this week, so I've been neglecting all manner of important things (hair, nails, small slave feeding me peeled grapes), but also the love of my life - sport.

So tonight I made it to the gym and have had a happy time flogging myself on the machines. It was lovely. I reminded myself what a rowing machine is, and scarily that I really rather like it, and stepped my way to heaven. Negotiating bump is, as always, amusing. I look something akin to a frog in a mating ritual on the rowing machine (think legs wide open and not at all flattering). Tonight, once she had found herself a comfortable position where she wouldn't get squished, bump happily kicked and jumped along with me while I exercised. It was all rather nice.

But then, as I was getting changed, a frightening thought hit me slap in the face. In 3 months time I won't be able to do this. No more working late and then flogging myself at the gym until I de-stress. No more Saturday mornings rowing then jumping on the motorbike and heading off for a two hour canoe on the sea. Will I ever see a sub 7.30 2k ergo test again (that's for the rowers amongst you)?

I know this might sound odd, and I know that I have had 6 months to get used to the idea of being pregnant and how much my life will change. I know that with the support of the Boy and the luxury of a full time nanny I will have much more of an independent life than most of my friends in other countries. But for some reason tonight, sweating after a session in the gym, it hit me.

Now I am very, very scared.

Nocturnal mind tricks

According to one of the baby books given to me by my friend K (mother of two) at the moment it is not unexpected for me to be having dreams and nightmares about the baby - things that could go wrong, her being hurt and so on. It is perfectly normal anxiety apparently.

So, how then to explain last night when I dreamt an awful lot about one of my cats (who sadly passed on to kitty heaven a couple of weeks ago) in various nasty and painful death-related scenarios. It was all rather horrid.

I've not had a single dream about bump.

The Boy is a bit worried about this being another sign of the onset of my pregnancy related insanity.

Oooommmmm

I have been doing yoga for a few years now, since a friend of mine from work introduced me to it. After too many years of flogging my muscles in various forms of boats, it provides a particularly nice antidote to the fact I am getting a bit older and maybe need to stretch out sometimes. It is also a lovely time when I really do think about little else other than breathing and trying to stand on one leg, foot in the air, hand behind my head, and not fall over.

Until recently I have been doggedly attending my usual yoga classes and having a vague guess about what I shouldn't do. Twisting bad, upside down bad, lying on my side "meditating" (or snoring quietly) good. However, bump is now getting to such a size that I felt I needed some expert instruction. So to my first prenatal yoga class.

For anyone who has ever attended a yoga class (except Mum and Dad, who have their class over a pub) there are certain rules. You are lithe and flexible, you keep quiet, you don't leave the room, you don't fall over the person next to you, you wear appropriately tight yet loose atire. However, in prenatal classes these all go out of the window.

Firstly, a prenatal class is anti-yoga. Gone are the lithe and flexible babes of my other classes, and in come ladies who find it difficult to walk, let alone pretend to be a tree. We waddle, roll, and generally wobble our way through class. We are told not to stretch too much because the relaxin in our bodies now means we might go that little bit too far and turn into floppy bits of string. We spend a lot of time sitting on the floor and breathing.

Secondly, we talk, and laugh and generally discuss what is happening. At the start of my class yesterday we introduced ourselves, shared with others how fat (sorry, pregnant) we are, and a bit out what we thought of yoga. When one of us falls over, we all giggle. When our instructor says anything about our pelvis being the "gates" for our baby (which she does, an awful lot), we grimace and I think someone may have shreaked.

There is a fair bit of coming and going during the class as we all need to head to the loo. So frequent is this that the instructor now tells us all, for the newbies, at the start of each class that we are allowed to head off to leave because "pregnant women need the loo an awful lot". Really? I hadn't noticed.

The studio I go to puts us in the largest room, despite there never being more than 15 of us. However, any casual observer would realise the importance of this - balance, or lack of it. Balancing on one leg is a challenge for me at the best of times. However, add about 14 pounds of stuff stuck on my front, which sits slightly more to one side than the other, and then put me on one leg and it is a recipe for bruises. Then add in 14 other women who are the same. We all leave at least one or two mats between us and the next person, and often one in front and behind. Even the most innocuous poses cause one of us to wobble and tip.

The bump surpassed herself yesterday as she managed to move from one side to the other during my tree pose (standing on one leg, arms in the air) causing me to wobble initially to the left, then right, then fall into the wall. I think I felt her giggling inside me.

However, the most amusing thing about the class is my instructor, E. E informed us all that she loves teaching prenatal yoga and finds the whole process of pregnancy wonderful and exciting. It took all of us fat ladies about 30 seconds to realise this could only have come from a woman who had never actually been pregnant. She also told us that she has worked a lot with women who choose to use yoga rather than hard drugs during labour. Hmmm, clearly a nutter.

She is highly amusing in how she describes things to us. At 29 weeks I feel about as lithe and sexy as a large walrus, but she insists on using hilariously inappropriate imagery. We were told to imagine our baby as a blooming flower inside us. Bump was being especially active at this point and the only image she was bringing to mind was Sly Stallone in the original Rocky movie. I tried, really hard, to think of her as a sunflower, really I did, but the banging on my bladder made it pretty hard.

Then to our pelvic floor exercises, and she told is to imagine a hot air balloon lifting up and down inside us (while we counted breaths). There isn't enough room for my colon down there anymore, so where the hell am I supposed to put a bloody hot air balloon?!

Despite all this, E is actually an excellent instructor. She knows her stuff, cares a lot about her wobbling charges, and I genuinely feel amazing when I leave. I also think I'll write down which random animals I will try to be during the early stages of labour to make myself a bit more comfy. Just making sure I don't feel compelling to moo or miaow along at the same time.

A little bit of slap and tickle

Another trip to Dr D today to have the bump checked and scanned for two heads and a tail. She does, in fact, appear to be human so all is OK.

I did, however, have to have an injection today. I have a rare blood type that means I need to be injected with something to ensure that I don't reject future babies (future babies?! I can't see me doing this again). I am petrified of needles, and it was a rather big one so Dr D suggested he inject me in my bottom.

Or rather what he actually said was "Go over to the bed, pull up your skirt and bend over".

This was a bit more funny, but not much, than him reading out the lot number and expiry date of the stuff he had just given me, as he wrote it in my notes, and reading the expiry date as 04/07 (rather than 04/10 which is what it is). Apparently no-one ever notices his little gag and he seemed quite upset that neither did I.

I guess when you've been delivering babies for 40 odd years you find amusement where you can.