Pregnancy From a Husband's Perspective Part 5- Pregnancy Workout Videos

My wife and I have a long history with workout videos because we both like to stay relatively fit and there are a lack of good gyms in the area.  P90X, Insanity, Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred, we've hit them all, and Shelley has always been able to hang with me on all of them. I decided when Shelley was pregnant that I could stand to lose a few pounds, and also that I didn't want to gain the pounds that many of my friends gained during their wives' pregnancies, so I cranked up P90X again.  Instead of Shelley joining me this time, she was content to look on and smile with that satisfaction of "sucks to be you."

However, if there is one thing I learned about pregnancy, any "sucks to be you" feeling a pregnant woman may have lasts for less than a minute when she either throws up, pees her pants, or passes gas, all of which happen every 3-4 seconds or so.  Unfortunately for Shelley, she has no excuse to not be working out, because for every workout video, there is a pregnancy workout video.  So this summer, Shelley loaded up on her sister's pregnancy workout videos.  She brought several back and uses them pretty frequently.  I typically sit within ear shot when she is working out, and needless to say, these videos have been a delight for several reasons:

1.  Shiva Rea's Prenatal Yoga... it's a classic.  First off, Shiva Rea is a yoga master... a blond haired, white skinned yoga master.  There is a .00001% chance that this woman was born with the given name Shiva.  Shiva is the kind of name you choose after Emily had too many all night bingers and discovered that yoga has the same "I'm doing something kind of rebellious feeling" without having to hide the pot from the kids.  At least that is my theory on how this yogi ended up with the name Shiva.  My wife tells me I often make snap judgments about people... so here goes one.  Shiva is way too into yoga.  But her prenatal yoga video has been a charm to listen in on.  First off, Shiva is always telling these women how and when to breathe.  And when she gives the cue to exhale, she says it with a very soft "x."  Makes me laugh every time.  So I will hear something like "And inhale your knees up to your chest, all the while pulling the soul of your baby close to your heart... annnnnnnd ess haaaaaaale."  How can I not laugh at that?  My wife also occasionally chuckles, though I think she is used to it by now. 

Shiva's video also features 3 women doing yoga, each in a different trimester, all wearing a different colored spandex body suit.  This to me is just ridiculous.  Nobody does normal yoga in a spandex body suit.  Nobody does anything in a spandex bodysuit unless its halloween or the kids are in bed early, so why make pregnant women of all people wear one on a video?  And the poor woman in her 3rd trimester... she must have been filming this video on her way to the hospital, because she is about to pop.  This is only made more obvious by the fact that her name is Poppy... no freaking lie.  This becomes very apparent because unlike the other two women in their first or second trimester, Poppy is just as likely to pull off any yoga move as a house cat is to being likeable.  Poppy basically sits in a chair and shifts her weight a little bit.  That's the extent of Poppy's yoga.  But they call this "modified."  So with every single move, Poppy's name is mentioned as the model you too can go to when you are in your third trimester.  You always hear Poppy's name.  I don't know what the other two women's names are, but Poppy is forever getting called out, and every time, there she is doing a modified cobra... if a cobra had just eaten a freaking reindeer and was trying to stretch itself out.

2. I have never heard the term "kegel muscles" before but good gracious that is all these workout videos talk about.  Kegel this and kegel that.  One night my wife was standing by our bed and swinging her hips back and forth like a hammock.  I asked her what she was doing.  She said "stretching my lower back and doing my kegels."  Apparently working out your kegels helps in labor and delivery.  Who knew these things even existed.  I am just picturing myself in a gym holding 20 pounders swinging my hips back and forth.  The guy beside me looks over and I say "workin the kegels."  I'm sure that would win me points with the dudes in the locker room.  

3. Unlike P90X, it is totally acceptable to snack in the middle of a pregnancy workout video.  Or at least it is in our house.  I am on my computer and in the background I hear Shiva giving a nice "ess haaaaaale" and its interrupted by a "CRUNCH."  I look over to see my wife still holding her ballet squat position, arms stretched out, pretzel stick in her hand like a cigar, bite taken out of the top.  At that point it became apparent to me that the purpose of pregnancy workout videos aren't necessarily to stay in any kind of shape.  Can you imagine if I could pound a steak and cheese in the middle of P90X?  That sounds awesome!  But alas, I am stuck drinking water and sweating it out while Shelley brings her yoga mat, yoga block, chair, and bag of pepperidge farm goldfish to her workouts.

Shiva's preggy yoga jam isn't the only workout video in the mix, just my favorite.  There are other videos that Shelley does, and they are helping to keep her in shape. I hope that all of this makes labor and delivery easier for my poor wife.  At least I know that I can encourage her along the way by saying things like "get the kegels into it sweetheart!"

we're having a boy!

so the process of us finding out the gender of our baby has been WAY more of a process than i ever thought possible. well before we were pregnant i told jarred that i think it would be awesome to not find out and be surprised. he disagreed, but then said that he didn't think it was worth arguing about because there was no way that i could ever go through with not finding out. and he was right. once we were pregnant i definitely couldn't not find out any information that i had the option to.

anyways, we left america in august at 19 weeks and were hoping that at my appointment 2 days early they would do an ultrasound and find out. no luck. so at 20 weeks at the international clinic our american doctor did one, but since it is just a clinic they don't have a lot of high-tech equipment. he told us that he literally found his old ultrasound machine sitting in a closet and asked the hospital if he could have it. the thing is terrible. he said that he guessed about 80% that our little nugget is a boy, but couldn't see clearly enough to tell. so he sent us to a local hospital. but, it is illegal here to tell a couple the sex of their baby due to the high rate of gender-selection abortions against little girls. their ultrasound was good and they said they would maybe agree with our doctor but they couldn't tell. they were being fishy and weird, so we think they just didn't want to tell us. we told our parents and families, but with 80% you can't really be sure. and i don't like not being sure!

some good friends of ours who have had 3 babies while living here told us to go to a private hospital in our city because they would tell us, so at 24 weeks we did. (aside: this hospital is really close to where we lived our first 2 years here. we both went a couple times for different things- like a sore throat and they told me it was from eating french fries, which i hadn't. when we walked in this morning, jarred said "remember when we thought this place was good and could actually save lives. yeah.") anyways, we checked in and told them we wanted an ultrasound (if at this point we are sounding excessive, know that here an ultrasound is free at the clinic, costs $10 at the local hospital, and $30 at the private hospital). we paid and then went up to the ultrasound section, where after finding out i was 24 weeks they said they could only do it on saturday mornings. and our saturday mornings were booked for the next few weeks. 

so then comes 28 weeks. yay for the 3rd trimester. not exciting about 28 weeks is the gestational diabetes test. ugh. i had only heard terrible things. and the american doctor said we had to go to the private hospital to get it done. so this morning we trekked an hour into the city at 7 am, jumped through a million hoops, drank 75 grams of pure sugar, and had my blood drawn twice. AND they did an ultrasound! they have a flat screen tv where we both got to see 10 fingers and 10 toes, developing organs, and a big yawn. i fully expected a breakfast of pure sugar to send the little one into flips and flops, but our baby was either really tired or a little lazy because this morning he just wanted to sleep. despite his uncooperative attitude in keeping his legs tightly scrunched, they said that IT'S A BOY!! yay, i think we know as much as we will ever know until he makes his appearance in january!

we are really thankful and though it has taken a full 2 months to actually find out, i am personally proud of myself for the patience i displayed. we are so thankful and are looking forward to meeting him in 3 months :)

ps- baby bump pictures coming soon!