There are some advantages about being pregnant in Germany regarding prenatal care. Apart from the common control appointment with the obgyn and the midwife (who mostly offers more than just taking care of you after the delivery), soon-to-be moms can visit fitness-related activities which are in partly reimbursed by the insurance companies.
So, mostly for the first half of the pregnancy, my husband and my mom insisted that I do something to be “in shape” (not that I didn’t walk around like crazy every day, one of the reasons why Nico arrived four days before his due date) and get me prepared for labor. That was yoga. I was quite skeptical. Not because I wasn’t fond of any physical activity but because I’ve always related yoga to a rather esoteric way of life and because in Germany and specially in Berlin-Kreuzberg you find them everywhere, “the esos”. I have another kind of life style, let's say a normal, straight forward one. For me spirituality is more linked to the religion I grew up with without being strictly catholic. My way to find peace is just trying to achieve my goals, being kind to others, surrounding myself with positive and nice people, and being able to create and enjoy aesthetically appealing spaces and outfits. The way I like to keep my body fit is, as a proud Latin American, by dancing, in fitness terms with Zumba and enjoying it instead of working out like crazy. So the world of yoga and I differ enormously, especially bearing in mind that many German yoga lovers are quite exaggerated into it and I thought that that would be too much for me to handle. Besides, I had tried it once when living in Bruges in order to relax during the hard times of my masters degree experience and back then I had already realized I was not my thing.
However, there are so many kinds of yoga and I finally decided to embrace the advantages of it and gave it another try, since it would help me learn how to breath, focus on my body and even gain a little bit of flexibility. The latter is kind of a funny fact. I was never a sporty person. I’ve tortured myself several times in a gym, with personal trainers, especially for my wedding and months after the delivery but I love dancing and when dancing I have quite stamina and can follow choreographies very well but otherwise I’m rather non athletic.
I didn’t have to do a long research for finding a yoga class because, as I mentioned before, Kreuzberg is full of those and even some midwives offer them. I found a class which took place on Saturday mornings in a so called Yoga Institute in the Bergmann Street area. I didn’t really know what I should expect from it. But I really tried to go there with an open mind.
I started in February, at the beginning of the fifth month. Compared to the other class members who were already almost exploding (some were already almost on their due date) you could hardly see my belly. Well, mostly because I thought that when doing yoga you need to dress comfortable and with rather wide shirts and the like. The class was so full that you had to call in advance to make sure you got a spot somewhere. Luckily, the room was very big and clear and there were no signs of hippie kitsch. The… I still don’t know how to call her… Teacher, trainer, yogi? Well, you know what I mean. She was also a midwife. But somehow a very strict person. The way she moved, spoke and looked reminded me a lot of the mean stepmother of Disney’s Cinderella. I tried hard to concentrate on the essentials and keep the open mind. So hard, that I even asked her if she would be available for June (which she was).
Soon I realized that I didn’t know anything and, much worse, that I didn’t understand anything of what was going on in there. I found the breathing exercises very good and I learned some good things. But when it came to the moves and positions, it was like another language. Well it really is another language. I felt that more than a yoga class for expecting women, it was a yoga class for expecting women who were already well acquainted with yoga. And I was not. I tried to cope hand imitate everything as good as I could. I also realized how extremely inflexible my body is compared to the other women with their huge bellies. Sometimes I even got dizzy. So for the most part, I actually only enjoyed the relaxation part. And I slept so well… And I kept telling to myself to embrace the challenge.
Yoga friend? Anyone?
A friend of mine without kids who however was very successful working as a babysitter for wealthy Prenzlauer Berg families mentioned once how important it was to start finding new friends, mommy-friends, already before the delivery, in order not to feel lonely afterwards when coping alone with the baby. So I saw yoga class as a kind of social experiment to get in touch with other moms with the hope of finding a good match. Even though the class was always full, there were not always the same participants. They came and went depending on the weather, on their mood or on their due dates (!).
There were mostly rather normal women. I mean, they didn’t look that hippie. All of them went to class without a drop of makeup, which in Colombia would be unthinkable. And then you observe the faces and wonder how they could be like or if I could befriend any of them. Well I wasn’t lucky. Only very few of them looked nice to me, the others seemed rather deadly serious and deadly unfeminine (I’m completely the opposite, well serious I am, but not deadly). And we never came to talk because, everyone just left immediately. I was actually expecting a come together after class or maybe grab some lunch together. And I realized that I, a walking radio, didn’t even know what to talk to them about. Maybe, again, it was the lack of chemistry.
But for their defense (or not, haha), I have to admit that I have always have had a hard time making German friends, especially female friends. Our conversation topics and the importance and, again, the exaggerated seriousness they give to them are just worlds apart, as is the importance we give to our appearance. At university, I only managed to make just one friend, not even a close one. And from work, there are only two. One of them was even pregnant at the same time with due date two months later than mine but unfortunately she moved to the south of Germany. And the class was full of Germans and a couple of French.
What's good for me!
So with this in mind, and the fact that it was more an unenjoyable physical strain than fun and that I kept trying to get to like Cinderella’s stepmother, after almost two months, I decided not to continue and to find another way of physical exercise (which at the end I didn’t). You just have to like something just because, isn’t it? I didn't feel like following a trend. I used the advantages of my health insurance but deep inside I knew I did not belong in there. Call me stupid or ignorant, but I still don’t understand it or feel passionate about yoga and the like but luckily, I had a very good pregnancy and was able to give birth. To be honest, as much as I tried to use the breathing techniques for labor, in the moment the pain was so big that I could not help but rather scream instead of ooohming. And, eventually, a very very long time later, I managed to find a best (mommy) friend.
For the second pregnancy, I did not even think about prenatal yoga. Being already a mother who went to work every day and ran to pick up the kid at daycare afterwards, my best relaxation therapy was taking naps with my son during the weekend. And my midwife to that time only gave me the advice to just do whatever I feel like to relax.
With all this in mind and since my yoga experience was rather a struggle, I want to finish this post by telling you, that I by no means want to discourage anyone from going to yoga nor criticize or judge anyone for his or her lifestyle. I just want to share my experience and maybe I'm not the only one who felt that way! If you feel like it, definitely go to yoga class from the very beginning of the pregnancy. After all, it is also a wonderful thing that health insurance companies support moms-to-be with that, so enjoy it! Now tell me, did you go or are you going to prenatal yoga? How do/did you like it? Did you find it helpful? And, last but not least, how did you find your mommy friends?