Fatigue.
I'm not talking tired or exhausted or however I generally feel after carrying Jake up the stairs for the fifteenth time at the end of the day. I am talking about bone-crushing, crying-because-I'm-so-tired, unable-to-think fatigue. Have-your-thyroid-level-checked fatigue.
It is, perhaps, no coincidence that it hit me after an afternoon spent at a three-year-old's birthday party last Sunday.
The party, actually, was exactly what I needed. It was one of those beautiful fall days when the air is so warm and still that you turn your face to the sun and forget to wear sunblock. Jake was ecstatic chasing around his three-year-old friend, I was nearly as pleased hanging out with her parents and other adults, and Jake's surprise rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" all the way home was—appropriately enough—the icing on the cake.
The only speck on the surface of this idyllic Sunday afternoon, the ugly undercurrent I pretended to ignore, was this: I was wearing maternity jeans.
I must interject here to point out that I put on those same jeans this morning and confirmed that they are, in fact, still so big on me that they slide down so that the ugly stretchy part at the top peeks out from under my shirt. I am unable to explain why this fact thrills me when the alternative is to cling to my old army pants that I wore twice a week to breastfeeding clinic two years ago because they were the perfect postpartum size and that now sport a couple of holes near the waistband that I pray are not a sign my only comfortable pants will shred into pieces after another wash or two.
But I'm being honest here. And honesty dictates that, sadly, it is a point of pride with me to dig through my closet looking for the old, the too big, the stretched-out clothes that still fit me so I can proudly proclaim I am not wearing maternity clothes. Just looking sloppy and thick and why was it again that I don't want to look pregnant instead of just fat?
But last Sunday I was feeling Mature. I had experienced a few round ligament pains that literally took my breath away. They felt sort of like a big, huge rubber band snapping somewhere in the vicinity of my uterus.
So I pulled a long shirt over the stretchy blue tummy thing and fancied myself camouflaged, my secret safe.
Until I met the other party guest who was just two weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy.
"It's my first day in maternity clothes too," she confided.
I assured her that she looked great. Not just because I wanted her to tell me the same thing (she didn't), but because I know how nice it is to have someone say such a thing to you when you are pregnant and because it was true. In point of fact, she looked pretty much like I did.
But then we got into the fatigue thing. "I'm a lot more tired this time," she allowed without any prompting from me. "But it's because I'm thirty-nine."
So Why Look at My Butt After I've Succumbed to Maternity Pants?
My reaction to the "I'm 39 and therefore tired" comment was to rather defensively point out that I was 40 when I gave birth to Jake and a bundle of energy once I made it past the first trimester. I did not mention that I was, at that very moment and at my own initiative, "taking it easy" because of the round ligament pain. Nor did I know that the very next day I would experience fatigue so intense that I spent the entire day alternately trying to upload a video of Jake singing "Happy Birthday" to Google Video and crying because it wasn't working. All day. Because I did not have the capacity to do anything else. Nor, apparently, even the capacity to upload a video of Jake singing "Happy Birthday" to Google Video.
That evening, as I stoically sat my way through my niece's 13th birthday party without what I felt was the proper show of excitement and enthusiasm (that would have required, oh, standing up and talking to people) and then succumbed to another day of fatigue on Tuesday, I weighed my options.
Should I, I asked myself as I morosely watched the hour for my usual Tuesday yoga class come and go, admit to age and a 27-pound-toddler who likes to be carried and, oh yeah, a pregnancy and just take it easy for the next four-and-a-half months? Should I blame the prior weekend's uncharacteristic spate of socializing that will surely never be an issue again for the duration of this pregnancy?
Nope. I chose Option C. I spent the week dragging myself around until I absolutely, positively had no choice but to admit it was time to put my feet up. I cried that I just didn't have the energy to go to my sister-in-law's for the weekend but then went anyhow. I skipped watching my nephew play the bassoon at the high school football half-time show on Friday night, instead putting my feet up and watching a TiVo'd episode of Grey's Anatomy I was a bit too grateful to find. And I pouted and cried and moaned in martyrdom during the drive home on Sunday when I felt too fat and my stomach felt too compressed to eat lunch but chose to be angry with Mike for not packing me something to eat anyhow.
I have tried to recall feeling this way during my first pregnancy—annoyed with the physicality of it rather than fascinated and overjoyed at what my body can do. But all I remember are daily sun salutes and unbounded second-trimester energy and it being summer in L.A. and therefore a particularly forgiving locale for the sorts of outfits one can cobble together when one is too stubborn to wear maternity clothes.
And so I kind of blame myself. For not ever getting myself quite back to the shape I was in before my first pregnancy. For being 42 and petrified that I will not be able to take off the baby weight even though I know—I really, truly do—that my baby is more important than what size pants I wear. For feeling honestly, truly cruddy about myself if I'm not wearing the size pants I feel I should be able to wear no matter how old I get or how many pregnancies I go through.
And, yes, in a pique of self-pity, I walk naked in front of the full-length mirror in my sister-in-law's guest room, I turn around, and I observe with no small amount of horror that my butt looks like it's 42-years-old and pregnant.
Giving Yourself a Break without Giving Up
I really do wish I were one of those women who could say with confidence that I embrace all the changes pregnancy brings to my body. That I know with yoga and peace of mind and happiness I will be beautiful again. And am beautiful now.
There are probably women who can say that. But they don't really need to give anyone else advice because the only women who will believe them already think the same thing themselves.
So, what if you're like me and your enlightenment reaches only so far as to feel that other women of all shapes and sizes are truly beautiful while secretly feeling guilty about not telling the waiter to leave the dollop of sour cream off the burrito you ordered at dinner the other night?
Then, I say, embrace where you are in this journey, insecurities and all. Beating yourself up about them only makes it worse. Believe me.
Better, far better, to say, "I know that I am beautiful like this, and I know the health of my baby is more important to me than my pants size, but I also feel really unattractive and old and like the days when strange men looked twice at me are so long gone I should preserve those memories in an album somewhere so I can remember what it was like."
Because this sort of forgiveness is part of accepting your limitations. And accepting your limitations is a huge part of what yoga is all about.
We usually think about the concept on a physical level, because it is—as most yoga precepts are—more understandable to us during an asana practice. Can't quite manage those arm balances? What a lovely place to forgive yourself and accept your body's limitations. So little at stake. So obviously not something that is going to affect anything else in your life. And so much space to let time take its course and see that one day, with acceptance, the limitation will fall away and you will find yourself, surprised and exhilarated, in crow pose.
But an asana practice is just a way into practicing the precepts in life. So accepting your physical limitations means giving yourself a break for being fatigued—whether because of pregnancy or the demands of parenthood and job or just because your life is busy and you are not giving yourself the breaks you need. And accepting your nonphysical limitations—your inability to apply the same kindness to yourself that you bring to other women, for example—is part of the same package.
Sure, I wish I were one of those peaceful women who loves herself and her body and embraces age and sagging boobs and gray hairs (if only they were silverly and pretty!). But I'm not.
Still waiting for the earth to open up and swallow me. But it hasn't. Nothing has changed since I wrote the truth that I am not as kind to myself and as accepting of the beauty of my body and age as I know I should be.
Sure, it's something I'm working on. But the best way to work on it is to accept it. This is the way I am and the way I think. It is not static. It is not forever. But it is how I feel right now. And accepting it instead of berating myself for it will bring about positive change.
Just like trying crow pose over and over with good humor and acceptance until one day you fly.
Step Two—The Balance Between Putting Your Feet Up and Getting Them Moving (Surya Namaskar (Traditional))
There is a second step, beyond learning to accept myself. (Did I mention that it's a learning process, not something I just write about and—voila!—I accept myself?)
Once I accept that I am fatigued and 42-years-old and not Super Pregnant Woman, what do I do with it?
A big piece of what I do is, yes, put my feet up and abandon the rest of the family to sitting in the rain watching a high school football game while I curl up on the couch with Grey's Anatomy.
But acceptance and forgiveness can—if you're not honest with yourself—give way to avoidance.
Hence, the balance, forever searched for, never solidified, between putting your feet up and getting them moving. Because I truly believe that moving is one of the best ways to counteract fatigue and depression and bad self-image. As long as you move in a way that is respectful and accepting of where you are.
Hence my recommendation of Surya Namaskar, or traditional sun salutes. They can be done gently and meditatively and then creatively. You can tell yourself that you're just going to do half a dozen or even a dozen and before you know it you're improvising, adding on, feeling joy in the movement.
So start simple, no matter how you're feeling. Use the first round to see where you are limited today—in both body and soul. And let the improvisation in subsequent rounds come organically. Let it be what your body wants to do, not what your mind imagines it ought to. Let low lunge transform itself into high lunge, bhujangasana grow into urdhva mukha svanasana. Find yourself adding twists and leg variations, maybe an urdhva prasarita eka padasana (standing splits). All for the joy of it.
In other words, move with respect, and respect yourself enough to move. You'll find the balance from there.
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