Thursday, July 10, 2014

First 13 Weeks

So how it has been to practice for the last 8-9 months?  It went through phases and it goes through phases each week. And each day is different…

I kind of sensed that I have gotten pregnant the second week of my pregnancy.  Right after I suspected I was pregnant, I also realized that I was getting short of breath when I showed and talked at the same time while teaching.  Shortness of breath is related to increasing blood volume in the body with the pregnancy and this was very evident, very soon to me. 


The first 5 weeks I was my normal self during my own practice, so I did practice everything except I did not jump around and I modified closed twists to open twists except Pravritta Trikonasana.  I actually still do Pravritta Trikonasana.  Since I focus on twisting the chest and keeping the hips parallel to do floor, it seems to work…  We even went to a David Garrigues workshop in Amsterdam during the 4th week.   But as soon as we get back from David’s workshop, nausea began! And it got worse and worse :p So, I was throwing up at least once a day if not more, had headaches and sensitivity to light…  I was going to school three times a week to learn Danish and teaching few classes. After a while, the morning practice became a bit of a hell…  Even raising my head in sun salutations was not possible. So, I could do maybe sun salutations and maybe standing poses during this time.  A week before new years, when I was still desperate to figure out how to practice, I tried to do Iyengar yoga sequence for three days from the book called “Iyengar yoga for Motherhood”, to see if it would work better.  The first day was fine; it seemed to help the nausea. However,  the following days nausea was back, and perhaps worse because being that static did not help either.  Then, I tried to not do any yoga for two days but that did not feel good either.  Finally, I figured out which should have been a no brainer; trying to practice in the morning to an empty stomach was the problem!  The whole nausea thing was usually due to empty stomach, at least in the mornings…  My system was using the food much faster than usual.  They say that during the first 3 months of pregnancy, it is like hiking a mountain everyday for the body.  Therefore, I decided to practice one hour after breakfast to see if that would be okay and tada!!! That was the solution… 

After Christmas break, Danish classes began again, then I had to practice in the afternoons some days, but it was always good to not have empty stomach in contrast to how I usually would practice. During this period, I practiced everyday some of primary about 45 minutes, in a good day 60 minutes, skipping the vinyasas between the sides. I did not really stick to a routine of asanas, so each day, I did poses that felt good to do.  I also sneaked in few poses from second series, especially parighasana to lengthen my side body, which I needed and which I still do.  Moreover, I included Parivritta and Ardha Chandrasana after Parsvottanasana to keep my hips strong.  And not to forget back bends... they were not my favorite during this time but doing Dwipada Pitham felt really nice, so some of the times I would just do that and maybe do couple of regular shoulder bridges instead of Urdhva Danurasana.  Dwipada Pitham is like a vinyasa, one moves between raising the hips and arms over head with an inhale and then with an exhale moving the hips down and arms back to the side of the body. One can leave out the arm movement and just move the hips up and down with synchronized breath, I personally like the arm movement. During the days I do not feel up to Urdhva Danurasana, this is the way I go... 

This was the first 13 weeks. Then a whole new phase began...
TBC...

Monday, June 30, 2014

Hello again with news from new life

It has been a very long time since I have written anything.  Most of it was due to moving, getting married, starting a new life.  End of 2012, N and I decided to get married and move to Denmark (for him that was a move back to Denmark).  Therefore, we got busy figuring things out such as how to get married, finding a place to live in Copenhagen, etc.  As much as it seemed a lot to figure out, it went pretty fast and forward.  We managed all in a couple of months and here I was at the end of January.  Getting married was surreal and at the same time very normal.  Surreal in a sense that I had never imagined myself married, but then marrying with N. was so normal because being with him is so natural. 

After all that, there was a period of me waiting for my papers to be processed.  It is never easy to be a Turk and relocate J !  It took about 6 months for my papers to go through. Then, I could start working and going to the government paid Danish language classes.  When one moves to Denmark from a non-EU country, one is obligated to learn the language, and I must say that Danish is one of the most difficult languages out there.  I have been struggling with it since last mid-August until mid-May of this year, about 3 to 4 times a week, each day being 4-hour long!  Now, I am on a brake, which I had been looking forward to since January.  I am also 35 weeks pregnant!  I had the guilt of taking a break from Danish because my last teacher was so sweet, but I have been also looking forward to not worrying about homework, exams and relax into the idea of becoming a mother soon. The funny thing is that, after a week of break, I got the chickenpox.  So, I guess I would be forced to take a break anyhow.  We were at a summerhouse by the coast, which we had rented for two weeks. The first week was going pretty nice; taking walks in the beach, cooking, relaxing, reading, watching Sherlock Holmes… and then I began to have these spots on my body and I immediately knew that I was getting chickenpox.  I guess it was always at the back of my mind, since I did not get it as a kid and my mom also had it as an adult…  Therefore, we had to go to the next town, to a doctor.  When you are in one of the smaller towns, then transportation gets a bit trickier.  We don’t own a car and have no intention to, we bike in Copenhagen, and the summerhouse we found was okay to get to by train+bus; however, when we had an emergency, it got a bit difficult to get to places.  We took a taxi after missing the bus, which was late…  The doctor who saw me said it seems like a mild version of chickenpox and there is no risk to the baby. And then he sent us off. Luckily, I was 30 weeks pregnant then, so my antibodies were protecting her. I called one of the midwives we are working with and she told me to just watch my fever and if gets too high for long period of time, then to take some medicine.   Of course, that mild chickenpox exalted by the next day.   More spots appeared on my body and they were stinging or itching.  And all that being combined with getting bigger in my belly, I was extremely uncomfortable in my body.  On the other hand, I was very impressed by N. ,who did all he could to help me to find some relief.  He put cold press over my body to relieve the itching & burning day and night, walked an hour to get to some store to buy thermometer… and then, when I did not sleep whole night, early morning he called an emergency doctor who came to the house and did an antihistamine shot and prescribed some antihistamine medication, for which he had to travel to the next town to get them…

It has been an unexpected, very uncomfortable experience. I recovered pretty quickly tough after few days of intensity.  The interesting thing was, there was only one day I did not practice yoga and that was the day after when I could not sleep the whole night and had the antihistamine shot in the morning and slept most of the day and had high fever.  After that day, I had to move because my body got so achy from laying/sitting down in a soft coach most of the day and sleeping in a softer bed than ours… I did a mild practice to wake up my legs and release them and my hips.  I also would not feel the itching while I practiced, so got some relief from that as well… Now the sickness is gone but my skin has not totally recovered, there are still spots on my face and body… My mom had chickenpox together with my sister when my sister was a child, and she had it worse I guess.  Maybe yoga made me a bit stronger in my system and I only had it bad for couple of days instead of couple of weeks…