Friday 31 January 2014

Pregnancy yoga – a beginner’s experience


Me and yogi bear 

This article was published in Yoga Therapy Ireland's Winter 2013 issue (Issue No. 56); this is the unabridged version and probably one just for the ladies, although the men might learn something too ;) 


Last December – just in time for Christmas – we found out that I was pregnant. Thus began the journey through nine months of pregnancy, to the moment of delivery of Baby Alannah Marie.

As I look back now, the nine months seem to have passed in the blink of an eye, although there were times when I felt I would be pregnant forever and I was impatient for the birth to come. But growing a baby is a very intricate process and it’s not something to be rushed! The whole pregnancy experience for me though was amazingly smooth - no back pain, no SPD or swelling, no restricted movement – except of course in the last four weeks when sitting anywhere comfortably becomes a challenge in itself (get a birthing ball – it will transform your life!). Other glamorous features that seem to be unavoidable for most women are piles and varicose veins, and the increased pressure on the pelvic floor. There were times during the last few weeks when I would get crippling darting pains in my groin area – and that’s when you realize that the pressure of a baby’s head bearing down on that ‘hammock’ of muscle is something that’s going to need some attention to ensure recovery of its function once all that pressure comes off – think pelvic floor exercises as often as possible before and after to counteract any potential problems post-partum.

One of the main things that helped me through the pregnancy, and now three weeks into the post-partum phase, was participating in the YTI Pregnancy Yoga training course between January and March this year. In terms of physical and mental preparation, understanding the whole process and changes to come in my own body, learning about the kind of problems that pregnant women in general can experience – not least how to adapt my own and my class’s yoga practice – the course was fundamental. Every woman would benefit from taking part in the course, and especially yoga teachers who need to understand how to help pregnant women to move, breathe and cope throughout pregnancy, labour and delivery, and what comes after.

I really understand now the whole thing about emphasizing plenty of cushions (for sore bums!); about being super conscientious of the softening of the pelvis in every move; and the superpower of being present in the moment – aided by deep breathing (pranayama) and meditation, along with relaxation (savasana). You don't really understand it (as I found) until it happens to you, as is the case with so many things - the classic learning by doing. But in having completed the pregnancy yoga course in my own first trimester, I had the benefit of learning from the years of experience and insight of the course leader Trish Malone and participating midwife Aileen Murphy to guide me at every stage. And pregnancy is very much an experience that changes as you go through the trimesters so you need to be aware of how your abilities change in response to your physical and mental changes over 40 weeks and more.

Never under-estimate the need and the power
of relaxation....

From about week 35, I really started to prepare myself for labour and delivery. The first stage of labour (effacement and dilation of the cervix) is about pain management and that is where breathing and relaxation coupled with a few valuable poses come in. The second stage – the actual delivery - is less about pain and more about effective pushing. As for the first stage and the contractions – wow, such pain I have never experienced before, but all positive of course. It started in earnest on a Thursday morning and by lunchtime I thought we were in well-established labour - but no! I was only 1cm dilated when I landed in Mullingar Regional Hospital at 4pm - but the cervix was completely effaced and they kept me in. We sat in a room and waited, and waited and then walked outside to the shop (probably weren’t meant to - but I knew they wouldn’t kick us out) - the walking was good and helped me feel like I was keeping the whole process moving.

From about 10pm the crippling back pain began and we realised labour was only then well established even though I had thought the pain couldn’t get any worse. The baby had started to turn her head for some unknown reason and while she had been perfectly poised for delivery for at least 5 weeks previous, this turning resulted in serious lower back pain. I couldn't walk. The midwife was 100% supportive in helping me with a natural birth as much as possible and suggested a hot bath. I actually couldn’t get into it with the pain and ended up heaped on the ground beside it instead. The best position I found for this phase was kneeling on the floor over the birthing ball, with my husband putting direct pressure on the lower (very lower) back pain area. It was difficult to keep the breathing going but the midwife was great in reminding me - she wasn’t taking any nonsense and just kept saying Breathe Catherine breathe. You really need to hear it as opposed to relying on yourself to do it when you're in that kind of pain, and you need someone to be firm and authoritative – so bear that in mind when you’re preparing with your birthing partner.

I managed to get sick at this point and it was then that I reluctantly agreed to take pethidine, as I was still only 2cm dilated by 10pm. The pethidine didn’t take the pain away entirely but it softened the blow. That was when the magic started and because I was more relaxed, I went from 2cm to 8cm by midnight. Once we got installed in the labour ward I was given a small dose of sintocin to progress the last few cms, and I was making the most of the gas and air. When the time came for pushing, the pressure was unbelievable as the baby worked her way down - it was five contractions and three pushes with each and she was out. I did have to have an episiotomy at the last minute, but I didn’t feel it. It didn't frighten me at the time and I just went with it.

After the delivery early Friday morning, I didn’t sleep really until Saturday - home by Sunday, and since then every day is a learning curve. The stitches were very sore in the first week but daily baths with tea-tree oil and a strict policy of taking it easy helped me through. Now at nearly three weeks I can take a short walk but I realize that I must take the time to let my body recover so as not to hinder its long-term recovery. I am limiting myself to relaxation, breathing and meditation for another three weeks and no rushing back to headstands or ambitious poses that I might think I can get back into, but why would you stretch your body when it is still in self-healing mode?

In other aspects, the breathing helps for the initial stinging pain as herself latches on to a tender breast in the first weeks, and those difficult first bowel movements when you realise that sometimes going to the loo can be far worse than labour and delivery - it’s probably the thoughts mixed with the physical so best to think happy thoughts on the loo!

Having shared our experiences during the YTI Pregnancy Yoga course, and now having experienced the whole thing first hand, it is more apparent to me that every person has a different experience of pregnancy and labour and that really the mental preparation (relaxation, breathing and meditation aids) is probably as important if not more important that the asanas in the pregnancy yoga classes. Overall I found the following worked for me - regular walking at all phases of the pregnancy; daily breathing and meditation (about 20-30mins) and at least 15-20mins asanas - either while gardening or outside or a dedicated indoor session, which wasn't always feasible time-wise or physically. I was basically chopping the tops off the spuds and working in the garden up until the day before labour and I had plenty of strength in my legs, arms and mind - enough to go the distance and enough to go beyond that if necessary. I found the contractions during effacement and dilation of the cervix the most difficult – keep up the breathing and the asanas to maintain your mental and physical strength – endurance is necessary, while the pushing was easy enough (if there was an easy) and I put this down to squatting from the beginning to the end (I was deep squatting up until 36 weeks).

And the prize for all this pregnancy yoga and preparation and investment? Well, I just have to look at Alannah Marie to know that it was all worth it and that I’d do it all again in a heart beat. And I look forward to sharing the experience and helping other pregnant women on their journey through my own pregnancy yoga classes.

Catherine Wilkie is an ecologist based in the midlands, working to restore and rehabilitate degraded wetland, peatland and woodland habitats, both in Ireland and also within the global context. She completed her Sivananda TTC in 2008 and took part in the YTI Yoga pregnancy course in 2013, inspired by her own pregnancy. She loves to write, stand on her head, walk in the woods with new arrival Alannah, and spend time with her husband and their dog Holly in their kitchen garden. She writes about all these things in her blog www.hcottage.blogspot.ie 

Sunday 26 January 2014

A Day in the Life


Run Holly Run!

Inspired by the idea of flooding social media with poetry, I decided to throw my own creation into the rising waters ;) Write what you know the wise ones say, so this one is a reflection of my current days 'bringing up baby'. I hope you enjoy.

A Day in the Life 
(working title)

We awaken
In the dark
Last stars fade
Daylight creeps
Get up stand up wake up sore back
Pull the blinds
Let day begin
Let dog out do her business
Wash my face and watch it fold
Lift the baby
Change the baby
Smile into her smiles
Warmth of joy at being
Mindful princess.

Alannah to play-station now
Radio on classical
Boil the kettle
Feed the dog
Sweep the floor
Do few jobs
Wake the house
Pour the milk
Oats swell up to meet banana
Eat over-looking winter’s garden
Robin’s work is never done
Alannah cries time for feeding
And then she sleeps
Tea for me
And I pretend to be a writer
For half an hour
And work on a novel too old to be called novel.

Sun is shining
When she wakes again
Illuminating cottage kitchen
Change the baby
Happy smiling chatty
Then I feed her
Tiny toes wriggling as she latches on
All casual like
And then she’s not interested
Down on her mat on the floor
And I do a few things more
And then I play with her because she’s bored
Get the keys and lock her up
Lock her up, lock her up
Until heart-breaking cry that only we know
Mammy, Mammy I’m falling - help me!
Holding my hand holding hers
Mother’s best to soothe her
Fall into that darkest space
Where she won’t see me feel me need me
Losing mind to sleep.
And then I pretend to be a writer
Check my email, FB, Twitter
Anticipate the weather
Turning cold and misting sky
A solid roof of grey.

Holly prowls
Time for walkies
Dog leads our circus to the wood
Three musketeers
Together breathing
In the cold
Alannah’s face to heaven
Discovering sounds - ooos aaas
Delivered up to twigs and branching
Beech and towering oaks
Hovering over
Seeing through the canopy now
A tired head falls on my chest
This time peaceful
No telling signs
And I fall into my stride
And I wish that this would never end
This special time
Being mother and best friend
Her cold bare hands in mine
I stare into giant oaks that live
In timeless mystical world.

Holly staying close
Sniffing out woodland clues to
Reddest squirrels
Other musketeers
She looks to tell me with most
Honest of her trickster eyes
We must go back
Home through big open field
For that is where she gets best runs
From over top of hill
Rounding fence and back to me.
And so we go home through big field
Holly reaches for her peak
Run Holly run!
Helicopter ears -
Woosh woosh
Tongue bouncing
Mind rushing
Happiness pulsing
And then we must cross the fence
And Holly waits to go back under
Lead fastened.
Around the bend through castle gates 
Holly pulling us along
Meeting friendly faces
Everybody wants to talk
Or catch the eye of brave a leanbh
Who might gift unto them
Four and a half month baby’s wisdom and the smile
Emperors would bleed for.

Home in gentle raindrops
We walk around the garden
Blackbird following in robin’s steps
I wonder is it time to dig again
Heaving off wellies and coats
Carrying Alannah
Quick change quick feed
She sits and thinks in bouncy chair
Time maybe for another little sleep
I look to evening sky to say
Prize-winning story comes tomorrow
But I will think on it today.

Yogi salutes the sun, and Ted ;) 
yogi bears
Coffee time for me now
Savour last forbidden drops
Hope she sleeps until
Coffee has been drunk
And mother’s milk is cleansed
And then she wakes all smiles again
And then it’s one more time upon the mat
Watching me salute the sun
And I might contemplate a run
As skirts and leggings become less fun

Blinds pulled now
January’s sun is set
Heating on ‘til fire is lit
Dinner preparation at its get
And he asks, what would you like?
And I say, oh I don’t mind
And he says no - what would you like?
And that is when I must decide
And I watch as spice man cometh
And daily bread begins to fold
Aromas revealed
Cinnamon, fennel, cumin, cloves
And I am hungrier than ever I was.

Eating now
Silence mostly
She watches on
From buggy first and then my knee
And I don’t know what she sees or
What she thinks
This and every time.
Eating done
Coffee for him green tea for me
Baby feeds and cries until
Nighttime is too heavy to hold
And she is tumbled down
To summoning sleep

Our time now
We sit and watch until
Tiredness kicks in
My turn now to fight the sleep
One more time she drinks
Half awake then back to sleep
A tender hook in
Rudolph pajamas too cute for her not to wear
This late in January.

Mother lies beside
Trusting bundle of the softest sighs
Wondering
What was it like before she began?
Doors open and close
As he lets Holly out
Sound of his toothbrush
Before we wrap together
Musing to the weather
Tired comfort whispers
Glad for
Silences between
Precious in absentia dramatic
That everything is as it is.

And then it happens
At a time
To us unknown
Only silence of sleeping
For there is no-one now to listen
Three have journeyed past the hearing
Surrendering helplessly unto
Heavy weight of day and night
We fall our separate ways
Back into darkness of light
Back to where it all began
To where it all begins again
For this is all there is
We three are one
Of billions
One

This is all there is.


Catherine Wilkie
26/01/2014

Saturday 18 January 2014

The cookie crumbled

It's a baking kind of a day. Wet and misty on the outside, warm and cosy inside. Walk is done - splashing through the ankle deep mud and wet sand and grit as we battled with the rush of football folk to get to the woods beyond the soccer pitch. Medals should go to all those children - all seemingly oblivious to the rain - running aound after a leather ball to a single line crowd of martyresque parents. It's the dads mostly - on the sideline that is. I can only imagine they've been hunted by the females as they grapple with preparing for the onset of mud shirts and clay gathering studded buds that will arrive at kitchen doors later in the afternoon. 

We're saved that yet though - the football that is, and the all sorts of organised sporting activities that dedicated parents must taxi children to and from. With Holly it's just chaotic football and stick throwing so that's adaptable, and with Alannah we have yet to move beyond the point of just enjoying the looking on from safety of warm sling to the getting on on the act itself. But I can see her in there with the worst and the best of them, caked in mud after football on Saturday afternoons under the watchful eye of the Oaks of Charleville. 

Standing dead, but still standing ;) 
And so, what does one do on a baking day? Well eat of course ;)  After a month of testing and tasting the delightful seasonal cakes of others all across the midlands of Ireland, we are back to harvesting the fruits of own our labour in the Holly Cottage kitchen. The man has mastered the bread-making so I decided to put a twist on the usual banana flavoured sweet stock that we tend to store in the cupboard. Today is cookie day. Note to readers - I seem to have difficulty with the americanisation of buns and biscuits, aka cupcakes (or even muffins) and cookies. When did a bun become a cupcake? And has no-one spotted the connection between over-sized buns (muffins) and muffin-tops? Sorry - self confessed traditionalist when it comes to the baking ;) But anyway, these 'bakes' below qualify as cookies and biscuits depending on what result Google throws back at you...

Cold and misty on the outside,
warm and crunchy on the inside ;) 
And so, today's sweet treat is banana flavoured oatcake cookies. By the way - don't fool yourself that just because there's oats in it, that it's (a) healthy and (b) that it's not devilishly sweet and tasty and full of plenty of good carbs and fats and vitamins and the like! Herewith the ingredients....

Oat-Banana Crunch Cookies: cream 2tbsps butter with half a cup of brown sugar, add in 1 egg (beaten), 1/2 teasp vanilla extract and 1 very ripe (and very mashed) banana - and blend. Now, stir in 2 cups of oats, 1 cup wholemeal flower, 1 teasp baking powder, 1 teas bread soda, 1/2 teasp salt and 1/2 teasp cinnamon. I also added in four chopped walnuts for the extra healthy super food fats ;) All is stirred up together - add a drop of milk if too dry - and then spoon contents onto greased baking tray and cook at 175 deg for 15mins. Cooking time depends on whether you used teaspoons or tablespoons to shape your cookies, so adapt. When we tasted them with strong hot coffee they were just right but I do feel that the recipe has room to evolve. The man suggested using golden syrup - I'm not sure but no harm in trying. The cookie was delicious with a dollop of natural yogurt, and I''m sure would go just right with vanilla or banana ice-cream for a more calorific treat. Or maybe even a biscuit....


Tuesday 7 January 2014

What a good year for the roses

Is it too late for looking back on 2013? Probably for most. But not for me. The year lingered on as Christmas lingered and there was no rush to hang up the boots of 2013. Today, however, was the day that we hung down the Christmas lights, packed the tree away and took the last of the cards off the shelves and windows - the last of the 'welcome Alannah' baby cards too. The end of an era. And so today we finally put 2013 to rest. 

All in all, an exciting year. Anticipation and expectation mounted through the cold and painful months of January, February and March and finally Easter came and brought some warmth and sunshine to the Holly Cottage. In May we went tripping around the north east of Spain - Catalonian dreaming - sweet. All that seafood and Costa Brava sunshine, reminding me of what summers used to be like in Ireland before the country seemed to become permanently shrouded in grey and mist. 

Things were well on their way then in terms of baby growth but it was really only in June that people started to suspect that I was either going too heavy on the scones at tea time or that I actually really was expecting the pitter patter of tiny feet. I did have my own share of scones too mind ;) But I left them guessing for as long as I could - it was easily in the sixth month before people got brave enough to ask, and me assured enough to concur with their suspicions. It was easier to enjoy the sickness and the excitement in private for a while, but great to share when the right time came. And so uplifting to have the encouragement and support lavished on me from all quarters. Thanks to all. 

A rose for all seasons
The summer was beautiful - glorious. So rewarding to us poor Irish natives who had borne the weight of all that damp and heaviness since June 2008. We had a couple of weeks of BBQ bliss and long languorous evenings watching the sun as it barely left our view and dipped behind the majestic beech trees in the north west before returning to us in the east only a couple of hours later. Spectacular red sunsets and warm golden sunrises. A greater gift couldn't be asked for or dreamt of. There was a run on ice creams in the country. More of it I say ;) Seriously though - it felt just like the summers of childhood did, those days spent strolling around bee and butterfly busy fields and time at the beach when you never even dreamt of a phrase such as 'that feckin' water is freezing!'. Bliss indeed. 

And then September came. And ye know all about what happened next ;) What a beautiful autumn - warm and sunny most days with the occasional torrential downpour that led to the us calling the woods the 'rainforest' at times. All that walking and fresh air combined with bringing up baby. Flash forward four months to the day yesterday and she is shouting us orders and (still) dictating the pace in the Holly Cottage. I am glad she came just as the summer was fading as I'm not sure I would have accepted the restricted movement so easily when there was work to be done outside, drills to be weeded and seeds to be sown. No, I am certain that she arrived at just the right time - time enough to admire the view of the garden from the sunlit kitchen as we got to know each other, and time enough to reap the harvest of the summer sown at leisure, and time enough to walk in the lovely autumn air around the path that circles the bountiful vegetable patch. 

The darkest days have come and gone now and we have been lucky to share some warm and toasty days by the fire with friends and family, feasting on the fruits of 2013 and relishing in the memories brought to life by tastes and fragrances packed into jars and bottles especially for the festive season. Jams, relishes and chutneys are the most welcome at these times, along with the stores of tomatoes that make perfect heart warming winter soups. All in all it was the simple pleasures that made the winter and its Christmas for me - enjoying the delicious aroma and taste of good coffee and chocolate again (after nine months of nauseating at their prospect), sharing in the wonder of Alannah with my beloved, the miles walked in the woods, the storms enjoyed and passed, the antics of the bold Holly, the visitors from the UK and Germany, the trips to Mornington, Cappaduff and Cork and the visitors from Galway. 

Last of the summer roses
For sure, 2013 was one to remember. But let's park it there. For the new year has just begun and the dust of last year is now brushed away along with the wrapping and packaging that came with Christmas cheer. Time to move on, and time to look forward. Who knows what will happen in terms of seasons, travel, love and laughter, garden, walking, writing, music, friendships, family and the indomitable Holly. I look forward to sharing the stories as we walk and as they unfold. And just as last years sunshine brought pale pinks and blushing reds to the walls of the Holly Cottage let us have three cheers for a very fantastic and preciously good year for the roses. Thanks to Elvis Costello for the song in my head - Happy 2014!