baby showers

Here are a few pictures of our second (aren't we spoiled?!) baby shower. Being from Holland I wasn't really used to this shower thing; wedding shower, baby shower..... Where I'm from you don't give gifts untill the baby is born but here in the States they do. A month or two before the baby is due a friend organises a party for everyone to come and shower the expecting parents with gifts. The tought behind it is to help the new parents to get the things they need.

Now that I've experienced it I have to say that it's a really fabulous tradition. As a first time parent it can get overwhelming to figure out what one needs. What clue do we have? The baby shower took care of all that anxiety and it's so wonderful to feel all the support from the community around us.

My first baby shower was organised by my dear friend Brenna. It was a shower for me only with only girls attending. Even baby sons and male dogs weren't allowed in. It was an intimate setting at Brenna's home and I was absolutely touched to see my close friends gathered together and mainly by them sharing in my happiness I feel about our soon to be born baby. I was very touched by all of their generosity, friendship and care.

The second baby shower was organised by our friend Ross who invited the entire Yoga community here in Mountain View. This time it was for everyone, men and women alike. I was grateful for that because I'm good at standing in front of a group as a teacher but being the center of attention privately is another story.....I was very happy to have Adarsh by my side to receive the blessings together. Below you can see the pictures of the happening, again it was overwhelming to have so many people come and share in our joy and to shower us with so many generous gifts. Adarsh and I are overwhelmed by the amount of gifts and by the sweetness and love everyone has given us throughout our pregnancy. We feel very blessed and very grateful and can't wait to show off our little man :-)

Challenges

I thought I'd write down a few notes on what is going on for me in my Yoga practice at the moment. I've been having some physical challenges with an instabil pelvis which is causing me pain in my left back/bum/leg. Walking is painful and pretty much everything else needs to be done with a lot of attention to have as little pain as possible. I'm 7.5 months pregnant, apparently it's a common thing....

So every day I am religiously doing the exercises the physio therapist gave me in the hope it will get better soon. I had stopped my Asana practice for a week because I was told that my flexibility is creating the problem and stretching the muscles makes it worse. Truly, it just wasn't happening. This morning I couldn't help myself and thought I'd give it a try and see what happens when I do SuryaNamaskar A. Boy oh boy, that's where my internal challenge woke up brightly..... My Asana Yoga practice had been a challenge since the beginning of my pregnancy but today I was incapable of doing anything, my body resisting in many ways. It has been frustrating to hear all the stories about Ashtangis who can keep up their practice during pregnancy without any problems. They drop back in backbends, practice whatever series and stay strong throughout. Being a teacher (and admittedly having quite an ego) you want to be one of those stories, a strong example. Especially after all those years of practice I never doubted that's how it would be for me. But here I am, 7 months pregnant with a body that is resisting strongly, not capable of even doing a Sun-salutation. For this physically ambitious lady that is a tough nut to crack so a big cry came out. After a good stint of waterflowings I soon realised that this is one of the first lessons towards motherhood; accepting what is going on, a change in priorities, I am not in control. At the same time I also realised that this is a phase and like everything else in life it's temporary. Slowly I am getting to the point that for now my Yoga practice is: acceptance and surrender.

And so I step on that mat and observe what is there, taking one breath after the other. A Yoga practice indeed.

Heleen

proud and handsome dad

This picture was taken at a Yoga party and isn't our baby going to be mega cute with a handsome dad like that?! You can see it makes me very happy....

Baby boy is growing steadily, his little head is down already and my midwives believe he will stay this way till he's ready to pop out (which is approaching soon now....).