There’s a girl I see jogging most mornings on my way into work, and it is now obvious that she’s pregnant. I’m a terrible judge of things like this, but I would guess she’s around 6 months along. She’s really thin, so maybe she’s showing early, though, and could be earlier in her pregnancy. Or maybe she’s how I was, not showing until pretty late, and is even farther along. I have no idea. All women show and carry their pregnancies differently, so for the sake of this post let’s just say she’s 6ish months pregnant.
Now why did I entitle this one “Impressive”, you may be wondering? Well here’s the thing. Assuming this girl (girl? woman? i never know which to use. is there an age cut-off where you no longer call a girl a girl, but a woman? is it offensive to a younger female to call her a woman if she prefers girl? lady? whatever, i’ll stick with girl for now. she appears to be maybe my age, so we’ll say 30ish. lots of “ish”es here today) is near the end of her second trimester, if not even into her third, to me jogging every morning is certainly impressive.
When I got pregnant with D I was fully planning on continuing my usual workout routine as far into my pregnancy as possible. And this included jogging. For although I was by no means an avid runner at the time, I did try to jog whenever possible (weather permitting, duh), because I really do think it is one of the best ways to stay in shape. Well things happened, plans changed, and my exercise took a back seat to simply being pregnant. And I mean a way back seat. Like if we were in a stretch limo, exercise would have been all the way in that far back area, past the bar and tvs, so far back it could barely hear the conversation.
For some reason, however, I got it into my head to try jogging again during the spring that I was pregnant. The weather had started getting nice again, and I felt like I needed to do something. Why that something took the form of a jog after months of doing basically zero exercise, let alone running, I have no idea. I tend to get these “great ideas” in my head from time to time that really end up being just plain dumb and painful. Yet I rarely learn my lesson and keep trying them.
Well this, indeed, was a dumb one. I was about 4-5 months pregnant at the time and not really showing, but I could definitely feel D and all the pressure she was putting on my internal organs in there. Especially my bladder. I shit you not – I took 3 steps of that jog and felt like I was instantly going to wet my pants. Oh what the hell?? I thought. And of course I was jogging in a park near my office, having decided to workout after work that day instead of heading out from home. Splendid. So not only was I going to pee my pants, but I was going to have to go back into my office building with soiled draws (you know, ghetto for drawers, pants, trousers. not the verb like something an artist does. duh). You must be kidding me. Thinking it may have just been a fluke and my body simply needed to get used to jogging with extra weight, I tried again. Same result – a few steps and the feeling of impending and uncontrollable urination was back. Ok, that’s enough, I’ll walk the rest of the route here, thankyouverymuch. It at least counts as some exercise, and I won’t have to go back into my office sporting soggy bottom.
So that’s why I say this girl jogging each morning while this much pregnant is impressive. I tried it once, for about 10 seconds, and failed miserably. Obviously many, many women run while they’re pregnant, and a lot of them run the entire time with ease. I, however, was not one of them. Maybe next time I’ll try a little harder to be able to run farther into my pregnancy. Or maybe I’ll just skip it again and find an alternative, saying it’s all in the name of keeping my undies dry.