Ask yourself, where is your ujjayi breath?

I went to yoga this weekend for the first time since our miscarriage in March.

It was nice to get back into it, but I'm not going to lie. It was HARD! I know that for about a month, I've done nothing physical except for walk the dogs (and cry - can't this be considered an ab workout, sometimes?). Oh, and drag my butt to work.

Had I been thinking a little harder, perhaps I should have taken a gentler class instead of my regular Ashtanga class. Obviously, I wasn't. So, on about the 50th sun salutation, I caved and curled into child's pose for a much needed rest.

Image source.

I just didn't realize how difficult a miscarriage would be on my body. Granted, I didn't miscarry until my 13th week of pregnancy, but our baby was only 8 weeks along (we found out at 12 weeks that he had stopped growing around week 8).

Nastily, mother nature decided that my hormones would stay elevated, so I still had pregnancy symptoms. Although most of them were mild, the fatigue was not. I felt like I was dragging my butt around up until the 12th week when we found out the awful news. And then I was dragging my butt around for a different reason, because fatigue can be a symptom of grief.

Aside from the fatigue, my lower back is killing me. I don't know if this is normal or not. I'm going to ask my doctor next time I see her. All I know is that when I walk for any extended period of time, my lower back ends up radiating pain. And my uterus starts cramping up too, because apparently it takes about 6 weeks to return back to its normal pre-pregnancy size. Now that I think about it, the back pain might be related to the uterus shrinking... Hmmmmmmm...

Miscarriage, like pregnancy, is different for everyone. So what I feel, you may not feel. Or you may feel something completely different. How helpful is that?

All I know, is we should take care of ourselves. Listen to your body. If it hurts or you're feeling like you need a break, slip into child's pose and take a break. Hey, this works if you're at the office too. And it's okay to shed a tear while you're at it.