Just Keep Swimming

Shortly after we found out we were expecting, Drew and I joined a gym.  I have no idea why the timing worked out that way and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person so confused as to spend money on a membership to a gym while embarking on my first pregnancy, but the food in the cafe was good and the machines were so new and shiny and there was a water slide.  

Unfortunately water slides are discouraged during pregnancy... but swimming is highly encouraged!  That became my exercise of choice.  Maybe it's the low-impact, or the cool temperature, or the fact that gravity isn't pushing a growing baby into the rest of my organs, but being in the pool feels great.  As an added bonus, the bigger I get the more buoyant I become, so my swimming is actually easier and faster than it was in the beginning.  I swim for about 30 minutes two or three times a week.  I admit, I was feeling pretty proud of myself for just having the energy to get out of bed in the morning.  Then, I met a woman swimming in the lane next to me who noticed I was pregnant. 

"How far along?  I'm three weeks from my due date!" she said.

I looked down and realized she was probably one good butterfly stroke away from going into labor in the pool, and as she told me about swimming an hour a day, my pride faded.

Then, she told me this was her seventh.  Pride restored!  She's obviously a professional by now, on the same level as the women who compete in the Pregnant Olympics, and for all I know she could've been on performance-enhancing drugs.  Those prenatal vitamins consist of a cocktail of substances with all sorts of interesting side-effects.   I could develop fins and gills in the next few months too. 

Either way, I'm proud to say our gym membership is not going to waste.  And they have childcare, so eventually I'll be able to take advantage of that water slide.