Pregnancy amplifies everything. Smell becomes overwhelming in the first trimester. Sound feels louder. Touch becomes either desperately needed or completely unbearable depending on the day and the trimester. The nervous system is already working harder than usual processing the physical changes, the hormonal shifts, the emotional weight of becoming a parent, and it has fewer resources left for filtering the external world.

This is why so many pregnant people describe feeling overstimulated in ways they never did before. The capacity that usually runs quietly in the background; the ability to filter, to tune out, to not take everything in - is compromised. Because the body is using that energy for something else.

Pregnancy changes the body's relationship to movement in ways that are profound, constant, and not always predictable. Your centre of gravity shifts. The ligaments loosen! The hormonal processes can effect every joint in the body, not just the ones you're using. The diaphragm is compressed. The cardiovascular system is working harder than usual just to sustain the baseline. Balance changes. Energy is unreliable. What felt accessible last week may not feel accessible today.

A consistent breathwork practice in pregnancy does something specific: it trains your nervous system to regulate. Not to avoid stress (not possible) but to move through it and return to baseline more efficiently. And your capacity to spike and return, to feel overwhelmed and come back? That is exactly what labor will ask of you. Every contraction is a wave your nervous system needs to meet and move through. What I wish everyone knew: the woman who has been practicing regulation for months arrives at that experience MUCH differently than the one who hasn't.

Santosha is often translated simply as contentment. But in the context of pregnancy and in the context of modern life, modern bodies, and the particular cruelty of social media… it's something far more specific and far more necessary:

The practice of releasing the gap between how things are and how you think they should be.

Not toxic positivity. Not pretending everything is fine when it isn't. Not forcing gratitude when what you actually feel is nauseous, terrified, or quietly grieving parts of your former self. Santosha is subtler than that. It's the practice of meeting this moment, the specific, imperfect, uncomfortable, occasionally beautiful moment, without the additional weight of how it was supposed to be different.

Brahmacharya is the practice of learning what drains you, what restores you, and how to consciously redirect your energy toward what actually matters. It's about becoming so attuned to your own resources that you stop leaking energy unconsciously through things like people pleasing, overcommitting, scrolling, saying yes when your body is screaming no. Sound familiar? You can start making deliberate choices about where your vitality goes.

I think there’s a general misunderstanding between many moms-to-be and their providers that could be overcome with good communication. I had a great team that wanted to position my delivery and the baby for our best chance at success and I believe that. I could advocate for myself, ask questions, and gain clarity on the logic and process.

Here’s the thing. If I felt good in my first trimester, I somehow felt even better in my second. The reassurance of every passing week added to my stability, joy, energy. I got out in the sun more and more days and felt strong and happy to venture out. I didn’t really turn down any invites these months but I sure did sleep and rest a lot.

I was extremely fortunate to have a fantastic first trimester. I remember some headaches and being tired, but nothing out of the norm. I kept waiting for something really bad to happen, or for me to be nonstop sick or unable to do certain things, but if anything, I felt very clearheaded, serene, alive, very calm, peaceful and collected. It was kind of a welcome change from my usual, and I understand why some women absolutely love being pregnant.

After a while, I realized that all of the positive affirmations were actually making me spiral in the other direction. I found this in yoga to be true as well - sometimes going as extreme as possible pushes me too far and as a human, I need to dial it back to be rational and to manifest just the right amount and not overdo it. I was lucky to have a strong partner that would listen to me/let me bitch/hear me out, and as soon as I vented, I often felt better. So we sat. We watched. We waited. We prayed. I kept working and kept the minutes, hours, days added together without further incident. I was manifesting the little baby that could.

The nuts and bolts of this process are all too obvious to anyone that has been through it before and pretty self-explanatory even if you haven’t. The cycle that you may not realize that you end up on however is the ups and downs of fingers crossed, highs and lows, and waiting for a result that continually doesn’t come. The what if, the not drinking, the casual feeling that maybe you’re sore or tired or swollen or cranky because it happened! But it didn’t. I don’t have the exact count anymore but I would guess that it was maybe two full years of month after month on that roller coaster before we decided that it wasn’t going to happen. Possibly impossible.