Karate While Pregnant or "Knocked Up, Not Knocked Out!"

I am going to my first sparring class since last January.  At the time I had just earned my green belt, but I usually kept up pretty well. That night, however, my sparring partner expressed some concern.  As a brown belt, he always fought much better than me, but that night he was kicking my behind!  I was in the process of explaining that I felt fine, just tired, when my friend, Big Frank, called from across the floor, “I bet she’s pregnant!”

Mr. Karate and I had been “trying” for less than a month, so Frank’s teasing comment triggered my first suspicion that we had succeeded.  After all, who gets knocked up on the first try?!  Me.  The next morning I sat on the bathroom floor staring in shock at the stick; two pink lines stared back at me.  

My goal from the start was to continue training through the pregnancy.  I wanted to make sure both the baby and I stayed safe, so I made an appointment with my doctor.  She assured me that, as long as I listened to my body, it was safe for me to do anything I was doing before got pregnant.  Her advice:

• Drink plenty of water to support Baby’s growth and environment.
• Be very careful while stretching, as muscles, ligaments, and tendons become looser during pregnancy.
• Try to keep a heart rate of 140 or less to lower the risk of passing out.

Once I had her blessing, I jumped right back in!  Sort of.  I did experience a couple of challenges.  Morning sickness was, blessedly, not problematic for me on the whole, but I did find out quickly why “burpies” are so named.   My tailbone hurt almost right away, and I felt like I’d already run a marathon by the end of the day, so I struggled motivate myself to get to class.

Second trimester solved that problem.  My ability to effectively participate in all drills, forms, and combos returned with my energy.  Then third trimester hit.  I had separation of the rectus abdominus, so I couldn’t do any core or ab work.  Plantar fasciitis crippled my left foot.  My energy dropped back down to nothing, and I was just plain huge!  However, I had learned that consistent exercise could shorten labor to ten hours or less (it totally didn’t work for me, but more on that in a different post), so I dragged my gigantic butt to the dojo as often as I could.

My due date came and went, and I read and attempted the advice from every old wives’ tale I could find to start labor.  Nothing worked until I broke my water doing a kicking drill in karate.  I should have known!  I was proud of myself, though.  I can now brag that I did karate until the day I went into labor!

Did you train while you were pregnant?  How did you do?  Leave me a comment below, and don’t forget to subscribe!