Unlocking the Transformative Power of Yoga in Pregnancy, Labor, and Postpartum Recovery with Devin Garcia

What if I told you that yoga could not only help you manage the physical and emotional challenges of pregnancy, but also transform your labor experience and enhance postpartum recovery? Our guest, Devin Garcia, a seasoned yoga and flexibility instructor and a resilient mother, is here to unravel the transformative power of yoga during the maternal journey. She shares her own experience with yoga during pregnancy and labor, including how she didn't just survive but thrived through an intense induction and labor process, largely thanks to her yoga practice.

But the journey doesn't end at childbirth. Exploring the postpartum period, Devin highlights the role of yoga in recovery, focusing on the often-neglected yet crucial lower abdominal muscles. Her insights into the interconnectedness of the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles shed light on a holistic approach to postpartum recovery. Amidst the trials of motherhood, Devin emphasizes the importance of integrating personal exercises into daily life, even with the time constraints of being a new mom. 

As we wrap up our conversation, we dive into the trials and triumphs of Devin's experiences in motherhood. From balancing her career with child-rearing to encouraging independent play for her child, Devin's story is one of resilience and strength. She emphasizes managing pregnancy expectations and shares her valuable resource, 'Flexibility Secrets,' which offers insights into the journey of flexibility. Don't miss out on this extraordinary conversation with Devin Garcia, where she illuminates the myriad ways yoga can support you during pregnancy, labor, and beyond.

To connect with Devin, go to stretchloveyoga.com

In my Empowered Hospital Birth Program I will help you

☑️identify the source of anxiety you have surrounding hospital birth. 

☑️fill in knowledge gaps to make sure that you are fully informed and confident. 

☑️learn key phrases so you can better communicate with your medical team. 

☑️emotionally process your fears so that they don’t hold power over you

Go to kellyhof.com/empowered to book a free 30 minute birth vision call.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Hello, Today I have with me Devin Garcia. Devin is a certified yoga and flexibility instructor. Devin is a mother and is going to share her birth story and how yoga factored into her pregnancy and delivery. To connect with Devin, you can go to stretchloveyogacom. Devin. Welcome and thank you for joining me. Thanks so much for having me. I loved doing yoga when I was pregnant and I'm really excited to hear how that affected your pregnancy and delivery and what advice you might have for moms that are on that pathway right now.

Speaker 2: 1:05

All right, sounds great, okay. So when I was pregnant, I tried to continue with my yoga practice as much as possible, but you know you have to manage expectations you can't always do the same things you want to do and maybe prioritize what your body needs. So I'm a very flexible person and doing stuff like a chin stand or like really deep back bends maybe was not the thing to do during pregnancy. So I'm focused more on connecting to my core and opening hips, which my hips are very open anyways but you know, things get tighter when you're pregnant and your body feels a little bit foreign sometimes. So I also practiced my breathing a lot, which was super important, I think. And towards the end of my pregnancy I focused a lot on cat cow movements because that really helped to get the baby into a good position for labor and luckily for me, she was in the perfect position and I was told that it would be bastard if I was induced around 37 weeks. So I went in and they gave me the pitocin and took about a little bit over 12 hours, which was, I think, pretty good, but you know, some people might have wanted it quicker than that. But when I went in I also was keeping that same mindset of managing expectations, because I really had no idea how it was going to go and my body is a little bit different because I couldn't feel any of the contractions for a really long time. So I was like, oh, this is easy, like I don't know what's going on. And they had the monitor that was showing the contractions and my midwives were like you don't feel that? And I was like Nope. So I kind of didn't have a really good my body connection to the contractions, to be honest. And before, like around 20, 23 weeks I think, they found that I had ovarian cyst and they told me it wasn't any big deal, it was like to do with hormones but, as I'm sure anybody could imagine, that was a little bit scary news. But they didn't tell me what they were going to do about it or anything. So I just kind of tried to put it out of my mind because I couldn't feel it at all. It wasn't painful, thankfully.

Speaker 2: 3:47

So then when I was in labor, going back to that, I had an OB and I had midwives and the OB kind of wanted to. He felt like it was taking too long the whole induction process. So I was really glad I had midwives, because they were advocating for me and they were saying that everything was going great. And he kind of mentioned to them that he wanted to do a C-section and then also get the cyst out at the same time. But they told him that I really didn't want that. So I was really grateful that they were advocating for me and I didn't know that his conversation was going on, because I'm sure that would have stressed me out. And then, so I don't know what the units are that they use for the ptotosin, but he said it goes up to 20. And towards the end he just told them to put it even higher. So it went to like I think he said 22 or 24, whatever that was.

Speaker 2: 4:40

And then that's when I started to feel things and it went from like zero to 100. And he was like what's going on? And then at that point I was like, hi, you know what, let me give myself an hour and see how I can handle this. And after an hour I couldn't even keep up with my yoga breathing and I was just tensing up and everything I'd read that was like tensing up makes everything worse. So I was like, well, I can't do this.

Speaker 2: 5:06

I got the epidural and that helped immediately. So that was really great, even though I wanted to do it unmedicated. So I had this little voice in my head that was like, oh, this is going to be kind of a failure on your part. Why can't you do this? People have done this for centuries. But then I was changing my mind to that as I was going and I was like you know what, if this feeling is going to keep going for hours, I can't do that. So I have to be kind to my thoughts. And oh yeah, and they had broke my water before I had the epidural and I thought that felt hilarious, like a tsunami was coming out of me and every time I laughed it felt like more was coming up. So that felt that was really a light hearted moment for me and my husband. And then, luckily, it was pretty quick.

Speaker 2: 6:00

After that I had the epidural and I think it was maybe a half an hour. They checked me and I was 10 centimeters and they told me all right, you could do a few practice pushes. And I was like, okay, tell me what to do, because I'm yoga brained. Just tell me the muscles to engage or do this or that and they kind of told me to just push, like you had to go to the bathroom and I was like, oh, okay, but it didn't sound very fun to me and they had my legs up by my ears basically. So I was like thank you, yoga, for making me flexible enough for this. And then the breathing and and the pushing went really really well and quick. I think it was like about 15 minutes and I think that the breathing that I know from yoga really helped.

Speaker 2: 6:52

And then my daughter was here. Suddenly it was three people in our family all of a sudden and then it was really sweet. But she, she had to go to the NICU because she had to go on a little CPAP machine. She kind of sounded like a kitten purring when she was born and we thought it was so cute. But the midwives were like, no, it's, it's not a huge deal, so don't freak out, but you know she shouldn't be breathing like that.

Speaker 2: 7:19

So they took her to the NICU and of course the after birth your hormones are like going crazy. So I was just like sobbing but my husband got to go with her and my my right leg was so frozen from the epidural. Other parts I could start feeling. But my right leg was like it was there, but it felt like it wasn't a part of me. I couldn't move it or anything. So they told me I had to wait until I could have some feeling in my leg to go to the NICU. So I was really not happy about that. But as soon as, like the second, I felt anything, I was like get me over there. And so I went over, they put me in a wheelchair and then my head was like well, if I'm going to be in a wheelchair anyways, why couldn't they let me go before?

Speaker 2: 8:10

But anyways, I got to see her and then I was kind of a little bit annoyed about having to be induced in the first place, because I felt like if she got to stay in as long as she would have needed to, then maybe she wouldn't have had to go on the CPAP. But then they found out that she was getting jaundice. So I was like, oh well, I guess it all worked out anyways, because it would have sucked to go home and then come back and have to go in the little UV machine. So she was on that for one night and then she had better bilirubin numbers and then we got to go home. Well, my husband had to go home because it was still COVID restrictions and then I got to stay an extra night and then I got to go home after that extra day with her.

Speaker 2: 9:01

And then when we got home, we were so relieved. And then we were also like, oh my god, what do we do now? At the hospital, especially in the NICU, you have these amazing nurses who are watching your baby when you're also trying to recover and you know they're not coming home with you. But you're also like, oh my god, what do I do without? And then we eventually figured it out. We had to ask a lot of questions about breastfeeding and luckily I was able to do that exclusively, and we're only just now when my daughter's going to be two years old super soon we're only just now finishing our breastfeeding journey. So thankfully that really worked out. I personally didn't really love breastfeeding, but I know she really did, so I kept up with it.

Speaker 2: 9:52

And then about I guess it was when she was around seven months old the OB told me that he could remove the cyst because it was still there, because he was hoping that it would go away when the pregnancy hormones were gone, but it didn't. It was like six centimeters, which he said was really big, and thankfully this whole time I didn't feel it. That was really great, because I've heard it can be very painful. So I went in to have like a day surgery and that was the first time we had to leave our daughter because my husband went with me and so that was a little bit tough. And then I went in and they did like three tiny little incisions One was my belly button, one was to the left of the belly button and one was right underneath the belly button. They were all like one centimeter or smaller incisions and they got the cyst out just fine. But I felt like like my guts were going to fall out for a couple of days and I was just like man people who have C-sections are lawyers because their incisions are way bigger than this and I feel like my guts are going to fall out. But yeah, then the healing was pretty quick and easy and I was thankful to get that out. I mean, I think it was because of pregnancy hormones. They didn't know 100% why it was there, but I'm glad they found it and got it out.

Speaker 2: 11:17

And then yoga through the whole thing was really helpful with managing expectations and breathing. And then in the postpartum period to me, those first six weeks I barely even remember it it was a whirlwind. It's crazy how you forget some stuff. And when I was cleared to start exercising again, I definitely wasn't getting into crazy stuff like the splits or handstands or stuff like that, even though a little tiny piece of my heart wanted to, because that stuff is kind of exciting and fun. I knew that I needed to prioritize what my body needed. So breastfeeding your shoulders are forward. You're kind of hunched over all day. So definitely some chest opening and shoulder stretches were super important and I didn't do any clanks or anything.

Speaker 2: 12:07

I really am not about that bounce back culture. I don't think it should be a thing. Because you have a baby, your body has changed forever and that's not to say you can't go back to being really strong or doing amazing fun things, but it's part of your DNA now that you've had a child. So let's just throw it that bounce back culture and move forward. So I wasn't about to do any planks or crunches or sit-ups or anything crazy like that.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Because your body has been through so much, you need to be a little bit kind to it and you need to connect again to your core. So those things are going to really help you connect to the deep internal core. So I did catcows again a little bit and I did a little bit of hip work because I was personally sitting on the couch like all day long. I felt napped, trapped all the time, which is totally a thing. If you haven't had your baby yet you're going to figure that out you get trapped under your baby and if your baby is anything like mine, sleep is sacred. She was really tough. She's only just now getting a little bit better with sleep. So if they fall asleep on you in a weird position, you're like frozen there because you're like I'm not going to interrupt.

Speaker 2: 13:32

The stuff I knew from flexibility and yoga really helped with opening up those tight areas that inevitably get tight from caring for your baby and you kind of get wrapped up in just caring for the baby and kind of forget about caring for yourself. So it's really important, even if you only have like five minutes when the baby is playing on his or her play mat or doing tummy time, I always thought of that as like baby's exercise and I could do my exercise at the same time. So once again you might not be able to do an hour. You can't go to a studio and go by their schedule. If you can only practice in front of the TV, then that's beautiful, that's fine. Don't let anybody make you feel judged about that.

Speaker 1: 14:22

I feel like you just spoke my truth in all of this. First of all, I couldn't find my core once I had my first and it continued, I feel like, through my second pregnancy and beyond. I just there was no mind-body connection with my core and, like you said, I was shocked. I mean I kind of knew, but I was. It was a shock for me to realize that those crunches and everything aren't doing anything, that there's small movements, like you said, the cat cow. I was just like trying to feel that in my body and never realized back then that those small movements are really getting back in touch with that lower core where your pelvic floor is controlled.

Speaker 2: 15:04

Yeah, it's kind of like building a foundation. You know, if you're doing crunches but you're not engaging the lower core, it's like you're doing a little bit but you're not getting the full benefit of the action. So even just that tailbone movement, if you just think of the tailbone in your cat cow when you're doing core work, you want to think of almost being in that cat position, so that your tailbone is like coming towards the front of your body, so you're engaging the lower part of your abdomen. That was really hard to find for some people.

Speaker 1: 15:39

Yeah, I was shocked and I also really identify with what you were saying after you had that surgery, like your guts were spilling out, because I and this is kind of random, but I had my appendix out when I was in my twenties, I think I was 21 and I felt like my guts were spilling out and I was like, oh my gosh, how do people have C-sections?

Speaker 1: 15:58

But I think that was the beginning of where I felt like I could no longer really feel my core, you know, because that disruption to all the muscles down there is just really jarring and even if it's a small incision, you're just so accustomed to having all of those muscles work and so every insult just makes it harder and harder to get reengaged with your core, which that ties in with so many things, with your pelvic floor, and I don't know that everybody realizes that those lower muscles and I mean the ones like right above your pubic bone, really are tied in with your pelvic floor and those are the muscles down below where you're holding in your urine, you're holding in your uterus, you're holding in everything, and that's where women get the dribbles when they sneeze and all that stuff. It's easy to try to think of the kegels that everybody talks about.

Speaker 2: 18:37

Yeah, and you know I don't think it's talked about well enough because you think just like lockdown. You know Nobody talks about that full range of motion that you should work towards.

Speaker 1: 18:49

Right, it's not just about the kegels, it's. I find that I do a lot better when I'm just really focusing on those core muscles. It's like it almost engages the pelvic floor without thinking about it.

Speaker 2: 19:00

Yeah, and actually I did a workshop recently on the pelvic floor and the movement of sitting down and standing up. If you think about your pelvis it's kind of similar to that cat cow movement and that naturally engages the pelvic floor and nobody thinks about that. But when you don't have any big issue with your pelvic floor, doing that really helps to engage it without you even knowing so. Then when you think of, oh, the kegels that people talk about really hold your pee and sort of movement, then that kind of almost makes the muscles tight and so they don't have that whole range of motion. So it can be not helpful actually.

Speaker 1: 19:45

Yeah, you have to do all of it if you're gonna do any of it. So I just I wish I'd had all this information in a form that kind of made sense to me. I really needed it laid out like that. And so the more I've heard, the more I ended up doing pelvic floor physical therapy and then, once it all clicked, I was like whoa, my core is actually important and sometimes you have to hear the same thing like five different ways before it lands on you.

Speaker 1: 20:09

Yes, Well, what's really funny is when I started doing this during COVID, we had this outdoor exercise that I went to a couple of times and they would have us lift our leg off the ground while we're laying down and then when you go to put it down, my leg would just drop. Once you get to the part where you're engaging that lower pelvic floor, my leg would literally fall and I was like what is wrong with me? And she said you need to stop doing that and start trying to re-engage that lower core. And I really had no idea and I thought back to the pelvic floor physical therapy that I had done and I was like, oh my gosh, she was so right, but it wasn't real to me until I could not keep my leg in the right position.

Speaker 2: 20:48

I have no control here.

Speaker 1: 20:49

So no wonder I have no control over my ladder at this point.

Speaker 2: 20:53

It's better now. Good, and that's really good to know too that it can be. You don't have to live with that. A lot of people think they do, right, yeah, because nobody wants to talk about it.

Speaker 1: 21:04

Nobody wants to talk about all the different things that you can do. So when you said you did a lot of the opening exercises too, when you were nursing and all of that, and I think I definitely missed out on that, I started, you started talking about that and I'm like something there. They're like oh, I need to do it. Oh yeah, like anybody can.

Speaker 2: 21:23

most people need to. A really good indicator on how tight that is is just clasping your hands behind your back and trying to pull your hands away from your back. Some people can't even clasp their hands because that's how tight they are, and then the idea of having your hands clasp and then pulling them away from your back is like what I can't do, that I feel like I'm a tight up hostage right now. That's when you know you need to work on the flexibility there.

Speaker 1: 21:51

Yeah, definitely, and as a mom it's really hard. You have to check in with yourself. I know I mean a mom and a nurse. So you've got two insults there and lots of shoulder and the forward movements when I'm lifting that long leg that you had, the forward lifting movements that we do to help moms push and all that stuff, and I've had shoulder injuries because of that. I used to be so flexible but I'm not doing yoga as much as I used to and now I don't think I can reach my hands behind my back.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Well, that's a thing too right. It's just like you feel like you don't have the time. You feel like, oh, before I had kids or before I had a busy job, I could go to a studio and go to their schedule and then chit chat with people after and take a shower, socialize and whatever, and before you know it it's two hours out of your evening and that's just not realistic being a mom to a young child or having a busy job. So, yeah, like I was saying, managing expectations, if you have your baby on your lap and you can't move, but maybe you can move your arms and your shoulders, take five minutes and do it then and you'll probably really thank yourself later in the day.

Speaker 2: 23:04

Yeah, do you work with moms on that? Yes, I don't specifically have a postpartum class, but I have a lot of students who are moms and I definitely help them with that, because they get so tight there and sometimes you see exercises, like on the internet somewhere and you try it out. You don't know if you're doing it right. So sometimes having somebody to give you some feedback and tell you maybe don't try that exercise right now, try this one first sort of thing, can be really, really helpful.

Speaker 1: 23:38

Yeah, I just remember I was doing like the pelvic floor physical therapy, and she would try to get me to do things. She'd give me the printout of the exercises. No, granted, she's a wonderful therapist, but not she wasn't a mom yet. It's like. So when I'm holding my child or when I'm cleaning the house, how might I incorporate this into it? She was like huh, so I would come back and she would have thought of some other ways to really incorporate it into my day-to-day life. Because I was like I'm just going to be perfectly honest with you.

Speaker 1: 24:11

I realized that I'm spending a whole lot of money on this, but, realistically, I'm not going to stop my day and do these actual exercises. That's just not going to happen. And so, like you were saying, she was saying OK, well, when you are standing up, you want to make sure that you're good, engaging your core. When you're picking up your child, you want to make sure that you're engaging your core. And she would remind me to Do that blow up the birthday candles to make sure that I'm not bearing down.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Because I think I had a tendency and she told me that there is other people that have, you know, had kids to have the tendency to bear down rather than kind of lift and when you're blowing out your lifting as opposed to bearing down, and that that was what, ultimately, that in the cat cow ultimately was how I was able to reconnect with my core. That was a game changer for me.

Speaker 2: 25:01

Oh, that's so interesting.

Speaker 1: 25:03

So back to your birth story. I had a couple of questions for you. You had mentioned that you had an induction at thirty seven weeks. Did they tell you what the reason?

Speaker 2: 25:13

for that one. So I had had a trauma before and then OB had said he just wanted to do that induction just to get the baby out and make sure that they could manage everything outside of the blue. Yeah, so you. But he also had me do like non stress tests before that. So I had to go I think it was every week for a month before that and everything was absolutely fine. But it was just, I guess, a precautionary thing.

Speaker 1: 25:44

And then you were talking about when your water broke. Did you said they broke your water? You didn't have your epidural yet how long after that was it that you started to feel the intensity of the contractions?

Speaker 2: 25:55

So I think when I went in to get induced it was nine in the morning and they checked me and that was super painful. I didn't know like that was going to be so painful. I was like I totally forgot my yoga breathing at that point. And then they said that I think they said I was only two centimeters at that point and then my wife said she was just going to leave me alone for a long time. She said that it fasted, at least in her opinion, not to do too many checks to allow you to progress. And then I think they broke my water, probably around two in the afternoon and we were laughing about that so much because it was. I did not expect it to be like that.

Speaker 1: 26:45

It's like this this cycle you, it gushes, you laugh, you laugh it gushes.

Speaker 2: 26:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:49

It's just this constant and you get these like crazy giggles and like the same thing happened.

Speaker 2: 26:53

I couldn't. I couldn't see what it was like, but I just imagined that there was just like water everywhere, and then they upped the dosage of the pitocin around. I think it was seven pm and then, like at eight, I said I needed the epidural and then she was born, I think just after nine, did they?

Speaker 1: 27:18

check you. When you, when they broke your water, did they check your cervix. Do you remember? I don't remember.

Speaker 2: 27:24

I think they might have, but it wasn't as painful for some reason. And then, well, when the cervix is, out of the way.

Speaker 1: 27:32

When it's, when it's like right there and you're messing with it, yeah, that's painful, but once it opens they're not really touching the cervix anymore, they're touching the baby's head, so it's not painful for you. Nice, you probably just kicked into active labor and that's when you felt it. Yeah, you know, like in the baby's head could have come down. Yeah, all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 27:59

It's kind of like something I'm going to definitely keep in mind, because I know I didn't feel anything until the baby's head. I didn't feel anything until the dosage was really high. So if we have future pregnancies, you don't really know what that will feel like.

Speaker 1: 28:16

It may be completely different, yeah, but you know that feeling and that's what. So I felt like I had two different deliveries. One was a natural labor and the other one was an induction. And when you have your second, that that's a lot more enticing because you need to plan for things. With your first Like you have to get, you have to get your other child to a place so that they can be cared for. So I feel like at the end of the day, the feeling was the same. It's just how quickly you get there. It goes from zero to 60 when you're on the pitocin. Sometimes, once they break your water and the pitocin hits that sweet spot and your baby's head comes down and now you're in active labor, that's where you start to feel that real intensity. Before that it's manageable, you can breathe through it and all that stuff. But I remembered that feeling and it's all that pressure and on top of it, all the contractions just make your whole body curl in. I feel like it's like cave in on itself.

Speaker 2: 29:19

That's when you want your epidural, just saying it's interesting because it wasn't like a sharp pain, like when you stub your toe. It's like a horrible pain for a second, but the contractions were like oh, this doesn't feel great, but whatever. I imagine that when they say that water torture doesn't feel bad at all at first and then over time it's torture. So the feeling at first is like okay, manageable. But after an hour of that I was like I don't know if I could do this for hours. Looking back on it, if it had only been another half an hour to an hour, maybe I could have done it, but I couldn't predict that it was only going to be that much time.

Speaker 1: 30:05

Yeah, and that's the hard part, and it's also hard to say if, like you said, if your body feels like it's so tense, how are you actually going to be able to progress in that labor? Your whole body needs to relax in order to let the process continue, and if you're just tightening up and trying to hold that baby in, yeah, it's not going to work out and then, like a lot of people were saying, oh, it was the pitosa that makes it worse.

Speaker 2: 30:28

But I'm like, were they just trying to make me feel better? Like I don't know.

Speaker 1: 30:33

Having done both, I wouldn't say that the pitosa makes it worse. It just gets you there in a period of time that isn't as natural, so your body may do things a little bit slower, has a little bit more of like an internal feedback loop so that it can kind of gauge the progression. I think, and I don't think anybody ever really knows what somebody's internal pitocin is doing Right. But then, but with the external pitocin you can get to the point like you're literally just titrating, you're just going up to a number right, and you're increasing a dose, not in a way where you're getting any kind of feedback that says this is how much I need. So we can get there quickly and intensely once you get to that right level, that level where it's like OK, now I'm in active labor and so I do tend to see that sudden change more quickly with the pitocin than I do with the natural labor, where the contractions might not be completely regular. But with the pitocin we're trying to do two to three minutes trying to get that.

Speaker 2: 31:33

You know, that whole progression going in the prescribed fashion that the textbook says it needs to be doing, you know that kind of thing and the monitors that they have on you was so annoying to me I almost forgot. But those were like I had to just be in one position, Otherwise they weren't picking up when they were supposed to be, and it was so annoying, Terrible.

Speaker 1: 31:55

Yeah, that really messes up the whole labor pattern, doesn't it? When you can't move around, that's rough, Wow. But now you have kind of like do you remember that feeling, yeah, when you got, when it got super intense. Is it something that like in your brain? If you felt it again, you'd be like that's it, yeah, I think so. Yeah, that's kind of how it was with my second. That's when I was just like, let's do it yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:14

Let's get that up a little. I've done this before, not going to torture myself. So then, how was pushing for you? You said it was like 15 minutes, did you just? They said, push like you're going to the bathroom, which, yeah, more or less that's kind of accurate, and if you're going to be laying on your back, your baby's head's going to be pushing on your rectum. So if that's kind of where you're used to push like we don't usually push things out of our vagina, so that makes more sense. Not really what we do culturally typically. So it's pushing it. You know, if you're pooping, that's something we do every day. We can kind of, you know, tap into that. Was there anything that anybody said or did that made it feel like you were able to just like really push like a rock star? Or did you feel like that was all the yoga?

Speaker 2: 33:00

I think it was all the yoga, because I had always imagined that you were going to be pushing like you had to go to the bathroom, but the idea of that just kind of weirded me out.

Speaker 1: 33:12

I don't know why you don't normally poop in front of people, so I get that.

Speaker 2: 33:16

And I would have loved to have tried out different positions, but, like I said, my legs were, especially my right leg, I couldn't feel it at all so. So I had to be legs up in the stirrups, knees up by my head, sort of thing, and just reminded me of some yoga poses. Like there's a pose called melasana which is like a squat, so a really deep squat. I just felt like I was in that position and I was like, oh, thank you yoga. I'm sure this is very uncomfortable for some people, but it's like you'll think nothing for me, yeah. And then I think just being able to be in that pose and also to be relaxed because I couldn't feel anything really helped with the pushing, and though I would have liked to have known what I was feeling to do it, you know, but not like a big deal. It's just like a little part of me is like the research, part of my brain is like, oh, I would have liked to have gotten that muscle memory in my body.

Speaker 1: 34:15

Yeah, I think probably the reason you weren't going into many positions is because the baby came out faster than I could. 15 minutes is a really short period of time for pushing.

Speaker 2: 34:23

I was so thankful my sister, her first one, she was pushing for two hours and I was like, oh my God, that must have been terrible.

Speaker 1: 34:31

I pushed for 45 minutes with my son and 25 with my daughter and I was losing my mind. After 45 minutes I was just like I can't do this anymore. It will not help people push for two hours. I try to make when I'm when they're pushing with me. I try to do everything I can to make that not happen. I'm like let's do every position imaginable to get this baby out because I don't have.

Speaker 1: 34:50

I don't have the attention span to push for that long. So I ask everybody this if you could go back and talk to yourself you didn't mention some things like where you felt like you're kind of judging yourself and feeling like a failure and all that stuff, knowing what you know now, if you could go back and talk to yourself, what would you want to say to yourself?

Speaker 2: 35:12

First of all I would like to say to try to be in the moment and not have anxiety about, like, what's going to happen, because, who knows, you don't even know what's gonna happen in the next moment right, so to just enjoy the moment you're in. It's such a special time to be with your baby and to have a little baby growing inside of you. So to kind of stop thinking forward and just live in the moment would be the number one thing. And I love the water. I'm such a swimming person and my friends call me a mermaid I would have loved to have tried a water berth, but being induced, that wasn't gonna happen and that felt kind of sucky.

Speaker 2: 35:56

So I would have said to myself it's great to have a birth plan, but also and I did, keep an open mind, but try to have an even more open mind so you don't get annoyed at other stuff that's going on because, on top of everything, you don't need to be feeling annoyed and that having an epidural is a tool. But my midwife said that to me she's like it's not a failure, it's not an easy way out, it's just a tool to help get the baby in your arms. So I would definitely keep that in mind going forward. Because, like I said, I wanted to try unmedicated and then, because I couldn't, I felt like a little bit of me felt like a failure. But it wasn't like we were talking about. It was so tense stuff Like who knows what would have happened if I was stubborn and just tense the whole time. I pushed for only 15 minutes. That was great and maybe that would have been two hours if I was really tense.

Speaker 1: 36:54

Well, also and I think people forget that labor isn't just that period of time where you get your epidural and you push. You went from nine o'clock in the morning to about eight o'clock at night before you got your epidural.

Speaker 1: 37:08

Yeah, that's a really long time to not have an epidural. You did a lot of the hard work then and you prepared also physically by doing the yoga poses to get the baby in the right position. So you really did a lot of work before you got your epidural. The epidural, like you said, was a tool that got you over that one little hump.

Speaker 2: 37:28

Yeah, and I know a lot of people want to try without. And if you can do it, that is amazing. You're a warrior, you're great. But if you can't, like definitely don't feel like a failure, because if your baby is in your arms, that's really all that matters.

Speaker 1: 37:45

Yeah, we want healthy moms and healthy babies.

Speaker 2: 37:47

Yes.

Speaker 1: 37:48

So, as far as you said, you're still teaching yoga. Do you teach from home? Do you teach at a studio, and how do you manage mom life and career?

Speaker 2: 37:59

So I pre-pandemic and pre-baby I was going around to studios and gyms all day long, basically, which was, looking back on it, so unrealistic for motherhood, unless my husband was going to be the one to take care of baby all day long, which would have made me sad because I love being around her.

Speaker 2: 38:19

And with the pandemic lots of things shifted.

Speaker 2: 38:22

So I started teaching your vengeance live classes over like a video call during the pandemic and I've kept those going because some of those students of mine they moved far away but they're so thankful that they are able to still practice with me from anywhere.

Speaker 2: 38:37

And then I decided to also create a on-demand library of classes for monthly subscription, cause I find personally, when I'm exercising, just to be able to do it whenever I want on my schedule instead of on the studio or gyms schedule is the only thing that's gonna work for me right now. You know, if I have time to do my practice at 10 pm, there's not really many classes of any running live at that time and I do teach a bunch of shorter ones cause I know there are people who, whether you're in long or whether you're at an office, and you only have like an hour break. So if you want to take about 30 minutes to exercise and 30 minutes to eat, sort of thing. I totally tried to be inclusive to all sorts of different schedules and help people like any anybody get their practice in without feeling judged.

Speaker 1: 39:36

So you've managed to work motherhood into your career and kind of make them meld together.

Speaker 2: 39:42

Yeah, like, thankfully, some of the students, I have that moved away there in a different time zone, so when my daughter's in bed, that's the perfect time for them to do their practice. So it works out for me. And the days I'm not teaching, then I record a class so I can be in my little library of classes for people, and then, you know, I also have to get mine with Minin. So what I like to do personally when I have time with my daughter, I'll just let her independently pray, cause I think that's really good, so she's not too clingy, and then I will do some yoga beside her, behind her, whatever, and I noticed that a lot of times she'll just drop what she's doing and she'll look at me and then she'll try to copy me, which I think is so great, cause it plants the seeds of yoga in her little body.

Speaker 1: 40:34

That's adorable. You talked about how you are just now starting to wean off of the breastfeeding and that you weren't necessarily it wasn't necessarily your favorite thing. I think that as a society, that is a little bit taboo to admit that you're not in love with breastfeeding, and I'm glad, I'm just. I'm happy that you were open about that. What was it about breastfeeding that felt not as enjoyable to you, and how did you manage to do it for so long in spite of that?

Speaker 2: 41:05

Well, my milk didn't come in like right away so the hospital had me pumping a lot to get things going in the beginning and so I ended up buying like a really good pump because I couldn't take the hospital one with me. And I think it was kind of like that thing cause my daughter had to be on formula at the hospital cause my milk wasn't good enough at the time. So she was really good on the bottle and on the breast and a lot of people say that isn't always the case. I'm really thankful that was cause then my husband could help me out with the pumped milk at home and I wasn't. I didn't have to be at the milk machine the whole day long and I got mastitis a couple of times and I only knew because I ended up getting like the shippers, like fever, shivery feeling and like these weird red streaky lines on me. So I knew I was like okay, I have to, I have to do something about this quicker, I'm gonna have to go to the doctor. So I always found that warm showers and Advil helped for that and to just breastfeed and pump as much as possible to get rid of whatever the blockage was that was causing that and I was also getting these things that when I did some Googling I think they were called blebs, so they're like these blisters like on the nipple, and they were so painful, like awful, and sometimes they'd make me bleed and I hated that.

Speaker 2: 42:36

And I got that like not even early on, like I was getting that later on and she had a very good latch, but sometimes you know, she was sleepy, falling asleep. She kind of had like a crappy latch and I tried to get her off but it was already too late. She'd already had pre-de-thought, so that was horrible. I needed those.

Speaker 2: 42:54

So that was a big reason why I've been like breastfeeding and then, toward the end, like closer to now, it just feels nicer to have more freedom and I still let her sometimes like once in a while because I don't want her to feel like just cut off, but I'm making the times between longer and longer so that she knows she can go without it. And then it makes me feel happy because I don't have to do it and I only was able to go that long because I think for two reasons. For one, I know how much it benefited her and how comfort wise I know they say there's tons of other benefits, but mainly comforting and helping her to sleep, which I said sleep has been her main challenge with her, and the other was that I just I think I was a little bit stubborn about it and I was like I'm gonna get through this, I can do it.

Speaker 1: 43:51

Yeah, so it was more just the challenges. It sounds like that you were faced with, and not necessarily the breastfeeding. I know some moms feel just very touched out and sometimes I think with my first I felt just like everything felt really sensitive, so any kind of touch just felt like nails on a chalkboard. So I think everybody's got different sensory issues and it wasn't like that with my second. For some reason I was less sensitive. So I don't know hormones or whatever it is. And yeah, those gloves are painful. There's a lot of things about breastfeeding that is just painful. It sounds like you had everything, for all the painfulness.

Speaker 2: 44:30

So, yeah, it'd be like I get it on one side and then, as it was kind of healing, I'd get it on the other side and I felt like I'd had them for like a month at a time. It was terrible.

Speaker 1: 44:42

Never ends. Yeah Well, Devan, is there anything else that we didn't cover that you wanted to share?

Speaker 2: 44:48

Not that I can think of. I think the main thing is, you want things to be like a fairy tale, but they might not be, so just managing expectations is the biggest takeaway from my pregnancy, I think.

Speaker 1: 45:03

Definitely yeah, being open to anything. Yeah, did you. You said you mentioned earlier when we were talking that you had a free resource for people.

Speaker 2: 45:13

Yes, did you want to share that? Sure, it's called Flexibility Secrets, so you can get it at stretchloveyogacom. Slash Flexibility Secrets and it's just a little free resource to help you on your flexibility journey. That's amazing.

Speaker 1: 45:28

Thank you so much, Devan. Thank you.