Martial Arts + Morning Sickness

I'm not sure why I thought this, but I always figured being pregnant would be easy.  Maybe it's because my own mom never had any trouble being pregnant.  Maybe it's because I have big hips.  I don't know.  But I should have guessed that since very little comes easily to me, this would be no different.

I am currently suffering from pretty terrible morning sickness.  Let's not call it morning sickness, though.  Let's call it what it is: 24-hour sickness.  Simply put, I'm nauceous for most of every day, and then sleepness through most of the night, and if I take a nap during the day to make up for it, I wake up with the worst of the sickness.  It's a big ball of yuck right now.

I went to class last night.  The "What To Expect" book claims that exercise can help with feelings of nausea, so I was very excited to try this out.  Fix me, taekwondo!  I went through the warm up like normal, and it felt good to stretch out.  After that, since the rest of the class was going to be practicing a lot of running and jumping and skipping sparring steps, I stepped aside and practiced forms on my own.

Relegated to the very edge of the mat, I didn't have much room to work with.  I had talked to the instructor about it before class, and he seemed to be on board -- after I assured him that I was capable of working out in my "condition" -- but he didn't bother to make any room for me.  The rest of the class did line drills up and down the mat, so when they came into my little area by the edge, I had to step aside until they went back down to the other end.

But it almost didn't matter, because within half an hour, I was on the verge of throwing up anyway.  The best way I can describe what the morning sickness feels like is that it's like a bad hangover.  I feel gross and icky inside, and all I really want to do is eat french fries and take a nap.  It's been like this for a while now, so I obviously can't give in to those desires all the time.  Working out is ... very different now.  I've never come to class with a bad hangover, and now I can see exactly why: moving around -- the kicks, and even just turning around during forms -- churn up my insides.  Churns them into throw up.  It's like the movements aggrevate my stomach acid or something.

Last night, I tried my best to do forms for half an hour after the warm up.  I didn't quite make it.  After that, I tried to meditate, but the motion-sickness feeling got worse when I closed my eyes.  Finally, I just excused myself from class and drove to a fast food place for some french fries and a vanilla milkshake.  They tasted heavenly and I felt better immediately.