I have been off the running bandwagon for a long time now. When I was first pregnant about a year and a half ago, I miscarried early on and it spooked me out of running. (It probably shouldn't have, but that's just the way it happened.) After a third early miscarriage this past March, we went to Maui for a couple of weeks and I jogged gently almost every day, it felt so good! But when we returned, I was immediately pregnant again, and did not run any more. I tried once at around 20 weeks, and the mild pains I was getting spooked me out of it again. I maintained some cycling up to about 25 weeks, when my core muscles couldn't support the bump anymore, and since then my workouts had been limited to walking about 2 km daily on my way to and from work, and a weekly session at a prenatal fitness class.

Today I am 38 weeks. I have been feeling very well and relatively fit, other than that 20-pound basketball I carry around on my stomach that sort of gets in the way of things. My doctor is supportive: "Whatever you do that helps the baby go down is great." So when the rain finally stopped in mid-afternoon, while yet another batch of baby laundry was in the machine, I fetched my running tights (which, amazingly, fit me!!), shoes, and hat, managed to find a shirt and a fleece jacket that cover my bump and out the door I was.

Calling this moment a run is be a bit of a stretch - but hey, everything in me is pretty stretched right now, so why not? I alternated walking 1m30s and jogging 30s for 20 minutes, covering just over 2 km, so really quite slow. Obviously my stride was extremely short and impact kept at a minimum to keep it comfortable, but... I was out there doing what I love to do so much. Plus, it is a beautiful late afternoon in the Pacific Northwest. So empowering!

When I came back home, I felt like I had to share this with this community. I don't know of many others who would quite understand the joy this little moment brought me.