Prenatal Aquafit

Last night I had my first class of prenatal aquafit. I really enjoyed it and I recommend it to those who become pregnant. In a way, it was more of a return to my former fitness routine than the lane swimming has been. In aquafit, I take punching and kicking instructions from someone and follow them, and classes occur at a set time. :) Almost like TKD, except that these girls are big slackers. At any rate - it was strange and amusing to see so many pregos all in one spot. I am certain it was the largest assembly of pregnant women I have seen in my lifetime. And of course, the women were in bathing suits, so it was a panoramic of the stages of pregnancy (and the shapes of pregnancy). Mind you, it also hammered home how much pregnancy varies between individuals. One woman was only a few weeks behind me (in terms of due date), but didn't even look pregnant at all. Where is she hiding her baby? I would say that most women there were in an earlier stage of pregnancy (some were maybe only a month along) than I am - but there were certainly a few other ladies of comparable size to myself. I had high hopes of making prego friends - but it seems that a lot of the girls came with a pre-established prego companion. That's o.k., not all of them did. Obviously, the time to make friends is prior to the class, because we don't get a break at any point in the 50 minutes. It was a lot of fun - not overly challenging, and I think it will be great for my arms. The instructor must be barely 17 and is very chipper. She demonstrates everything on the side of the pool, and then we struggle to copy her at even a quarter of her speed. The class is just packed - there must be 25 women there. At one point we got to use foam dumbells - it takes more strength than I thought to work with those under the water, because they are so small and buoyant. Generally, the instructor gives us options, so depending on size and comfort, we can perform variations on an exercise.
The bottom line is - if you are pregnant, give it a try. The cost of taking these classes through the City recreation programme is really pretty decent, and certainly, the motivation to exercise in the tail end of pregnancy is going to be low without a break from gravity.
I have almost reached the third trimester (two weeks to go)!