pregnant – Emma Vallin

An unexpected cure for ‘Hurry Sickness’

Are you the kind of person who cleans the bathroom while brushing your teeth? Move from one check-out line to another when shopping? Sit at the back of the room during work presentations so that you can finish that budget sheet? Chances are you’re suffering from ‘hurry sickness’.

People with ‘hurry sickness’ are multitasking masters, they think, walk and speak fast

What Is Hurry Sickness?

Two American cardiologist first came up with the term when they found a correlation between typical type A behavior and heart disease. People with ‘hurry sickness’ are multitasking masters, they think, speak and even walk fast and get very impatient with anyone or anything wasting their time. Sounds familiar? You’re not alone – a London Business School study found that 95 percent of the managers in a study suffer from the condition.

Is it really that bad for you?

Being busy is often seen as a virtue but when it becomes a constant time urgency you lose your ability to stop and think, and as a result become less effective. You lose sight of the “big picture,” and risk alienating people around you. Not to mention the physiological and mental health risks that come with constant stress.

Quitting the hurry game is really about finding a dimmer for your ‘get-shit-done’ superpower

Why is it so hard to quit the hurry game?

From an early age we are rewarded for doing, achieving and winning. In high paced industries and corporate environments, it’s often a prerequisite for success, as many of us can relate to. Getting lots done is a kind of superpower that has likely made you pretty successful in your career. So why doesn’t it take you further or make you happier? Think of it as running a marathon at sprint pace. It might give you a lead early on in your life or career, but it certainly won’t make you either successful or indeed, alive as the race goes on. It’s less about quitting the hurry game and more about finding a dimmer for your ‘get-shit-done’ superpower. You need to learn how to dial up and down your hurriedness. Of course, it’s great to be able to switch it on for that big deadline or when you’re trying to get 2 small children out the door. But the default setting in your life needs to be less rushed and you need to learn how to dim the light completely.

The unexpected cure – being pregnant!

I’m a classic hurry sick person who have spent my life chasing efficiencies and trying to do things faster and better. From doing my Kegel exercises in the lift to conference calls in the gym. It wasn’t until I got pregnant with my first child that I learnt how to live slow. I suffered from severe pelvic girdle pain and could hardly walk. From being someone who would always walk /run up the tube escalator, I suddenly missed my bus every day for being to slow. I even found myself being overtaken by seniors in the slowest lane in the swimming pool. I have often thought it was natures cruel way to cure me from my hurry sickness before having children. I have to admit the relief was temporary, as a mother of 2 children under 3 years of age I often find myself multitasking in the most ridiculous ways. But I am now a sober hurry addict and I can dial up and down my busyness and speed. I finally have a dimmer!

Other ways to cure hurry sickness

If pregnancy with pelvic girdle pain doesn’t sound temping or just isn’t in the cards for you, here are some tips on how to fight hurry sickness:

1. Practice doing one everyday thing slowly – it could be the dishes or walking to work. How does that make you feel?
2. Question the value of your urgency – What difference will it make if you answer that email tonight? How important is it in the grand scheme of thing?
3. Write down the flip side of your hurrying. What are you missing out on when you rush around? What effects on your health do you see? Who are you hurting?
4. Trick the system with breathing right. When you’re feeling particularly flushed, take some deep breaths (inhale for 3 counts, exhale for 5). This activates the parasympathetic nervous system (the break system) and reduces the stress hormone cortisol.

Let’s make 2020 a slow year!

Unplanned Aimlessness

I am planning person, to say the least. When I tell people about my rolling 5-year personal plan in Excel they usually look like they’ve seen a green giraffe fly over the rooftops.

Every January, as part of my annual planning process, I update my 5-year plan, evaluate and rate previous year, develop guiding principles for the coming year and set 4-5 goals with associated activities for the new year.

Sounds like I should see someone about this?

Well it works for me. Half-year reviews with myself gives me an endorphin-high the size of a teenage kiss.

In 2016 I had no plan.

This was not a conscious decision and I didn’t even notice it until I sat down for my review in January. As the chock settled I realised that this was exactly what I needed last year. I guess a part of my brain somehow understood this but decided to keep quiet about it so I wouldn’t protest.

2016 was the year I overcame fertility problems, had a pregnancy fraught with complications, fought discrimination at work, had an emergency caesarean and became a mother. Trying to fit that into columns and rows would not have been a good idea.

Fate however smiled at my obsession with planning and arranged for my pregnancy to follow the calendar months, starting in January. One must have some order after all.

It makes me wonder – is it necessary to have a serial car crash in our lives to change deeply entrenched behaviours?

If we instead consciously change these behaviours do we develop just as much? Or even more?

Today I took time off my parental leave and wrote my 2017 plan. I am proud that I waited until February and that the plan doesn’t contain a single colour-coded rating system.

It is however still in Excel.

Preparing for an Ironman

Pregnancy week 41+ 4

So, imagine you’re planning to do an Ironman (a triathlon that ends with running a marathon) for the first time in your life. You’ve never even worn a wetsuit before but you know it will the be single most painful thing you’ve ever done.

Me: So when will the race take place?

My body: Well, the planned date is in 40 weeks. The race will most likely take place between 37 to 42 weeks from now.

Me: Ok, but I’ll assume the race is in 40 weeks then. On October 11^th?

My body: Well, only 4.6% of all races take place on the planned date.

Me: So you’re telling me that I should train, prepare mentally, buy all the gear, frantically Google everything that can possibly go wrong during the race and then wait with my bag packed every night for five weeks for a call from you telling me that the race is on?

My body: Yep. And if the race hasn’t started after 42 weeks they’ll push you into the water and give you lots of drugs so you can make it around the course. If you’re still not able to finish they will put you on a stretcher, put you to sleep and push you all the way to the finishing line.

Me: Ok, thanks. I’m pumped. #week41

Lottery jackpot – a vacuum extraction delivery

Will that be with or without an episiotomy?

I saw a questionably appealing offer on the midwife centre notice board today to join a scientific study.

‘In the event that your birth would have to end with vacuum extraction, you would enter a random draw for either a having an episiotomy or not…’

For expecting women who are scared senseless of having a forceps or vacuum extraction birth lead to severe vaginal tears (including me and I assume most women), is this a tempting offer?

A bit of excitement and an element of surprise in the middle of a chaotic delivery is exactly what you need, right? Let’s not all jump in and register at once.

Scientific studies in all honor, but I will probably prefer the staff to make the right decisions during my delivery and not decided by a random draw. But maybe that’s just me.

To baby moon or not?

Shamelessly borrow and steal traditions from other countries, I say.

We recently went on a spa weekend. The excuse? A baby moon, what seems to be an American phenomenon that really doesn’t exist in Sweden. A trip or weekend away as a couple before the baby comes along because, well because you can.

We went to the Djurönäset Spa in the Stockholm archipelago. A 40 minute drive felt just about all my body could handle, even so we had to take a food and toilet break. We had an absolutely magic weekend with coffee on the cliffs overlooking the water, yoga and sauna. The coffee break was my thing. And it wouldn’t be our baby moon if we didn’t have a working session to write our birth plan. It became a sort of baby conference – highly recommended.

Now that this went down so well, maybe we should introduce the push gift tradition as well? Will bring this up at home.

Knits, root veggies and due date countdown

I took a short walk in the autumn sun today (giving thanks to my pelvic girdle for the steps I received). I love walks this time of year when the air is crisp but its still sunny. It’s nice to be able to dress warmly for once – at the moment the hot flushes mainly mean I walk around in my underwear and compression stockings. Convenient really as I’ve now outgrown most of my pregnancy clothes.

Never before have I wished for the short Swedish summer to end. But then of course with this autumn comes the baby. Just nine days to go now, unless of course I go over by two weeks, in which case I have a 25-day wait ahead. How should one relate to the D-Day? It does feel depressing to add two weeks after counting down for 40 weeks, just to be sure. But perhaps it’s best way to avoid going mad.

Fitness bottom reached

I have always been very active. From playing in the little boys football league at age 9, to getting through the Virgin triathlon in London Docklands dirty waters and a completing a marathon.

The other day I reached rock bottom. In a pleasant and almost liberating way.

I was using a reclining exercise bike at the gym was looking forward to a few minutes of spreading my legs wildly and panting. First when six minutes had past I noticed that I had not even turned on the machine. Zero resistance and yet I was sweating like a pig. I laughed contently.

Of course I miss high intensity training or even being able to go for a brisk walk these days. But at the same time it is a beautiful and very useful experience not being able to work out, to completely give into what my pregnant body wants, with not a thought on performance. Well, I guess my body does perform a miracle every day in producing this baby.

Sometimes I think that nature gave me early SPD (Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction) for a reason. I simply had so such a long way to go in unlearning how to perform that I needed some extra help.

Fattest person in pregnancy yoga

We sit along the walls of the small yoga room. The typical lovely and slighly confused yoga teacher has left the loud music on in the background, but I can still hear her ask everyone to share whether its their first baby and when they are due. At first I don’t find it uncomfortable at all – I’m not exactly shy.

But after the first and second woman share a due date several months ahead of mine, I panic. My bump is by far the biggest and I’m pretty much due later than everyone else in the room.

The whole room seems full of beautiful, perky little round bumps. I look down at my barrel shaped body and begins to cry.

To add to my misery I have terrible pelvic girdle- and back pain, apparently also because my tummy has grown so quickly, and cannot even sit cross-legged. I usually love to challenge myself physically and enjoy yoga but now I barely make it through the class, mostly lying on my side with a mountain of pillows around me. The breathing exercises become my thing.

On the way home, I start thinking how insensitive it was to expose these hormone fueled, possibly hypersensitive pregnant ladies to this, right? But every non pregnant person I share this with look at me blank face.

Thankfully I have never suffered from a distorted body image or been particularly insecure about my appearance. Why did this affect me so much? Apart from the hormones that turn me into this irrational emotional package. And why is it even a bad thing that my bump is big? Shouldn’t I just be happy and proud that I’m pregnant? My wise partner tells me that surely it would have been worse if the bump didn’t until very late in the pregnancy, this does happen to some. Had I not been pregnant, I would most likely also be thinking in that way.

Of course I color match baby clothes

Today I found myself going through the washed, folded and sorted baby clothes. Again. (I obviously also have an Excel document to keep on top of what we have in different sizes – doesn’t everyone?).

To my dismay I found myself thinking that I have to buy more monochrome bodysuits to match all the patterned trousers. Grr! I really didn’t want to become this person. Surely that’s not important? I blame the pregnancy hormones and blindly trust that I’ll get my priorities straight once the baby comes.

Pregnancy – a hotbed for comparison stress?

Why do I get upset over the size of my bump during pregnancy yoga?
Will having a baby make the old performance anxiety to flare up again?
Why is it frowned upon to have entrepreneurial plans during maternity leave?
How do I avoid getting stuck in the baby gadget-trap?

I’m pregnant with our first child and it has triggered a lot of thoughts around conformity, society norms and stress. It seems pregnancy and parenthood often comes with a big helping of self-judgment and doubt.

What will it be like for me? This blog is an experiment. I want to use it for reflection around stress from comparing yourself with others, conformity and expectations of society on parents. I plan to write about pregnancy hang-ups, the pregnancy body, health and parenthood. But also about start your own business during early parenthood and about performance anxiety.

Hopefully I learn a lot that I can use in my role as a professional coach. Perhaps this blog will become a sort of vaccine against parental stress or instead work as fertiliser in the hotbed of comparison stress. Let’s see.