I have two older sisters. Both have birthed their first baby in the last year. So while they were going through this amazing transition in their lives, I learned way more than I wanted to about pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding, thank you very much.

After the horror stories about morning sickness and compressed bladders, I wasn’t expecting a lot of surprises in my class about yoga and pregnancy. I wasn’t terribly shocked by the images of a fetus growing in the womb. I didn’t want to run and hide when we talked about mucus plugs or the importance of strong kegel muscles. Time and time again, during my sisters’ pregnancies I had to remind myself that if it grosses me out this much, it must be pretty terrifying for them.

So when my sister said, “I just want to have this baby, NOW!” It probably wasn’t very helpful for me to say, “Are you sure? I hear birthing a child hurts.” Things went much more smoothly when I listened and asked questions about how it all was progressing: “How much does the baby weigh now? Exactly how does a contraction feel? Doesn’t it hurt the baby when you poke at your stomach like that?”

Once you get past the unpleasantries that go along with it, you realize pregnancy is just a process that, if all goes well, results in a precious new life—like my new nieces, Abby (nine months old) and Rosemary (four months old).

As a teacher, I may encounter a pregnant student in my classes at any time, so I have to be aware of the changes that are happening with her body and know how to accommodate those changes. More than likely, though, it will be a learning experience for me. (If most pregnant women are like my sisters were, I’m sure they’ll be able to tell me much more about what they should and should not do than I’d ever be able to tell them.)

Jane Austin, who aside from being a prominent San Francisco pre- and postnatal yoga teacher is also a midwife, reaffirmed my experience that one of the most important things you can give a mother-to-be is encouragement to listen to her own intuition about what is right for her body.

This is also important after the baby is born and a mother starts coming back to your class after her maternity leave.

Everyone is praising her, telling her how fabulous she is for jumping back into things, Jane said. But what she might really need is the permission to rest. A mother’s body goes through an intense and amazing process during pregnancy and birth, she needs to take it easy for at least four weeks after a natural birth and six to eight weeks after a C-section. Ouch!

Eventually, though, she’ll be able to do all the poses she could do before her pregnancy, but it will take time and will be different. Her body will be as strong and capable as it was before, but it will be changed forever. You never have the same body two days in a row so it’s ridiculous for a new mother to expect to have the body she did, pre-pregnancy.

“I have strong abs,” said Jane, a mother of two, “Do I have a little extra skin? Yes. But is it worth it? Absolutely!”