Why stepping away during pregnancy can mean so much

Pregnancy is such a strange time.

Something enormous is happening to you, and at the same time, most days can look surprisingly normal.

You go to work. Take the tram. Answer emails. Buy groceries. Meet friends. Think about what needs to be done next week.

And somewhere inside all of that, there is a baby growing, a birth getting closer, and a version of your life that you know is about to change.

I find that contrast fascinating.

We tend to mark the big transitions in our lives. We gather for weddings, birthdays, graduations. We create moments that somehow say: this is happening, and it matters.

But pregnancy can pass right through the middle of ordinary life.

Of course there are appointments. A growing belly. Maybe a birth preparation course, a hospital bag slowly taking shape somewhere at home, tiny clothes appearing in drawers.

But emotionally, there isn't always a moment where everything else stops long enough for you to really take in where you are.

I'm pregnant. A birth is coming. I'm becoming someone's mother.

Maybe this is one of the reasons the idea of going away for a few days during pregnancy means so much to me.

A little marker in time

I don't think pregnant women need another thing to add to their list.

Actually, almost the opposite.

I like the idea of physically leaving everyday life for a moment.

Going somewhere where the rhythm is different. Where someone else has made the food. Where you wake up surrounded by nature instead of thinking immediately about what needs to happen that day.

Not to escape pregnancy.

To actually be in it for a little while.

There is something about taking yourself out of your normal surroundings that can make you notice things you haven't had much time to notice.

How your body feels now. How close birth suddenly seems. What you're looking forward to. What scares you. What you're going to miss from the life you have now. What you're curious about in the one that's coming.

Not necessarily to find answers to any of it.

Just to acknowledge that it's there.

Being pregnant around other pregnant women

And then there is something else that I think we sometimes underestimate: being around other women who are pregnant too.

Pregnancy is deeply personal. Nobody else can experience what is happening inside your body.

But it doesn't have to be entirely private.

There is something very simple and very human about sitting around a table with other pregnant women and realising that you don't need to explain everything from the beginning.

One woman might be 22 weeks and another 35. Someone might be excited about giving birth. Someone else might be scared. One might have waited years for this pregnancy and still find parts of it incredibly difficult.

Nobody needs to experience it in the same way.

Sometimes it is enough to hear someone say something you've been thinking quietly yourself.

Or to ask a question you thought was silly and realise that three other women had been wondering exactly the same thing.

I think I feel this particularly strongly because I went through pregnancy away from the country where I grew up.

When I was pregnant with Atlas, I had already built my life in Norway. This was home. But many of the women who had known me through completely different versions of myself were far away. My family was far away.

And pregnancy made me understand something about how much women have traditionally moved through these enormous transitions alongside other women.

Not always to teach each other something.

Sometimes just to be there.

For women who are pregnant away from home, I think this can carry an extra meaning. Creating community as an adult in another country takes time. And becoming a mother can make the absence of your usual people feel different.

A weekend won't replace that village.

But perhaps it can be one small place where something begins.

Movement, without needing to perform

Of course, one of the things we will do at Nøsen is move.

Pregnancy yoga has been part of my work with women for years, and what I love most about it has very little to do with being good at yoga.

Pregnancy gives you a body that keeps changing.

Some days you feel strong. Some days everything feels heavy. A position that felt wonderful three weeks ago suddenly makes absolutely no sense.

And I think there is something useful in meeting the body that is actually there that day.

Moving. Breathing. Changing position. Resting. Trying again.

Not pushing the body into what you think it should be able to do.

Listening to what it is telling you now.

That is valuable during pregnancy on its own. But there are also pieces of it that I see again and again in birth: movement, breath, finding different positions, coping with intensity, knowing when you need support and when you need rest.

Not because doing pregnancy yoga will give you a certain kind of birth.

It won't.

But it gives us another way to spend time with the body that is going to take us through it.

Looking towards birth

And then, naturally, we will talk about birth.

For me, conscious birth preparation isn't about trying to plan every part of what is going to happen.

I've been around birth enough to have enormous respect for the part we simply cannot control.

It is about understanding more.

What is happening in the body. What options might be available. What can help when contractions become intense. How movement, touch, acupressure, different positions or pain relief can support you. What a partner or support person can actually do when words aren't enough.

There is something calming about making the unknown a little less unknown.

Not because you leave knowing exactly how your birth will unfold.

But because you have opened the door and looked at it.

And perhaps, after spending a weekend moving your body, talking about birth, hearing other women's questions and having time to think about your own, you go home carrying a few more things to reach for when the day comes.

This is what we are creating at Nøsen

This November, together with fellow doula and pregnancy yoga teacher Sunniva, I'm hosting a pregnancy retreat at Nøsen, surrounded by Norwegian nature.

And the more we prepare it, the more I realise that I don't want it to feel like three days filled with activities from morning until evening.

Yes, there will be pregnancy yoga. There will be birth preparation, movement, practical tools for labour, pain relief and acupressure.

But there also needs to be room around all of that.

Room for long breakfasts and conversations that continue after a workshop has finished. For going outside. For good food. For resting. For asking something that wasn't on our plan. For laughing. For being quiet.

For the woman who arrives excited and the one who arrives tired.

For the woman who has read every book about birth and the one who hasn't really started thinking about it yet.

You don't need to arrive feeling particularly calm, connected or ready.

You can just arrive as you are.

Our Pregnancy Retreat at Nøsen is 6–8 November 2026.

A few days away from ordinary life, not because ordinary life isn't important, but because this moment deserves a little place of its own too.

And perhaps, years from now, when you think back to the pregnancy in which you were becoming your baby's mother, these days will be one small part of how you remember it.