So, before all of that happens, try to get the most out of the prenatal period and early stages of pregnancy with tips from moms like me who have been there before.
Enjoy your favourite foods while you still can
"I wish I'd known how much heartburn and nausea I'd have and also how tiny my meals would become as my belly grew larger," says Tracy (some names have been changed) from London, Ont. "It was a challenge to eat enough. It probably didn't help that the major food craving I had was for spicy Indian food, often four or five times per week!" she says.
Can't eat because of morning sickness or nausea? Try chocolate milk
"The CEO at the company I was working at told me his wife had also had nausea and heartburn, and that she'd practically lived on chocolate milk during her second and third trimesters and – bingo! – that was the miracle liquid diet for me, too," says Tracy. "I loved icy, icy chocolate milk. It got me through the home stretch of my pregnancy, but I wish I'd discovered it a lot earlier in."
Stop obsessing, and put down the book
"I wish I knew not to worry so much," says Lyla, a Canadian expat living in New Haven, Conn. "That, and to not read any parenting books! Learn to follow your own intuition and not rules made up by other people," she says of both the prenatal and, especially, parenting experience. Indeed, many pregnant women and would-be-pregnant women get whipped into a frenzy of neurosis reading every pregnancy book they can find. In a word: Don't. If you must, trust your doctor or a new mom whose judgment you respect to suggest one good book.
Page 1 of – On page 2, discover the one wardrobe item you'll wear all through pregnancy and after Baby's arrival.
