The First Trimester | Keeping Track of Your Pregnancy

The First Trimester

The beginning of the bump.

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Keeping Track of Your Pregnancy

August 16, 2008 ⋅

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Once you have established how many weeks pregnant you are, where do you go from here now?

You are starting an incredible journey and creating a life-long connection to a whole new person to boot. How do you feel? What’s going on with you? What are you thinking?

Keep a Journal

This is a great time to buy a journal and jot down your emotions, thoughts, questions and happenings. A journal can even help with your medical appointments, to keep track of what is going on with your body and symptoms. There are many specific “pregnancy journals”–a good one I like is The Belly Book–that have sections to record the unique things going on through a pregnancy. Any notebook will do as well.

Remember this: a pregnancy journal is a one-of-a-kind keepsake you can keep will after she or he is born and share with your child when he or she is older. Not all children enjoy this–but many do want to know all about them, even when in your belly.

Or Keep a Calendar

Like I said above, keeping a journal of your pregnancy is so ultra-special, you will be so happy you did later. And so will your child. But journaling is not for everybody. A lot of us start off with the best intentions but if writing is not your thing, keep a calendar instead. This way you can just jot down short notes about your feelings or happening (baby’s first kick) on the days they happen. Just as with journals, there are several pregnancy calendars you can choose from. My niece is using the adorable Baby Chronicles Pregnancy Planner because the spiral bind makes it easy to use and keep a long time without pages tearing and you can start the calendar whenever matches the time you want to start it.

Get in touch with your baby now

You can hear your baby’s heartbeat very early in pregnancy. You may not have your first or next appointment for a month and no ultrasound on the horizon until about the 5th month or so, but your baby is active now and you can hear and check. Fetal heartbeat monitors sold in the stores are actually very good now. And one of the nice things about this type of monitor is that Dad, your parents, your friends and other can be involved in your pregnancy. They can actually hear the baby too.