From the Beginning- the pregnancy  From the beginning, I got it wrong. I was convinced I was not pregnant. My doctor was convinced I was not pregnant. My blood was convinced I was not pregnant. I dragged my husband to Barnes and Nobles to read books about not being pregnant. I cried that I would never be pregnant.   I soon learned that I was wrong. I was, in fact, pregnant. And, I would continue to make many more mistakes. I did the wrong things, I bought the wrong things, I registered for the wrong things, and I worried about the wrong things. In short, my advice is simple: do not do what I did.

In the beginning:

Do not:  1. Obsess about getting pregnant. I am sure you have heard this one before. You are more likely to get pregnant when you stop trying so hard. For the most part it is true. If the anxiety does not prevent you from getting pregnant, it will prevent you and your partner from wanting to try and get pregnant.

  2. Convince your doctor to give you a blood test days before your period is due because, “you can’t wait another day”. It may be too soon to detect the pregnancy hormones in your blood convincing you that you are not pregnant, convincing you to have a glass of wine and cry that you are not pregnant, when, in fact, you are pregnant and should not be having a glass of wine crying that you are not pregnant.  

3. Think that there is no way you could be pregnant because you feel like you are about to get your period. The way that you feel in the days before you find out that you are pregnant is exactly the same way you feel in the days before you get your period. The same bloat, the same cramps, the same acne, the same crankiness. The only difference for me was that I was even crankier and I had a nose bleed.  

4. Obsessively take pregnancy tests. I did not learn this until the 3rd month of trying. Even the early tests can not tell you if you are pregnant much earlier than the day of your missed period. If you simply can not control your need to compulsively test, buy the cheap tests from the dollar store or on line. Try: www.accuratepregnancytests.com or www.saveontests.com Just keep in mind, they probably won’t work. They never did for me. But, they will satisfy your need to test every day (all day) without spending a fortune. Once you are pregnant there are so many more fun things on which to spend a fortune-but more on that later.

My advice: may as well just relax and see what happens.