Navigating Pregnancy- A Comprehensive Guide to Graceful Pregnancy and Delivery

Deck the halls with bibs of Baby fa la lala la la, la la la,

T'is the season to be Mommy fa la la la la la, la la la.

This isn't my usual blogpost genre, but it's the need of the hour! I have an excruciatingly small number of friends and almost all of them are currently pregnant. This post has been demanded by the concurrence of their life events! So here's a comprehensive outlook on navigating through pregnancy, preparation to welcoming a brand new life while losing oneself in no way but in love with the freshness of life in your womb and soon in arms. So what makes me qualified enough to write this post? Well, I've been there, done that. Having seen the good, bad, and ugly, I am here to tell what worked and what could've worked better when i did what you're doing. It may contain pretty straight forward notes, but reiterating them might reinforce their importance. It's a list post again, brace yourselves, mama ( and papa!)

It's categorized into the following sections: Physical, mental, and emotional wellness. I know pregnant ladies have thinned out patience, just stay with me, it might be worth your time!

PHYSICAL WELLNESS:

Take relaxing walks, as often as possible.
Do pregnancy safe workouts if your health allows you to.
Pelvic workouts that eases the area is a must try. Try prenatal yoga that if focused on relaxing the pregnant body.
Kegel exercises are reported to enhance the strength of the pelvic floor.
Water is simply the elixir that keeps all kinds of pregnancy related discomfort. Cramps, Charley Horse, constipation, heartburn, and all the treasures of nuanced nuisance can be drastically minimized just by drinking good amount of water.
Ensure every meal and sub meal is loaded with nutrition. Include all kinds of seeds,and nuts especially walnuts, rich proteins, quality complex carbs with low glycemic index ( Fresh fruits, and cooked vegetables, lots of them. If you eat meat (which none of these friends do), load up on organic fresh water salmon, and try to incorporate egg in your everyday diet.
Do not forget your materna prenatal supplements, any missing Micronutrient in your diet is hopefully supplied by these supplements.
Folic acid has debatable significance to pregnancy. Nevertheless, it's a necessary vitamin to upkeep your baby's neurological health.
No, pregnancy is not the excuse to load up on the simple carbs and sugars. The craving isn't worth suffering long term. The fetus develop food preferences and by third trimester, they develop functional taste buds. So your loaded sugary drinks or kale and cucumber juice have direct long term and short term impacts on your child, as the studies show that they tend to prefer foods they've been frequently exposed to during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
It's perfectly safe and healthy to have physical intimacy (even though the haywire hormones and hammered body may not make it natural)
Take moderate lukewarm baths with minimal soap and bubbles.
Losing sleep could be a part of pregnancy journey, but, catching up is equally important. Try to sleep on the left side and roll to the right side when you wake up. Avoid sleeping on your back and on your tummy.
Blood pressure regulation is necessary, curb on salt treats. Same with diabetes, excise caution before you reach out for the second slice of that chocolate cake.
Enjoy the luscious shine and thickness your hair gains throughout pregnancy.
Skin breakouts in random parts of the face, changes in your voice, changes in the shape of your nose, and obviously your face and breasts, are all common.
Explore perineum massage ideas that help reducing tearing or the need for episiotomy.
You can go into labor with or without the water breaking. Water can break without labor pain. You can go into labor starting with pain and the doctor may have to break the water. All of these are common, there's no right way to go into labor.
Pack your hospital bag in third trimester, and get the house and nursery baby ready. The exhaustive list have in made! That's for a separate post.
You can't be eating any solids once you are in active labor especially at the hospital for obvious reasons. So, if you recognize going into labor, try to munch on since you wouldn't know how long you'd starve.
Download contractions timer app and keep it handy. Time your contractions, even though it could very well just be Braxton Hicks.
Download the flo app and other maternity apps, (I used baby center), which gives updates on fetal developments.

COGNITIVE:

It could feel like a lot of things many of them almost eternal. Anytime you find yourself riding tangential about pregnancy, labor, delivery, and after the fact, just bring yourself back to the present moment. Not in a spiritual sense, but quite truly, pregnancy is a marvelous short span of magic that you can't get again for the first time. Enjoy every single minute of it, the good and troubling ones. I can't stress this enough. The fact that you let your body be a home for a live human being and be okay, in fact happy to go through borderline deathlike pain to just see that little face doesn't happen that often. So, bring your drifting mind back to the current moment and to the magic within you.
Keep yourself updated on weekly fetal growth and the symptoms, so you can be prepared for what you expect.
Read and watch things to do before delivery, organizing and setting up nursery, essentials for the newborn, and the likes. You can't have the time or the energy to pick and choose them once he or she's out of you.
Keep the running list of things- Anything you think is necessary- Here's what it might look like- 1. My list of symptoms 2. Cravings for the week 3. The list of firsts- The test, the ultrasound, first flutter, first kick, first visible bump etc., 4. The list of people to invite/inform 5. Seemantham/ baby shower to do's 6. Things you want to buy before the baby arrives 7. Newborn care tips 8. The master list of advices. 9. What characters do I want to incorporate in my child? 10. The overall life plan after the baby 11. Envisioning the childhood and parenthood. 11. The Life changes list 12. The food log, and much more.
Keep a pregnancy journal and a baby memory book. Pregnancy journal can be the record of your feelings, worries, anxieties, joy, happiness, excitement, or merely the list of things in your mind, list of things to change in the house, etc.
Maintain a calendar- Online or otherwise, but have them handy- This will be useful to keep track of things as they happen- Th OB/GYN appointments, physicals, Ultrasounds, shopping dates, milestones, tracking the trimester, etc.,
Keep in mind that the life changes for the better after this phase, so try to come up with the budget and life plans with your partner.
Discuss with your partner regarding the delivery and postpartum care plans- It can get too messy, too unpredictable too soon. Who's going to be around to help with cooking, planning night feeds, formula or breastmilk, if the partner would be working, your healthcare etc.,
Have a back up formula feeding plan. Breastmilk may not be the ultimate answer for all baby cries. Our bodies are a miracle, and sometimes breastmilk may or maynot work out the way your child wants it. And that's okay.
The baby's memory book can contain the Ultrasound images, the stories of how you found out the pregnancy, the excitement, gender reveal, baby shower, picking names, gifts from people and their wishes, any special instances of bonding with the little one from within, the whole birth story, and anything you have, to want to let your baby know- Like adorable yawns, the way they slept the first few days, the first smile and much more.
Plan your postpartum- Just a day in life of a newborn and a new mom. Around the wake up times, feeding, your postpartum friendly food plan etc.
Get to reading about breastfeeding. Just bear in mind that pregnancy is not the whole picture. It's a trailer to various kinds of challenges ahead, breastfeeding being one of them.
Labor stories you may have heard about and the whole shebang around the details of it would bear no effect when it comes to your own. Others preferences should not determine your labor choices. At the same time, being flexible with options is the key to having a successful and safe delivery.
Hospital delivery, having a doula, at home delivery with a midwife, and with or without epidural normal delivery, water bath delivery or c section, can be your choice until they can't be. So as much as you'd like to have control of the situation, when it's no longer there, have someone who's aware of your priorities and preferences.
Have a written birth plan, and communicate with OB/GYN or other birthing professional about the contents of it. Modify as needed as per the inputs.

EMOTIONAL:

Pregnancy is nothing like you've experienced, ever. So it's completely natural to feel extensive happiness or outright anxiety. Embrace everything that you feel. There's no right and wrong. Things can feel overwhelming, at the end of the day, this is one of the biggest physiological changes you'd ever go through.
Keep an inner voice journal, sometimes, these voices can bring you to a point of heightened understanding of life as you live one and grow one.
Talk to a therapist if you find the need. Professional help to navigate through such life changes isn't uncommon.
At the back of any kind of emotion, bear in mind the importance of gratitude. There's no bigger wonder than having a life growing another life within. Be grateful for the ability you're bestowed to bring a life into this beautiful world. Whatever happens, health or otherwise, you're still on the profit side since we've come here with nothing. Ponder on gratitude.
Recognize that your emotions are just a result of secretions within your body. So what secretes within your body will be flushed around the womb. There's no need for the fetus to go through survival emotions just yet!
There's no need for any other feeling but joy, love, and gratitude. Anything any short lived circumstances can give you can't overtake the joy of only time you that can be first time pregnant where someone is being grown and nourished within you.
Do what makes you happy. Well, This is a general life advice, but it's especially necessary during pregnancy, since you may be the same same but different after having a child. So do watch that medical series, catch the sunrise and sunset at the beach, that vacation spot you've been dreaming about (take my word when i say babies can be expensive and demanding, may not be an ideal combination for a dreamy vacation), take that painting lessons, etc.
Listen to calming music, day and night. Instrumental or with lyrics, music can transform our body chemistry.
Try to explore some chants that you resonate with, and take a sankalpa to chant it regularly, say 108 times everyday for a mandala.
Catch up with long lost close ones. Reunion spurs up a fresh dose of happy hormones.
Watch all the stand up comedy shows. Laugh your heart out.
Recognize that there's no need or use of anger, frustration, anxiety, or guilt. Whether you think things are destined and life is to get through those destinations or you think we make and shape our lives, we have to ensure we don't lose track of how we feel since the anger or anxiety have no power to get anywhere.
At the same time, do not resist your emotions, piling them up is even worse than letting them out. Just stay in it, recognize what you're going through and why. Then recognize that there's no need for your reaction but your response.
Do what you are passionate about, there maybe a need to break from that during postpartum or more.
Take a relaxing getaway accompanied by a prenatal massage, it's worth every minute.
Make some room for all the rush of love you'd feel, after looking that kickboxing champion practicing within your womb acting out.
That's okay even if you don't feel the 'motherly love'. Your body has gone through a lot and it's not natural to feel the connection right away.
Labor and delivery is a different beast fo tackle. That has to be a separate post, relating to what I've experienced, so you may know what to expect. But generally, keep an open mind, and with every pain and discomfort, that it is a very effervescent thing to go through and once it's all done, you'd be in absolute awe of your labor and birth journey.
Recognize that not everything you to through physically requires your emotional involvement.