As soon as you find out your pregnant, it feels like the onslaught happens. You start to see articles everywhere about getting ready for baby. People start sharing their advice for you. And the moment you purchase your first baby item you start to get all sort of targeted mailers about pregnancy (despite my marketing degree, I’m still not sure exactly how this happens even if you don’t give your address, but it seems to). So I’m not sharing about what “they” say you should do when you find you’re pregnant. I’m sharing a few fun things that I did early in my pregnancy that I’m glad I decided to do.

1. Sign up for a mailing list (or two), but make sure they align with what you want to know.
I promised myself (and the Hubby) that I would work hard to avoid as much as I could about scary pregnancy stories. I deal with hypochondria (and overactive imagination) in my mind and knew it would not be helpful to anyone in my family if I got worked up over the worst case scenarios.  I limited my weekly readings to a mailing list that focused on my baby’s development (My Pregnancy This Week from BabyCenter), a clever book my mom found at a yard sale (The Pregnancy Countdown Book), and the wonderful and funny mailing list that almost always shares something I’m going through that week (Alpha Mom Pregnancy Calendar).  It’s really fun reading each week about what is going on in my body and I’ve found in surprisingly comforting when the information I’ve read matches up with what I have experienced (Oh you mean that heartburn I’m feeling is right on time? Good to know!).

2. Start noting down at least a few things going on with you to look back on.
I haven’t gone crazy recording down every little thing in my pregnancy,  but I have tried to note down the big things (like the first time Daddy felt her kick and when we announced her name to the world).  I also started doing weekly bump photos at about 11 weeks. I started a digital baby book in Evernote (more on that later) where I’ve been saving everything. I hope to put some of these notes together to print out in a legit baby book sometime but at least I have them saved for now. Even though she’s not here just yet it’s amazing how far away some of the things from the beginning of my pregnancy feels and it’s fun to be able to go back and look at those things now.

3. Figure out how you want to share what’s going on with your framily. 
It’s hard to keep track of who you have shared what with. There are a lot of of great options for sharing your updates and photos and it can be a tough decision.

After much consideration we decided we would share via a private Google+ page. No matter what way you decide to share with your close people, go ahead and start sharing those fun updates and photos. Those who are interested will love it and it. It will give you a great way to connect with those people.