Your First Trimester - Parenting Guide

Excerpted from
Parenting Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth
By Paula Spencer, Parenting Magazine Editors

When I'm reading up on a life-changing event-especially one, like pregnancy, that will change my body, my mind, my relationship, and nearly every other aspect of my life-I like to hear the unvarnished truth about it from an insider, from someone who's been there. Well, in the case of this book, I haven't just "been there," I was in the middle of being there as I wrote. In a stranger-than-fiction twist of fate, one Monday morning, the editors of PARENTING asked me if I would be interested in writing a book about pregnancy. On Tuesday, I realized that my period was late. A home-pregnancy test issued a bright blue line of confirmation. You can bet that my interest in writing such a book spiked higher than my HCG levels. (That's human chorionic gonadotrophin, a hormone that skyrockets in your system to say, "Yup, you're growing a baby.") What's more, my deadline for finishing the book turned out to be...the day before my due date.

Coincidence? Or something that was meant to be? Soon I was off and writing about first-trimester bladder changes between trips to the bathroom-and without the benefit of my usual deadline fuel, coffee and M&Ms. (Alas, I'd lost all taste for them.) By the second trimester, it was easy to write about what it felt like to feel a baby move; all I had to do was pause at the keyboard and wait for a kick. I could also empathize with questions like "What should I do if the alpha-fetoprotein test looks suspicious?" and "How can I survive bedrest without going crazy?" And so it went for nine months. I delivered the manuscript 10 days early "just in case," then promptly delivered the baby early, too. Finally, I revised the finished text while childbirth and the first weeks with a newborn were fresh in my mind-and by then, in another coincidence, my editor at Ballantine, Elisa Wares, was expecting as well.

The lucky timing of writing a pregnancy guide while I was pregnant enabled me to tune in to the minutiae of these special months in a much keener way than if I were strictly doing research and looking back on my previous four experiences. (I'd already had two children, ages 4 and 2, and two miscarriages.) This in-the-trenches perspective also reminded me what a topsy-turvy experience having a baby is. I love being pregnant. But that's not to say I loved every minute of every pregnancy. The high of hearing the fetal heartbeat was balanced by the low of having heartburn. I welcomed going to my doctor's appointments but dreaded giving blood for tests (and worrying about the potential results). Along with every fun decision about how to decorate the nursery seemed to lurk a cranky argument with my husband over what to name the baby. And let's not talk about varicose veins.

Being pregnant also allowed me to capture the endless questions, big and small, that shadow a woman like so many curious toddlers during this unique slice of life. Is it safe to eat this? Was that twitch normal? Is it really true (as my own mom cautioned) that reaching my arms over my head would cause the umbilical cord to knot?

The first time I was pregnant, for example, I was dogged by a secret terror that I'd be inept at motherhood. I was the one who'd always tiptoe backward out of the office when a young child came to visit the place I worked. I'd never baby-sat. I'd never even held an infant. To bolster my confidence, my husband and I took a newborn parenting course. It covered all the basics: breastfeeding, burping, bathing, and so on. Then came a chance for hands-on experience, diapering lifelike baby dolls. I cowered. I hung back and let my husband go first. When he insisted I try, I flushed. I fumbled. Yes, I even dropped the doll. Eight months pregnant, hurtling toward motherhood with no turning back, I cried all the way home. But then, just a few weeks later, this same apprehensive mama-to-be soldiered through 12 hours of labor and greeted a new day with a slippery, robust newborn in her arms. A baby! I did it! And now, several pregnancies later, here I am, writing a book about the subject. Believe me, if I can ease through pregnancy to parenthood-loving it-anyone can.

That's why, above all, this is a real person's guide to having a baby. Both practical and reassuring, it's fully appreciative of the fact that everyone-and every pregnancy-is different. It presents a total picture of pregnancy and childbirth, from the latest medical facts to enduring old wives' tales, from what's going on in your body to what's going on in your head and your heart and even your closet. You'll find explanations, advice, and ideas. But it skips the preachy lectures and scientific treatises that sound more pre-med than prenatal.

Such a guide is not, of course, created from one mom's experiences alone; I've woven together the perspectives of doctors, nurses, childbirth educators, scientists, and researchers. Importantly, you'll also read the advice of other expectant parents, who know that pregnancy is about more than measuring your fundus and consuming folic acid. (Though you can be sure those important details are here, too!)

I tried to organize the book the way a pregnant woman thinks. (Again, gestating while I typed really helped.) Each 3-month trimester is handled separately and in depth, to reflect the unique differences between early, middle, and late pregnancy. Covered within each trimester are all of the main preoccupations of a pregnant woman's life: physical changes, emotional changes, health-care visits, diet, exercise, sexuality, appearance, work, and "other big deals" (such as decorating a nursery and choosing a pediatrician). Labor and the first weeks with a newborn merit their own chapters.

This book is for women like you, who-like me-in the course of 9 amazing months will find themselves transformed, from big-bellied blank slates to experience-rich mothers. May it help make your long strange trip the best it can be, with the happiest ending.