Pregnancy, Maternity, Labour and Baby

 Pregnancy...I have always known that to live without having babies would not be for me. As most women these days, I was also postponing it, enjoying my single life, but then I met my husband and everything changed. After a few years we decided to buy a house and renovate it. At that time most of my friends were married and trying to have babies. One of my friends was trying for two years and could not get pregnant. I could not believe it and started to panic, what if the same happened to us? At the end, they had to go for the IVF option, and a few months later she was pregnant with twins. We decided that when we finish renovating the house, we would start trying for babies. We finished renovating and went for a lovely holiday to Rome. When we got back, my husband kept on saying that there was something different about me and persuaded me into buying a pregnancy test. I was laughing at him and told him that we had not been trying long enough. To my big surprise the test was positive! I was pregnant! When I thought about it afterwards, all the pregnancy symptoms were there. I was tired all the time, sleeping for two, always hungry and my breasts were much larger. We were very happy and when the doctor confirmed my pregnancy, we told our family and close friends.

I have to admit that I was not one of the mothers who absolutely loved and enjoyed being pregnant. Of course, I could not wait to see our baby, but being sick all the time and getting fat, was very difficult for me. I also had a very bad backache all the time. At the end I had to come to a conclusion that I was doing it all for our baby and accepted all the negative sides of pregnancy and stopped complaining.

Your Pregnancy Weight Gain Plan

When you are pregnant you should watch your diet. There are a few things you should not be eating ( soft cheeses, pate, salami, uncooked meats, raw eggs, seafood,and others) and drinking (alcohol, too much tea or coffee). You should eat a well- balanced diet ( folic acid, iron, vitamin D), a bit of everything and drink plenty of water or juices. Avoid salty and high- fat food. You should also do some exercise, but make sure that it is suitable for pregnant women (walking, swimming, dancing). And I do not think I have to mention "NO SMOKING".

It is not true you should be eating for two. In the first trimester you should be eating extra 100cal a day, and in your second and third extra 300cal a day. And how much weight should you put on?

I was trying really hard not to put on too much, but at the end I finished up having extra 40 lbs. I started doing some gentle exercises a few days after giving birth to our daughter, and it took me a year to loose all my pregnancy weight gain (going swimming 2- 3x a week, power walking and watching my diet).

How to fight  ugly stretchmarks?

I am very lucky and have developed no stretchmarks. There are few tips you could use to prevent them. You should drink plenty of fluids during pregnancy, do some exercises and use special creams or oils that prevent stretchmarks. Well, most of the creams that claim stretchmarks prevention do not seem to work. I used Belli Stretchmark Minimizing Cream.  It is healing skin reparative treatment specifically formulated to decrease the appearance of existing stretchmarks. Features darutoside and registril – ingredients shown in independent clinical trials to be effective on stretchmarks of any age or from any cause. It smells nice, makes you feel gorgeous and is a pleasure to use...Most importantly IT WORKS!!!

Mama Mio Boob Tube

 All women know that their breasts change with the age, also after being pregnant and breastfeeding. As I have always had large breasts, I was worried that they would become very saggy and have always been doing some exercises to prevent that. Then I came across Mama Mio Boob Tube, rich in CoQ10 (to maintain strength and structure of collagen fibres), super nourishing, and so packed full of fantastic natural actives that your skin just responds beautifully to the attention, and have to say, what a brilliant product! I could tell the difference only after a week. My breasts felt much perkier and the skin firmer. I think it is very important not only to use good products, but also to do some exercise.

Antenatal classes

Originally, I did not want to attend antenatal classes. But then my husband agreed to come with me and now I am very happy for that decision. Not only we learnt some information about pregnancy, but most importantly, we made very good friends with other  pregnant mums and dads who we still see on a regular basis. Our babies were born in the same month, so we all went through similar things together. It is definitely worth attending these.

Maternity Clothes

It will take you a few months before you will have to buy some  maternity clothes like a maternity dress, trousers, jeans, tops, bras. I loved getting clothes from FunMum, Crave Maternity, Bump to 3, JoJo Maman Bebe, Mothercare but you can get some nice stuff from Dorothy Perkins, New Look, Next or John Lewis too. My  maternity bras as well as nursing bras were from Mothercare, La Redoute, Brastop or Figleaves, and I was very happy with them.

Labour pain, giving birth and related worries

I hope you will find my advice and tips quite useful and if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please, contact me on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it