Passing the Pregnant Time

5 Things to Do While Waiting for Baby

By Shel Franco

Here's the bad news: Forty weeks is a long time. While it's much shorter than a decade, it's much longer than a day. In fact, the average full-term pregnancy covers more of the calendar year than the average school year does – and those kids don't do weekends! The good news is that the 40 weeks of pregnancy provide you with plenty of time to prepare for motherhood. We have 5 fabulous and beneficial ways for you to pass the time!

Putting your thoughts and feelings on paper does more than release your creative energies. Research has shown that journaling is actually therapeutic, and positively impacts mental health.

Tammy Janero of Pittsburgh, Pa., kept a daily journal through both of her pregnancies. "I would mostly write them as letters to my children about what happened that day, what was going on with the family, what was going on in the world, and how I was feeling about [it]," she says. "As it got closer to the end, I would also let them know how I was feeling and my emotions and anxieties and excitement about their arrivals. At the time, I thought that when they got older and were ready to start their own families, that the journals would bring some insight to them about their own development and births. I kept them up for a time after each one was born, too."

While Janero's primary goal was to keep the diary for her children's benefit, she gained from the experience as well. When you're troubled or anxious about a particular event, birth related or not, it helps to release those emotions. "If you don't have someone you feel comfortable speaking with it may be helpful to put these thoughts into writing by writing in a journal," says Dr. Gina Hassan, clinical psychologist in Berkeley, Calif., who specializes in working with pregnant women and new mothers.

Want to see more?

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• Blogging the Baby: Keeping an Online Journal during Pregnancy and Beyond
• Baby on a Budget: Creating a Nursery without Spending a Fortune
• Talk about it!