Guest Blog Post by Dana Vicktor
Pregnancy -- especially a first pregnancy -- is a time of great personal change. No matter
how prepared you think you are, you may find yourself feeling confused, anxious, worried, or even scared. Pregnancy may leave you questioning things about yourself that you thought you knew. It may bring out qualities that you didn't know you had. And all that's before you ever become a parent.
Journaling is a wonderful tool for self-discovery. As such, it is a great tool for helping you make it through the simultaneously wonderful and challenging time that pregnancy can be.
Here are just a few ways that journaling can be a positive during pregnancy:
Helps You Come to Terms with Your Feelings about the Pregnancy
Whether your pregnancy was planned or unplanned, you are likely to have some uncertainty about your feelings. It's only natural to experience some doubts -- either about your pregnancy or about who you will be as a parent -- and to have some anxiety.
Journaling can help you work through whatever feelings you have about your pregnancy. It can help you figure out what your feelings are, or it can help you come to terms with them.
Helps You Relieve Anxiety about Birth
Besides becoming a mother, many women feel their greatest amount of anxiety about the process of giving birth itself. They wonder how they will be able to cope with the pain, and they worry about being able to handle the experience.
There are many coping techniques that women learn to help them manage labor and delivery, and many of these focus on relieving anxiety and promoting confidence. Journaling can help women do both of these things long before labor ever starts, strengthening their odds for success.
Helps You Define Your Goals for Parenting
It's hard to know what kind of parent you will be until you are holding your baby in your arms -- and sometimes not even then. However, thinking deliberately about your choices will help you to feel more ready for the job ahead of you and will help you define your goals for parenting. Thinking about these issues before your baby comes is a good way to ensure that you get started in the right direction.
Helps You Bond with Your Baby
You can start bonding with your baby long before he or she is born. Journaling can help you to imagine your relationship with your baby, your hopes for him or her, and the love you will feel. This will help you to communicate these feelings to your baby while you are still pregnant, helping you to start forming that bond even before birth.
Provides a Great Keepsake for Baby
Whether you are journaling about your feelings about your pregnancy or your baby or are journaling about the ups and downs of pregnancy -- your cravings, your emerging bump, and other adventures -- your journal will make a wonderful memento for your baby one day. Your son or daughter will love learning about you as a young parent-to-be and what your journey toward parenthood was like.
Did you keep a journal through your pregnancy? How did it help you? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!
About Dana
Dana Vicktor is the senior researcher and writer for duedatecalculator.org. Her most recent accomplishments include graduating from Ohio State University with a degree in communications and sociology. Her current focus for the site involves pregnancy symptoms and pregnancy tests online.
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