As this pregnancy progresses, I'm taking stock of how I've prepared during this time and what I'd make sure to do in any future pregnancies we're blessed with. And I've realized, I will be doing much less! In particular, I won't...
1. Take weekly belly pictures. That got old after about three weeks. (My husband was tired of it after, well, the first week.) It is fun to look at how I've progressed, but having to put on the same outfit every week is a bit of a hassle, and we've definitely slacked off and missed several weeks now. At this point I'm hoping to put together pictures of every four weeks for this child, and it probably won't happen at all with the next.
2. Keep such close track of my weight. For years now I've weighed myself every morning, and don't worry too much about a couple pounds fluctuation from day to day. However, now that I have a chart to follow, I'm much more paranoid about it. In the future, I think I'll just let the doctor tell me if I'm gaining too much or too little and go from there.
Similar to this, for a few weeks I decided to measure my waistline. I don't know what on earth caused me to think that was a good idea. It's not like there are any charts for that (and if there are, please don't tell me), and I got a bit panicky when I went up a full inch in just a week. I scrapped this plan back in the second trimester and am quite glad I did.
3. Register. This is a given, since you don't register for subsequent babies, but I wanted to include it on this list for the sake of completeness. And really, I'd be fine if I never set foot in Babies R Us again.
4. Read a gazillion pregnancy books. I was searching for the perfect pregnancy book when I finally realized - they're all basically the same. It's nice to have a reference that'll take you through month by month (although you can get the same info delivered to your inbox each week from plenty of websites), but none of those really stood out to me. Now that the overzealous researcher in me is satisfied, I've decided at most I only need to actually own three books: one on childbirth (if you're particular about the kind you want - we're using Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way), one on breastfeeding (still not sure which is the best, but so far The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding seems good), and one on the beginning of life with baby (we're going with The Baby Book).
5. Buy top-of-the-line prescription prenatal vitamins. As someone who's healthy and a low-risk pregnancy, there is absolutely no need for me or my insurance company to be spending literally hundreds of dollars on prenatal vitamins (and at this point, I'm not sure who's shelling it out - argh!). I can get them for cheap at just about any local store (drugstore/grocery store/superstore), and plan to do so in the future. I just have to convince my husband (son of pharmaceutical man) that there really is no difference.
I don't really feel like our future children will be any worse for the lack of these things. My dad likes to complain about how there are fewer pictures of him as a child because he was at the end, but if that's the biggest complaint my kids harbor of their childhood, I figure we'll have done just fine. (And with the ease of digital cameras, I'm not worried about this happening.)
What did you do in your first pregnancy that you didn't/won't do in following ones?