h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It is the most fantastic state to be in!! I would first of all advise any newly pregnant mother/father! to buy a good book which explains the course of the pregnancy and what you can expect to feel as the months progress, also so that you can understand the options available during labour and childbirth, and what to expect when the little offspring finally arrives!! Believe me it can come as an awful shock!

I became pregnant with my first child at the somewhat advanced age of 35, the first thing that I did when I knew, was to give up smoking! If a woman really cannot bear to give up, then I would suggest each day one ciggarette less, until you get the smoking controlled to the bare minimum. The first few months are crucial and all alcohol should be avoided too.

To soothe nausea and sickness, ginger is very good, you can buy the root ginger and make a drink to keep in the fridge with it, by steeping the ginger in boiling water. It does not taste very appetising, so you may want to try a nice ginger biscuit instead!! Also grated apple helps, and eating small snacks of fruit every couple of hours alleviates the problem quite a lot.

All medication which is not prescribed by a Doctor should also be avoided, and remember, drive your Doctor crazy with never-ending questions, anything you are not sure about....ask... however silly you may think the question seems.

Tiredness and insomnia are also normal in pregnancy, I often fell asleep at 9 pm only to wake up at 3am full of life and raring to go, so I often got up and cleaned the fridge, read a book or watched the television! only to be a wreck when it was time to go to work later at 9am!!

Eat healthily, but not for two!! induldge yourself from time to time, and don,t worry if you burst out into tears at inopportune times, that,s just the hormones raging!!

Put your feet up, relax and allow yourself to be spoiled as often as you can, enjoy these months of waiting, because once he/she is born you won,t have time for anything!!

It,s all worth it though!! The greatest achievement of all!!

I was 33 when I had my one and only and he's just about to turn 22 so it was quite a while ago but I remember it as if it were yesterday!

As Jane Austin says it's the greatest achievement of them all. The the one thing in my life that gave me the greatest pleasure was having my son. I was fortunate in that I had an extremely good pregnancy, no morning sickness whatsoever and I was able to work right up until about a week before the birth. The only reason why I stopped then was because my boss (a man!) said he didn't want to risk me giving birth at work. He was thinking of himself by the way, not me! Obviously thought it might be a disgusting sight!

I had a craving for raw carrots and ate them by the kilo and the only time I had any discomfort was at night in bed until I was told how to get comfy.

Lie on one side with the lower leg stretched out straight and raise the upper leg and cross it over the other and that way the bulge is resting gently on the matress. It really works well and in fact I still adopt the same position for sleeping even though there's no bulge now. Not even a middle-aged one I'm proud to say!

Make the most of being pregnant, it's a wonderful experience feeling those little kicks and movements. My son had hiccups a lot too which worried me at first until I was told what it was.

I used to dream about how my son would look but nothing prepared me for the first time I actually held him in my arms right after being born, it really was a gift from God.

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A friend of mine is newly pregnant with her second child after a gap of 8 years, she is suffering nausea, vomiting and tearfulnes, all the usual things, so I have been out this afternoon to buy her root ginger at least to help with the nausea and vomiting!! the tearfulnes?? well there,s not much one can do about that, only take it as it comes, everything seemed to reduce me to tears in early pregnancy, even though I was ecstaticaly happy!! and now I am so envious of her, I just loved being pregnant!!