Pregnancy Bliss and “APP”iness

I micromanaged and monitored every second of my first pregnancy. I kept track of every tiny development and every kick, pain, or craving. Clearly, a sign that I was going to be SUCH a great mom! (That is, if drafting lists and reading parenting books was all it took.)

I attempted to do the same with my second preganancy, but found myself a bit distracted… you know, with moving back to the US from across the globe, settling in a new place, taking care for my firstborn, and all….

I quickly learned that real life gets in the way of afternoon naps and counting the grams of protein I’ve eaten today. With my husband starting a new job and gone most of the time and a dire lack of outside help, I know I didn’t take enough time for myself or track every new development or change.

How could I? I had TWO little people depending on me for everything- one running circles around me and the other masterminding cravings and mood swings from within. Again, I have no idea why I thought already having one child would make me an expert on having second? If anything, I felt even more the clueless new mom!

So just as I did with my previous pregnancy, I went to the source for everything all things pregnancy and new baby related. “Paging Dr. Google” Umm, not quite…  Of course, I’m talking about Baby Center.

If it wasn’t for the BabyCenter emails that faithfully appeared in my inbox, I wouldn’t have known how for along I was.

Am I thirty-two weeks pregnant in this photo or thirty-three weeks?

(Actually, I’m thirty-four weeks and probably craving a hot dog topped with Cheetos, or something equally as gross…)

I’ll let you in on a little secret. To this day, I still use BabyCenter to track how many months and weeks old my children are and mentally brace myself for their next big “milestone”.

Of course, they used to be sweet things like “learning to coo” or “taking those first steps”. Now, it’s stuff like, “So, your daughter has probably started biting her friends, isn’t she? Here’s how to apologize graciously” and “How to get your son to stop talking about his penis. No, really. It’s all kinds of awesome, but enough already”.

Well, BabyCenter has since taken all of those same great resources– the milestones and helpful tips, not the biting– and spun it into an app for the iPhone, iTouch, and Android.

The BabyCenter My Pregnancy Today app is a daily guide for your pregnancy, filled with smart advice, updates, guides to help you eat well and manage cravings, tracking tools, and of course, to-do lists and reminders. There’s a reason it’s called “pregnancy brain”…

Oh, and the app completely free to download and use. Bonus! Now if only it came with a “way back when” machine so I could have used it two year ago…

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BabyCenter is one of our wonderful “All About the Bump” Month sponsors and I was pleased to have any opportunity to write about them.

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