A note to all first-time and expectant mothers...

Do you have one of "those" books by your bed? You know - Having a Baby for Dummies, or something similar?
You do? I thought so.
Here's a piece of advice. Throw it away. Burn it. Just get rid of it.
I had those books too. And I spent every night reading it. And then I spent the rest of the night having nightmares about what was possibly happening in my belly, where my bright, beautiful baby was growing.
At about six months (or 24 weeks for those of you who are now looking at time and its measurements in a whole new light), my husband said "enough".
"It's nothing but a bunch of fear mongering," he said. "If it were up to the writers of these books, you would never move, at all, during the entire nine-month process. But then they'd freak you out about not being active enough. You don't need these books. Get rid of them."
And I did.
Shortly after I had my very healthy, not at all afflicted with one of the thousands of things that could have gone wrong according to "those books" baby, I went back and looked at the book again.
Every pregnancy symptom known to man was in those books. And every symptom "could be" something going wrong with your pregnancy. But as we all know, hormones don't necessarily make us the most rational people on the planet. Our eyes skip over "could be" situations and make them into "will be" situations.
So here it is - we visit doctors every month. Those same doctors invite us to come in any time we feel something may not be right (I had my share of non-stress tests, let me tell you). They also increase our visits to once a week after we get past some magic number (34 weeks in my case). We have ultrasounds, and get to hear little rapid heart beats every time we walk into the office. Now, more than ever with medical technology, doctors know when something isn't quite right, almost immediately.
So sit back. Relax. Let this miracle happen. And if you really want to scare yourself, go look up the chart for growth spurts. And teething. Then you'll know why your little angel is screaming blue murder at 2 a.m. when nothing is seemingly wrong.