In Gloria's Place I can be a mom, a woman, a daughter, a wife, a writer, a customer, an observer and a person all at the same time, without judgement or remorse.
The Pregnancy Journal by A. Christine Harris, Ph.D., has been a pleasure to read and review. The best feature of the book to me is it’s spiral bound format which makes it easier for me to read and write in when I’m exhausted and too tired to use two hands to hold a book open while trying to read and relax. The spiral bound also gives the pregnancy journal a journaling feel and look.
Other great features make this book journal a pleasure to have. For example, the day-to-day fetal development information is great to read. Because of it I get an idea of what's going on day to day with my baby and with me rather than those monthly or per trimester reports most popular books provide. So far I have used this feature to explain to my kids how the baby is growing, how mommy is feeling and should be doing and eating.
Another great feature is the due date count back. Yes it is confusing and yes it can be off a few days, but pregnancy is never exact. This serves as a guide and is not written in stone. In fact, I’ve written my dates down in pencil just in case.
Charting your weight and size is a good idea too, though I admit I’m too shy/embarrassed to measure mine so often. I need to though because I’m the type of person that likes to look back at details like these and see how big or small I was at a certain date.
The Did You Know segments are my favorite of the segments. I love fun facts like these. The childbirth and child rearing in different cultures segments is a keeper too. Learning how other women give birth around the world is eye opening, but I must say I had some trouble understanding the way it was written at first.
In addition I enjoyed the quotes at the bottom of each page and other good segments like: For Your Health and Parenting Tips, etc.
The book setup allows me to personalize my pregnancy with the dates and the notes. I don’t see this books as a detailed medical pregnancy reference book but more as a quick guide I can use to jot down notes, emotions etc. Doing this reminds me of a scrapbooking. In fact to me The Pregnancy Journal is a little bit journal and a little bit scrapbook combined. Maybe it should be called Pregnancy ScrapJournal.
If I could personalize this Pregnancy Journal to my Exact liking I would: add places to add pictures (like ultrasound pictures), add just a little bit more space for notes but not much. After all if I want a blank journal to jot down all my thoughts I can go get one. I would also add some pockets at the beginning and end of week so I can keep pregnancy memorabilia inside it. Yes this would convert it into a scrapbook pregnancy journaling book but I did say it was personalized for my liking and I think it would make for a special keepsake after baby is born.
Now as a journal I feel there isn’t much room for notes so I have to write small. Like I mentioned before, just a little more space for this would make a difference. I would also have liked to have had more on pictures of a growing baby, more detail on emotional changes, skin changes, sleeping challenges, aches and pains and if possible a section of good pregnancy exercise tips to help our aching pregnant bodies.
All in all I think this is a good and entertaining pregnancy journal to keep right along side a pregnancy books that provides detailed information.
If you would like to leave a comment I apologize, but I had to disable it for this entry. Some spammers overloaded it and now I am unable to delete them. My only choice was to disable. Please feel free to leave comments on my other post though.
