How Much Weight Should Mommy Gain?

Gaining Weight is very important during a pregnancy. Though you may be eating a lot more food, you want to make sure that it is still fairly healthy. Sweets wont hurt in moderation, but if you realize that what you eat is building your baby then you may be a little more careful. During the pregnancy you don't want to gain too much weight because this can lead to gestational diabetes. Also, you want to make sure you gain weight because low weight gain can lead to a low birth weight (babys weight). Kind of a tricky situation but if you eat fairly healthy and get moderate excersise then you should be just fine.

So how much weight should mommy be gaining? A healthy mom should gain 25 to 35 pounds during the entire pregnancy. Now most of this is not fat, actually only about 8-9 lbs of it is fat, protein and other nutrients according to BabyCentre.com. Your baby at birth will weight about 7 lbs, the placenta weighs about 1.5 lbs, And fluid (blood, Amniotic,) accounts for almost 4 lbs itself.

So mommy needs to be reassured that she is NOT getting fat because really shes not. Obviously if she is overweight then she will need to gain less weight and the oposite if she is underweight. She should be gaining 1-4 lbs in the first trimester, 1-2 lbs per week in the second and 1 lbs per week after that. This should lead to a healthy weight for mommy and baby.

Crafty Way to Announce Babies Gender

There are many ways to tell friends about the gender of the baby. In this day and age why not use the tools given to us? At first I was not sure if I was comfortable using facebook to mass inform my friends. I dont know, I felt it to be a little immature but after thinking about that many phone calls... Needless to say cooler heads prevailed. Kayla is a Pinterest addict, and found some awesome ways to display our new baby.

SPOILER ALERT! I havn't stated the gender of our baby yet but, this picture will give it away :)

This is how we decided to inform our friends about the good news. Be crafty! It's Fun!

How do I tell my family she's pregnant?

This is a really sensitive area. personally I wanted to call my parents up that day, but that is just the relationship I have with them. I forgot to mention that I now live about 1700 miles away from my hometown. I joined the Air Force in fall of 2010 and got stationed in the midwest. The reason why we kept it our own little secret is because the first couple of weeks are very crucial. A lot of complications can arrise in the first trimester. Pregnancy is broken into 3 trimesters and each trimester is roughly 3 months long. 3x3=9 months. My wife and I didn't want to have to tell everyone if something went wrong. It is pretty traumatic to have a miscarriage and it would have been too hard to explain it to all of our friends and family. I know that we still arn't out of the woods but you have to tell them sometime. A misscarriage can happen at any stage but less likely in the later weeks. So we kept it on the downlow for almost a month. After her first doctors appointment we felt comfortable letting the cat out of the bag. I also feel it is important to get your feelings straight before you start getting input from every direction possible.

My parents happened to be visiting for Thanksgiving so we sat my parents down on the couch and gave my mom a gift bag. Inside my wife had wrapped a cute frame that had a not in it that said something like "this frame will be filled july 2012." It also had a picture of the pregnancy test (positive). My parents reaction was wonderful. They were both very happy to hear the news. My mom had a little moment of shock afterwards but everyone handles important news differently. After informing my parents we called Kayla's family and told them over the phone. Which was not the best way to do it but it's not like we could just fly home that day. Everyone was overjoyed to hear that we would be adding another person to the family.

One large piece of advice is to not be nervous about their reaction. Even if you don't happen to be married yet. Parents would much rather hear about it from you then after you try to hide it from them. The majority of the time your parents situation was far worse then your own. In the end they are your parents and will have unconditional love for you nomatter what. It is human nature. Also, don;t get upset if they don't react the way you hoped right away. Emotions cause people to do and say crazy things in stressful situtations. Understand that they may just need some time to deal with it in their own way.

Next: The wonderful changes she's going through