I was lucky enough to come across this organizer very early on in my pregnancy and have since recommended it to all my preggo friends and co-workers. Not only is it chock full of wonderful features, it is also nice to look at. Mind you, this is not one of those pregnancy journals with blank pages to record thoughts/feelings about your pregnancy and pictures of other people's babies - this is a simple, elegant and extremely useful ORGANIZER. Just wanted to make that clear so folks are not disappointed if they are expecting something else.
I am a pretty organized person to begin with, but I truly believe in "pregnancy brain" - so this organizer was a godsend when often times I couldn't remember what day of the week it was! It is divided into 6 sections: intro, healthy start, prep for baby, prep for childbirth, at home w/ baby and resources.
Intro - my favorite features of the organizer are in this section: the checklist and the calendar. I can't tell you how many times I referenced this section! The checklist is a to-do list in a timeline format split out by the weeks of your pregnancy, it helps to keep track of things like when you should sign up for childbirth classes, etc. The calendar was a great place to keep track of all my appointments, classes, tours and when to take my belly photos. :)
A healthy start - the features I used most in this section were the pages for pre-natal visits and the weight gain chart. The pages for the pre-natal visits have lines to note your questions for your care provider. This was great, particularly in the earlier part of my pregnancy when my visits were 4 weeks apart. If a question came to me randomly, I would jot it down and by the time my next appt came around, I had a whole list of questions for my provider. It really helped me make the most of those visits. The weight gain chart let me check at a glance whether I was on-track. I just make a little star next to the measurements that were taken on the medical scale vs. one at home, since there was some variation.
Prep for baby - I used the shopping list and thank you notes list the most. I also got
Baby Bargains, 8th Edition: Secrets to Saving 20% to 50% on Baby Furniture, Gear, Clothes, Toys, Maternity Wear and Much, Much More!
(another wonderful resource) to decide what to put on the registry, then recorded details about each item in this organizer. It was so helpful when I was in the store on on the website adding items, since everything was right there.
Prep for childbirth - the pages set aside for taking notes in childbirth prep class were really helpful, since I was able to keep all my pregnancy-related info in one place. The packing checklist was comprehensive and I had everything I needed in my hospital bag. There is a part called Childbirth Memories - a tip - definitely jot down as much as you can as soon as you can because you'll be amazed at how fuzzy your memory gets with all that sleep deprivation.
At home with baby - I purchased the companion organizer by these authors -
The Essential Baby Organizer: Birth to One Year (The Essential Organizers)
- so I haven't used this section as much since the other one is so comprehensive.
Resources - A ton of great websites and books are listed in this section, I also jotted down other websites in the margins as I came across them. There is also a handy plastic pocket inside the back cover, I used it to keep information that my provider would give me at visits.
The organizer is a good size, small enough to fit in my work tote (and could stash a pen in the spiral binding). The binding also allows you to flip the cover all the way open. Seems like a small point, but when you use it as much as I did, I found that to be essential. And it doesn't look like a frilly baby book, so I could pull it out while I was at work and it just looked like a cool notebook!
I highly recommend this organizer to anyone who is, plans to be, or knows someone who is pregnant. There is a lot that will be happening during your pregnancy - this organizer can store it all so you don't have to keep it in your head!
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Reviews with images
Unusable! Pregnancy workbook already filled in :(
Unusable! The 40 Weeks Pregnancy organizer from Jensen Books was already used! Someone else had already filled in the workbook with their 2012 pregnancy and it is not usable even though it was defined as being in “Very good” shape. Very disappointed that I wasted 3 weeks of my pregnancy for this :(
