17 Little Things I Did To Have An Easier Pregnancy

My anxiety comes in the form of irrational thinking and fears—for example, I'll start to worry about something, go down a rabbit hole of the worst-case scenario of what could go wrong, and then just freak the hell out until I find a way to calm down and get back to reality.

I've never taken medication for my anxiety, which is a totally personal choice. Instead, I've been fortunate that years of talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy have been enough for me to manage it.

Being pregnant has definitely brought out some of the worst of my anxiety because there are so many changes that you go through, both physically and emotionally. And don't get me started on the hormones-

Keep in mind that every person and every pregnancy is different. This list is not meant to be a substitute for medical advice (please call your doctor or therapist for that); rather, it's a list of things that worked for me, in case they may someday work for you, too.

also known as "trying to get pregnant" or, if you've ever been on a message board about pregnancy, "TTC."

I liked the line tests that either show an extra line or don't, as opposed to ones that say "PREGNANT" or "NOT PREGNANT" because the words NOT PREGNANT suck to read. At least a line doesn't know that it's crushing your heart—I swear the digital ones are evil.

At first I liked First Response Early Result tests because the shape is easier to pee on (The Sweethome recommends them, too), but eventually I bought whatever was the cheapest at Target.

My new doctor wouldn't see me until I was 8 and a half weeks along, which is pretty standard. I found out I was pregnant at 4 weeks. So, if you do the math, that is 4 and a half weeks of FREAKING OUT. The thing that helped me more than anything was Googling "pregnancy mantra" and finding one that made me feel calm. I keep it as a note on my phone and some days read it multiple times a day.

Here are my favorite lines:

• Everything I feel and experience is part of the great lesson of motherhood.

• I am loving and thankful toward my partner, who is supportive through my pregnancy.

• I am connected to all women who are pregnant all over the world.

And I saw this on a message board somewhere and loved it so much that I saved it and read it often, too:

"We can either be paranoid and miserable and wish our lives away for the next few weeks, which won't change the outcomes of our pregnancies, or we can be happy and celebrate that we are pregnant, and if the worst happens then we'll face it knowing that at least we had a few weeks of joy."

Because for every thing you look up on the internet, there are hundreds of people freaking out in message boards about it. It's the anxious leading the anxious (to put it gently!). I could have called my doctor for stuff I was worried about but I knew this was about my brain and not my body.

When I HAD to Google, I used the term "irrational fear" along with whatever I was looking up. That yielded more good convos about calming yourself down and fewer horror stories... because if you're looking for a horror story about a pregnancy symptom, you will FIND ONE. I promise.

I really just wanted a book that would tell me if the thing I was freaking out about was worth freaking out about, and this one really did the trick. Oster is an associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School and a mom, and she uses her experience from both to give you a rundown of what conventional wisdom to follow and what to ignore.

I want to hug her. You can get a copy for yourself here.

Yeah, this one should have been obvious to me but I needed my OB to suggest it before I realized that I really needed to be regularly seeing a therapist during my pregnancy, especially since I was still carrying a lot of the emotional weight of my miscarriage. I don't know what I would do without therapy, and I'm told I'm setting myself up for a more successful postpartum (aka after the baby is born), too.

If you're wondering if therapy is a good choice for you, I love this guide from our amazing Health team.

Ahh I feel so guilty when I don't reply to people's texts, but I started getting multiple "how are you feeling??" texts a day and I just. could. not. People meant well, so I figured they would be horrified to know that responding to their texts would be really stressful to me.

So: I just didn't respond to them and pretended I was the kind of person who is so chill and busy that I missed their texts to begin with. For the people who obviously really wanted to talk to me about being pregnant, I politely told them I wasn't ready and that was enough for them to not talk to me about it.

I also need to regularly tell people not to tell me horrifying stories about pregnancy or going into labor, and I find myself at least once a week stopping someone before they tell me a story that I know will upset me or freak me out. They understand 100% of the time.

I know this is also obvious, please don't @ me. When your brain is messing with you and your body is doing all kinds of weird stuff, it's easy to panic and totally forget to drink water. It wasn't actually until my also-pregnant friend told me that her doctor had been yelling at her to drink water that I was like, oh, right, this is a thing I should be doing.

Water helps with cramps and constipation and like everything, you know all of this because hi, you've heard about water. But if your body feels not great, drink up and there's a good chance you'll start to feel better.

Up to about week 16, I was puking at least once and sometimes three times a day. It was not fun. My doctor told me to have small, bland meals, and not be too hard on myself if what I was eating wasn't "healthy" because any food is better than no food. I basically lived off of ginger ale and saltines. When I could eat ~real food~, I kept my portions small, which also helped with heartburn.

HOT tip from my sister-in-law, a mother of a three-year-old: Eating peanut butter when you know you're going to puke soon makes everything at least taste a little more like peanut butter and less like puke. This only works if you, like us, freaking love peanut butter. (Hi, did I mention being pregnant is kind of gross?)

Losing my first pregnancy created a whole new set of milestones for my second one: The first time I found out I was pregnant again, the first time I saw the heartbeat, when I officially was further along in my second pregnancy than I was in my previous (I've seen this referred to as your "balloon day" which makes me cry at my desk a little bit), the day I hit the second trimester, and then reaching "viability" at 24 weeks.

It's pretty common for people to announce their pregnancy at 13 weeks when they've hit the second trimester (because 80% of miscarriages happen in the first trimester, it's conventionally thought of as a "safe" time to announce it after that point), but that still felt too soon for me.

Suddenly on Facebook, though, all of these women I knew were announcing that they were pregnant—some due after me! I felt weird and ashamed and freaked out... and my husband and therapist were like, "Um, then don't announce it?" So I didn't.

I put a picture of my husband drinking a Dad's root beer up on Facebook and never looked back. And I've started planning a baby shower and buying baby stuff from yard sales. These have been really big steps for me and my mental progress.

But I don't have any tips for that part yet :)