How to create that pregnancy glow.

When I was pregnant I found that people thought it was OK to comment on my appearance, even telling me when they thought I looked awful.

Thanks.. really appreciated. Of course every pregnant woman likes to have a running commentary about her expanding body.

Anyway, my face went blotchy whilst I was pregnant. I guess thanks to those lovely pregnancy hormones.

And people kept pointing that out to me. "Your face is blotchy" they'd say. Yes I know. But thank you SO much for pointing that out to me because I wasn't self conscious enough about it.

Funny enough their comments did get to me and I began to feel like a bit of an ugly freak. Now I think it's time to mention that I don't wear make up. I think wearing make up maybe makes me look a little nicer but I just can't be bothered putting it on every morning. If it's a choice between catching a few extra z's and putting on make up to look a little nicer - I choose the sleep!

I do however moisturise every morning. So I decided to buy a tinted moisturiser. Yep.. it made me look a little nicer. But I couldn't have guessed what would happen as soon as I started using it. Suddenly, according to every one, I had that pregnancy glow!

By the way what is a pregnancy glow - I have never seen anyone glowing while they are pregnant! I also have no idea what people were seeing in me. All I could see was a blotchy face covered in tint.

So there's my secret to creating that pregnant glow - whatever the heck that means.

An exercise in pain management.

Here's a little exercise given to me by a physiotherapist whilst I was pregnant to help me think about my pain management strategies:

1. Hold your arms out straight at the sides of your body.
   
2. Bend your knees.
3. Hold for five minutes.
   

During the exercise I really wanted to massage my legs or grip something or move or groan or all of the above. So touch, movement and vocalising are part of my pain management techniques.

Unfortunately I can't say whether or not using these pain management strategies would have been enough to get me through labour, as I ended up having a caesarean. But I thought it was a useful exercise in starting to think about what sort of pain management techniques might work.

The search for reasonably priced maternity clothes.

In my opinion maternity clothes are far too expensive for what they really are - a temporary wardrobe! I discovered that some of the baby clothing stores (such as Pumpkin Patch & JK Kids) stock maternity clothes - the best time to shop there is during their sales.

I also bought a lot of clothes on online auction sites. Of course there is ebay but there are alternatives to ebay (search for "online auctions"). In fact I purchased three of my favourite items from an auction site (Oztion) at a fantastic price because no one else was bidding.

One particularly useful buy was a belly band, which I could use to cover my growing belly and still wear normal tops. I also found buying a few pairs of men's socks was great for my expanding feet.