Yey! We are pregnant! Now what?

Finally! You feel super happy and then you realize: you're going to have a baby! OMG! OMG!

First of all, don't panic. It is a very normal reaction to feel overwhelmed and anxious after the first wave of happiness. But there is a long way ahead of you, so don't try to put on your shoulders everything that is coming. Right now, you don't need to know how to change diapers, or what to do if your child is sick. You just need to be happy and enjoy this time with your partner.

“Focus on enjoying this time with your partner”

It doesn't matter how much you prepared for it, parenthood is mostly "learn by doing". So don't worry much about what is coming. You will learn with baby steps (pun intended).

Be sure you like your gynecologist

You probably already have a gynecologist for regular check-ups, so inform them that you have a positive pregnancy test and schedule an appointment to ensure it is positive, and set up the checkups plan. This is a great moment to sit together with your partner and write down all the questions you might have. There is no silly question, so brainstorm whatever is bothering you. Your gynecologist will be absolutely happy to answer everything.

In this regard, it is important that you feel comfortable with your gynecologist, and this might change when talking about pregnancy. In our case, the gynecologist we had was perfectly fine for regular check-ups but turned out to be not understanding and patient enough regarding the pregnancy. So we changed. This is something absolutely normal and you should not feel reluctant to do it. You deserve a doctor that makes you feel comfortable while spending the next most important months of your life.

In case you need it, not many explanations are necessary to change your doctor. Simply find a new one and inform both (new and old) that you are changing doctors because the new one is more convenient for you. You might also need to inform your health insurance (Krankenkasse). And talking about that...

...check your health insurance coverage

Health insurance is not an easy topic in Switzerland. There are many things to ask, conditions to check, and visits to the oracle to see what the gods desire... but I will try to summarize in a future post the most relevant points that we had to take care of.

The most relevant now is to be sure what type of coverage you have, your franchise, and if you have it, what your additional coverage (Zusaztversicherung) includes. I

In any case, call your insurance company and let them know that you are pregnant, and ask them what they cover regarding checkups and doctor visits.

Careful with what you eat starting NOW

If you get online and start to read what you can and cannot eat being pregnant, you can get very scared very fast. But right now it is still too soon to be worried about the sushi you ate two days before you took the pregnancy test. Nothing bad will happen. Just from now on, stick to the rules:

• do not eat raw food (bye-bye sushi...)

• do not eat processed meat (bye-bye hot dogs...)

• do not eat ultra-processed food and drinks (bye-bye 70% of the supermarket...)

• do not eat big fish

• do not eat canned food

• do not drink alcohol/smoke

• reduce as much as possible sweets (bye-bye donuts...)

• wash very well all vegetables and fruits

• cook very well any meat or fish

• drink water

In summary: eat healthily!

“Take this as an opportunity to improve your eating habits”

In general, we were quite restrictive, and sometimes it was difficult to decide what to eat or find new dishes to cook. But, looking back, the pregnancy time was probably the time we ate most healthily at home. We discovered new recipes and lose some fat. So take this as an opportunity to improve your eating habits while taking care of your baby.

Use common sense to do sport

If you practice sport with impact or contact sports, better reduce the training a bit. At least until you visit your gynecologist and get their approval. Sport is absolutely great to be well prepared for delivery, but it can also have a negative impact on how the egg gets attached to the uterus walls. This depends on the type of sport, its frequency, your age, how sporty you are in general, and more. So let your doctor decide before starting an intensive course of full contact.

And talking about sport, what about sport for the mind? This is a great moment to start meditating and learning about mindfulness. I will talk more about this in a future post.

What NOT to do

Don't get overwhelmed! There is still plenty of time to prepare the baby's room, decide on a name, and buy clothes. The truth is that, despite the joy that pregnancy news might bring, the highest risk for spontaneous abortion is within the first three months. This is something natural, common, and unfortunately, not much discussed around. For this reason, our approach was not to inform anyone until we entered the second trimester. This is very personal and depends on the situation of each person, but we strongly recommend that, if the type of your work allows it, do not inform your employer until you pass the three months milestone. The current social and working situations for pregnant women are still not the best in Switzerland. Therefore, in most cases, you can avoid facing changes in your working situation, how co-workers treat you, or deviations in your career path for the first three months.

And that's it. This is a time for enjoying along with your partner, family, and friends, being healthy, and not overthinking.