Making Your Pregnancy Quest Journal

Your Pregnancy Quest Journal will be a series of exercises and activities to help you record your thoughts and feelings. Some activities in this journal will help you get in touch with your thoughts and feelings. Other activities ask that you probe more deeply as issues and situations are becoming difficult. Throughout the book, we present different activities to help you deal with treatment failures and successes. We also encourage you to involve your partner in participating in some of the exercises as a way to let that partner into what you are truly experiencing.

The best way to create your Pregnancy Quest Journal is to create one yourself. You will need the following materials:

§ 3 holed subject divider sheets (you will be creating lots of different sections)

§ 3 hole punch (for articles you cut out or print out to include in your journal)

§ plastic pockets (for material you get at conferences, business cards, birth announcements etc.)

§ Colored markers and highlighters (to highlight important material and to create drawings)

§ 3 hole punched photograph holders (for your special photogrqphs, ultrasound scans etc.)

A logical extension of Getting Pregnant Self talk, and a way to begin your Pregnancy Quest Journal is to "move outside of your head" and externalize your thoughts on paper. If you feel more comfortable dictating into a tape recorder, you can achieve the same ends that way. The activities we suggest are based on the work of Psychologist James Pennebaker in his book, Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions.^[ii] Pennebaker makes the important point that the effectiveness of writing therapy is not due to simple catharsis or to venting pent up emotions. What is critical is how you write about your experience.

Try to find a quiet private place where you can avoid the distractions of a radio or a TV. Try to make sure that your special place affords you privacy where you don't have to worry about someone barging in and discovering what you are doing.

You are writing for yourself, not to impress someone else. If you find yourself thinking "I hope my mother sees this so she will know what I'm feeling" you will be writing for her and not for yourself. You will be less likely to derive therapeutic benefits from such writing. You will be writing to make an impression rather than to let go of and explore your feelings.

Sometimes you may find that there is a thought that you keep thinking over and over again. You just can't get it our of your mind. That's a good candidate for your journal.

Cara couldn’t get the notion that she and Ron should have started trying earlier to have a baby. She told us that she wanted to have her house all ready for her baby. Building the house, furnishing the house took much longer than she thought. Cara is 34 and feeling terrified. We urged her to write about this in her journal. Here is what she wrote:

“ We’ve been married for 6 years. We should have started trying when we lived in the condo. Even though there wasn’t much room I bet we would have a kid by now. So what if we have a nice house. I always wanted a bay window in the baby’s room. Well now I have a bay window but no baby. Why didn’t I stop taking birth control pills four years ago. I’m really stupid. I’m really greedy. I can’t believe I listened to my gynecologist who said it would be really easy. We made a big mistake. I’m scared now. I have a bay window but no baby.”

Sometimes you might have a thought that you would love to share with others but feel too embarrassed to share. Write it down Here is what Senovia wrote:

“ All my sisters all have babies. My little brothers’ wives all have babies. I’m the oldest. I’m supposed to be first. In my heart I had the name Veronica, Nica, for short, for my baby. Then I find out my littlest brother’s baby is going to be named Nica. They stole my name. I’m so angry. I practically raised my little brother. He knew I wanted that name and he went ahead and let his wife take it. I gave everybody everything and this is how they pay me back.”.

Get it down on paper. Don't get stymied by spelling and grammar. You don't intend to publish it. You want to use it to help you feel better. If you feel blocked, write your way out of it. Write the same sentence over and over -- sort of like a car getting unstuck from some mud. Write for about 20 minutes each day.

To everything there is a season. There is a time to write and a time to act. Don't get so caught up in writing that you use it as a substitute for taking the actions you need to help you get pregnant.

Research on people who use expressive writing has found that they experience powerful feelings. Sometimes they feel depressed or frightened. But studies have shown that the feelings generated by what you write subside within an hour or two or at most, a day or so later. Knowing in advance that you are likely to feel these things can be comforting when you experience them. Just use GPST to tell yourself "It's OK. The feelings will pass and I will feel better."

Now its time to start your journal. Fill out the Getting Pregnant Quiz. Think about each of the pointers and how you responded to them. Now pick one of them that stimulated some thought or feeling and write about it.

[i] In her book, The Language of Fertility, Nirava B. Payne encourages readers to create a self-discovery journal as an essential aspect of the Whole Person Fertility Program. In the journal she suggests, readers chart their unexpressed emotions and try other self exploration activities.

[ii] Pennebaker, J. (1990) Opening Up: The healing Power Of Expressing Emotions. New York: Guilford Press.

New Edition of Getting Pregnant When You Thought You Couldn't

Making Your Pregnancy Quest Journal

MAKING YOUR PREGNANCY QUEST JOURNAL™ - USING EXPRESSIVE WRITING^[i]

New Edition of Getting Pregnant When You Thought You Couldn't

Making Your Pregnancy Quest Journal

MAKING YOUR PREGNANCY QUEST JOURNAL™ - USING EXPRESSIVE WRITING[i]

MAKING YOUR PREGNANCY QUEST JOURNAL™ - USING EXPRESSIVE WRITING^[i]