About MeHi..I'm Hilary. I'm the owner of Pregnancy Information Guide and I thought you might like to know a little bit about me. How did I come to start this site, for instance? Well, I suppose it all began when I was on a skiing holiday in Italy: that was when I found out I was pregnant with my first baby. It was quite a shock, as we'd only just started trying for a family and there I was, after three days of hurtling down hillsides and generally going for it - and wondering what it was that felt different from usual. I remember sitting on the sun terrace of a mountain restaurant and suddenly thinking, completely out of the blue, 'I couldn't possibly be pregnant, could I?'
The worst thing was that my husband, who doesn't ski, hadn't come on this trip, so he wasn't there to share the news with me. I didn't want to tell anyone else before him and I didn't want to do it over the phone, so that meant I had to keep stumpf for another 6 days! It was agony, not being able to tell anyone! And did I keep on skiing or was that risking losing the baby? I spent a very wakeful night mulling it all over. Eventually I came to the conclusion that because I'd skied for years and was generally very active, it was unlikely the foetus would come to any harm as long as I didn't have any bad falls. I wasn't in the habit of falling much so I decided to carry on with the holiday as normal. That turned out not to be as easy as you might think. At dinner that night I watched as my wine glass was filled with the local red...and then thought, 'Oh no...I shouldn't be drinking now! How can I possibly just say no...they'll be so suspicious!" All I could do was drink very slowly so that I drank a lot less alcohol - and ask for glasses of water. In fact, no-one seemed to notice and I know now that those very small amounts of alcohol, whilst not ideal, are unlikely to have done any harm to the unborn baby. In fact they didn't and I had a fairly untroubled pregnancy. But because we lived in the country I felt I needed to make more effort to meet other mums-to-be, so I joined the National Childbirth Trust and went to their antenatal classes. Then I set up a group closer to home, as I realised how important it is to get the support and advice you need when you're pregnant. Sone of the women who came were on their own while others had partners who sisn't feel right about being involved in the birthing preparations and it was easy to see how isolated you could feel, especially if your own Mom lived a long way away. Our group was a great help and inspiration to many women. We held car boot sales to raise funds, organised guest speakers and started a local directory of midwives, antenatal teachers and breastfeeding counsellors. The following Christmas my daughter arrived, happy and healthy though after a very long and rather interventionist labor and, two years later, her sister was born, this time at home. I had seen how much women benefited from support during pregnancy and it seemed that one of the biggest needs I and many other pregnant mums had was for information and advice. Knowing what is normal and what's not, finding out how to deal with the little or larger health issues that can hit you, seeing what your baby looks like at different stages of pregnancy...all these were things that many people were unable to share because they didn't have a local group like ours. I started a local National Childbirth Trust group, which became amazingly popular, and then, some years later, came the next stage: the website.Actually, it's a bit of a miracle that this website came into existence, because I didn't really know that much about computers or the internet at the start. But in my search for website hosting I came across a company called Sitesell and decided that it gave so much support to beginners that I'd stand a better chance with them. How I thank my lucky stars today that I chose their SBI! (which stands for Site Build It!) package instead of trying to go it alone. It has turned into a big friendly community support group rather like my original Childbirth Trust group, only online. And I'm still learning from them, every day, and now I run my own online business, which is perfect for any woman (or man, for that matter) who wants to work from home. I've given up my full time job and my SBI! earnings are growing steadily, something I'd never dreamed could happen. So I guess that the reason this site is here today is the result of rather a lot of happy coincidences! I hope you enjoy it and that it helps to answer your questions about pregnancy and childbirth. I keep adding to it all the time, so if you'd like information on a topic that seems to be missing, please contact me and tell me and I'll get right onto it! Best wishes for your pregnancy, Hilary P.S. Another Brit, Carol, has made a video about her SBI! journey and the difference it has made to her life. You can see it and browse other videos actually made by SBI! web business owners, here. |
Luckily the pharmacy assistant spoke better English than my Italian so soon I was back in my hotel, impatiently waiting for the pregnancy test to tell me its news. It came up positive!