50 reasons to be glad you're pregnant!

1. Relishing the early weeks when only you and your partner know your special secret.

2. Knowing you've got nine whole months to plan, dream and fantasise.

3. Throwing away your ovulation charts and testing kits and going back to having sex without a timetable.

4. Choosing maternity clothes - they've never been more practical or more sexy.

5. Now you've got the perfect excuse to pamper yourself - spending hours in a scented bath, enjoying a massage or rubbing soothing lotions into your growing bump.

6. You can join an antenatal class and find a whole new bunch of friends (and don't forget our BabyCenter birth clubs: another great way to meet people due at the same time as you).

7. For once in your life you need to get heavier - pregnancy is nature's way of making you feel good about putting on weight.

8. If this is your first baby, enjoy the next nine months sleeping late at weekends: you may not get many chances later on.

9. At last you've got the bosom you've always wanted, which means you also have...

10...a great excuse to buy lots of pretty new bras.

11. Now you have the good reason you have been looking for to take up yoga, meditation, healthy eating and deep breathing.

12. At last you'll have something more than potplants and cats to care for and nurture!

13. Suddenly you'll find you're getting lots of extra attention from parents, aunts and uncles, not to mention your partner.

14. You may find you develop a closer relationship with sisters, cousins or friends who are parents themselves. Congratulations, you've just won free admission to the parents' club!

15. Telling your mum, dad, sister, brother, aunt the good news and watching their faces light up.

16. New talents! Whether it's knitting bootees or assembling a flat-pack cot, you'll suddenly find yourself trying out all sorts of new skills.

17. Suddenly you'll feel a new appreciation for your own mother and all she went through having you.

18. Decorating the nursery: one of the most exciting things you'll ever do.

19. Feeling those first fluttering kicks and thinking, 'Is that what I think it is? Or is it just wind?'

20. Feeling OK for sending your partner out for chicken tikka masala followed by double-choc chip ice cream.

21. Your parents digging out your old cot or clothes, which they've kept safely all this time 'just in case'.

22. Going for healthy walks with your partner and getting fresh air in your lungs because it's good for you and good for your baby.

23. Enjoying the extra-vivid dreams you get in late pregnancy - and laughing about them with your friends.

24. Feeling a little pair of heels prodding under your diaphragm and knowing you'll soon be meeting the little person they belong to!

25. Choosing baby clothes - or just phoning round for all the catalogues, leafing through them and planning what you're going to buy.


26. Writing a pregnancy diary for your baby to read in the future.

27. Getting someone to take photos of you smiling over your enormous bump so that, one day, you can look back and be amazed you were ever that size.

28. Finding out how many people there are out there ready to care for you: doctors, nurses, midwives, health visitors, breastfeeding counsellors...

29. Lying in bed with your partner's arms around you and your bump, knowing that love has created a new life.

30. Enjoying indulgences, such as evenings out, weekends away and anything else you might not be able to do so easily once the baby arrives.

31. Knowing that from now on, whatever happens, you'll never be bored again.

32. Making new friends whenever you go shopping - everyone has a pregnancy story to share.

33. You can spend whole evenings debating whether to call your baby Hermione or Cleopatra, Fritz or Stanley... (don't forget to try our BabyCenter baby namer if you get stuck!)

34. Imagining what he or she will look like. Your sweet little ears, of course, and his sexy eyes!

35. Dreaming about, "My daughter the prime minister/pop star/brain surgeon."

36. Looking at your growing bump in the mirror and realising there's a person in there!

37. Making out a squirmy outline on the ultrasound monitor. Asking for the pic to take home and pinning it up next to your work station, or just keeping it in your bag to sneak looks at.

38. The expression on your partner's face as he sees the test strip turn blue, looks at your growing bump or feels the baby kicking.

39. Buying that first little cuddly toy for your baby, not somebody else's.

40. Making that phone call to your partner to tell him that - we're off! - labour has started.

41. Trying out all those exercises you learned at antenatal class and finding out that they actually work!

42. Being held and supported throughout a contraction by your partner/midwife/labour companion and knowing that you can trust them totally.

43. Finding out, as the contractions get tough, that your repertoire of swear words is far more extensive than you ever realised!

44. Making an informed choice about pain relief and finding that it's right for you at that stage in labour.

45. That huge rush of pleasure and relief when, suddenly, all the pain and effort stops.

46. Looking into your newborn's eyes and falling utterly in love.

47. Watching your partner kiss the midwife, the doctor, cleaning lady, delivery man and anyone else he can find because his joy and pride are overwhelming.

48. Opening a bottle of bubbly to celebrate, whatever the time of day or night.

49. Making all those phone calls to announce the arrival. Telling everyone the news and hearing the excitement in their voices.

50. Waking up to see your baby sleeping next to you and thinking, 'Wow! This is real. I'm a mum!