Forty weeks is a long time. Long enough to forget things you were certain you'd always remember.
The name you considered and almost used. The exact moment you told your mom. What those early weeks felt like before you had any visible evidence this was real. The song that was playing when you felt the first kick.
These things don't make it into the photos. They live in the in-between moments — and if you don't write them down, they have a way of softening into something general when the specific version is what you'd actually want to have.
This is a prompt list for all 40 weeks. Written trimester by trimester. Some are questions with straightforward answers. Some are the kind of thing you'll sit with for a minute before you write. All of them are worth having on paper.
First Trimester — Weeks 1–13
The weeks when everything is different before anything looks different.
Week 4–5: Finding Out
The moment you found out — where were you? What were the first words you said out loud? The date, the place, the how.
Week 5: The First Person You Told
Who was the first person you told, and how did you tell them? What was their reaction? Write the scene — who guessed girl, who guessed boy.
Week 6: Before You Told Anyone Else
Describe the days between finding out and telling people. What was it like to know something that enormous and keep it mostly to yourself?
Week 7: The First Symptom You Noticed
Not the textbook list — the first thing that made your body feel undeniably different. What was it, and when did it happen?
Week 8: The Craving That Surprised You
The thing you wanted that you wouldn't have guessed. The food that stopped sounding appealing. What your appetite was actually doing. (This is worth recording specifically — "I ate crackers for three weeks" is funny in retrospect; "I couldn't look at coffee" is something you'll want to tell them someday.)
Week 9: The Advice Avalanche
At some point in early pregnancy, everyone becomes an expert. Write down the advice people gave — the welcome kind and the kind you nod politely at. What the conventional wisdom was on food, supplements, exercise, and things to do or not do. Which books you read. This is genuinely funny to look back on. It's also a time capsule of what people believed when you were pregnant.
Week 10: What You Were Worried About
Write down what you were nervous about in these early weeks. The fears that kept you up at night. Not so you can hold onto them — so you can read them later and see which ones dissolved.
Week 11: The First Ultrasound
What it looked like on the screen. What you felt when you heard the heartbeat. Who was with you. What you said to each other afterward.
Week 12: The Name Conversation
Where are you on names? Record the list as it stands right now — even the ones that got vetoed, and why. Do you have a nickname for this baby yet? Where did it come from?
Week 13: The End of the First Trimester
Looking back over these weeks: what's the one thing you want to remember about this period that you're afraid you might not?
Second Trimester — Weeks 14–27
The weeks when you start looking the part.
Week 14: The Announcement
How and when did you announce? What were the reactions that meant the most? If you haven't announced yet, what's the plan — and what's taking you so long?
Week 15: How Your Body Is Changing
Not medically — personally. What do you notice about yourself that's different? What feels strange, what feels right?
Week 16: What You've Stopped Worrying About
Early pregnancy has a specific texture of anxiety that usually starts to soften around here. What worries have loosened their grip? What replaced them?
Week 17: The Nursery
Where are you on it? The color, the aesthetic you're going for, the thing you spent too long deciding. Even if nothing is done yet, write down what you're imagining.
Week 18: What You've Been Reading or Watching
Your media diet during pregnancy is oddly specific. What books, shows, or podcasts are getting you through? What are you recommending to other pregnant people?
Week 20: The Anatomy Scan
What you found out (or chose not to find out). What the baby looked like on the screen at this stage. How you felt seeing them. What changed in you after that appointment.
Week 21: The First Kick
Where were you? What did it feel like the first time — actually, specifically, not "like butterflies"? Write down the real sensation. Who did you tell first?
Week 22: What You Call Them
Do you have a nickname for the baby before the name is official? Where did it come from?
Week 23: What Your Partner Is Feeling
Their experience of this pregnancy, as best as you can describe it. The things they say and do that you want to remember.
Week 24: What You're Looking Forward To
The specific things. Not "motherhood" — the particular moments you find yourself picturing. What scene keeps playing in your head?
Week 25: What You're Not Looking Forward To
The honest version. The part of new parenthood that gives you pause. Write it down — not to dwell on it, but because editing it out would make this record feel false.
Week 26: The Baby Shower
Who hosted, what the theme was, who was there, what it felt like to be celebrated. The gift that made you cry (or the moment that did).
Week 27: End of the Second Trimester
The thing that surprised you most about the middle stretch of pregnancy. What it felt like to become visibly pregnant in the world.
Third Trimester — Weeks 28–40
The weeks when time moves faster and slower simultaneously.
Week 28: Nesting Begins
What you're organizing, preparing, or suddenly unable to stop thinking about. What the house looks like right now and what you're trying to make it look like.
Week 29: The Dreams
Third trimester pregnancy dreams are their own category of strange. Write them down — not because they mean anything, but because they are genuinely hilarious and you will forget them. The specificity is the point.
Week 29: Sleep
What sleeping is like at this point beyond the dreams. The position system you've developed. The middle-of-the-night thoughts that visit you when the dreams aren't weird enough to remember.
Week 30: What You Know Now That You Didn't Know Before
About pregnancy, about your body, about yourself. The things no one told you. The things someone told you that turned out to be true.
Week 31: The Bag
What's in the hospital bag — or what you're still deciding about. What you've packed that you know you probably won't use. What you're nervous you'll forget.
Week 32: Movement
How the baby moves now. The particular thing they do — the spot they always seem to find, the time of day they're most active. Write it down before it changes.
Week 33: What People Keep Saying
The comments strangers make. The questions you've been asked so many times you have a practiced answer. What you say versus what you're thinking.
Week 34: A Letter
Write a short letter to the person this baby is going to be. Not about what you hope for them — about who you already sense they are. What you've noticed from in here.
Week 35: The Birth Plan + What You're Telling Yourself
What you're hoping for. What you've prepared. And the things you keep saying to yourself to stay steady — the affirmations, the mantras, the phrases you've borrowed from other women or arrived at yourself. Write those down separately from the plan. The plan is logistics. The other thing is how you're going to get through it.
Before Week 40: The Babymoon
If you took one — or if you're planning to — document it here while the details are fresh. Where you went, what you wanted to do before everything changed, what it felt like to be pregnant and out in the world on purpose. If you didn't travel anywhere, write about the equivalent: the dinners out, the Sunday mornings, the things you did in the last stretch of before.
Week 36: What You'll Miss
The strange, specific things about pregnancy you will actually miss. This is a more honest answer than people usually give. What's on your list?
Week 37: Full Term
The feeling of having made it here. What "ready" feels like — or whether you feel ready at all.
Week 38: The Waiting
Describe this particular kind of waiting. Every morning wondering if today is the day. The way time bends. What you're doing with the last of these uninterrupted days.
Week 39: The Last Night
This one you'll write in retrospect. When you look back, what were you doing the night before everything changed? What did you eat, who were you with, what did you talk about?
Week 40: The Birth Story
Where you were when it started. How long it took. Who was there. The moment you heard the first cry. What you said. What your partner said. What the baby looked like. All of it, in as much detail as you can hold.
The Fourth Trimester — Coming Home
The prompts most pregnancy journals skip.
Coming Home
Your first address as a family of this new size. The first night. The first morning. What the house felt like when you walked in with this person.
The Funny Moments
Write them down now. New parent exhaustion has a specific kind of comedy to it — the things that would have been alarming six months ago that you now laugh at. These fade fast.
The Happiest Moments
Not the obvious ones. The specific, small ones. The ones that happened at 3 a.m. when no one was watching.
The Hardest Moments
The honest version. The moments that were harder than you expected, harder than you were prepared to admit out loud. Write them anyway. This is a complete record, not a highlight reel.
Moments That Caught You by Surprise
The feelings you didn't anticipate. The things that hit you sideways. Parenthood has a habit of ambushing you with emotion in the most ordinary moments — pulling out of the driveway, folding tiny socks, watching someone else hold your baby for the first time. Write what caught you off guard.
A Place to Put All of This
If you're looking for a journal designed to hold exactly these kinds of details, the Lucy Darling Love Grows Pregnancy Journal was built around the same structure you just read through. I designed this journal while I was pregnant with my son. Which means the prompts didn’t come from a checklist. They came from the experience itself.
Here's what's actually inside:
Each month from 1 through 9 has its own spread with fields for body changes, emotions, cravings, belly measurement, a "you are the size of a:" comparison, photo space, and a memory prompt specific to that stage. Month 3 asks what the first thing you bought for the baby was. Month 7 has a field specifically for funny pregnancy dreams. Month 8 tracks what the baby's movements felt like. Month 9+ asks how you handled the waiting.
There's also a dedicated section called Lots of Advice for Everything — for recording the foods, supplements, exercise guidance, and well-meaning advice you received, plus the books you actually read. It's a section most journals don't include and one of the most entertaining to look back on.
Beyond the monthly pages: a Babymoon + Adventures Before You Arrived section for the experiences you wanted to have before everything changed. A Birth Plan spread. A dedicated Birth Affirmations page alongside what's in the hospital bag. A full Baby Shower spread with space for the gifts. Three pages for The Birth Story. And a complete Fourth Trimester section — Coming Home, Birth Announcement, and the new baby moments: funny, happiest, hardest, and the ones that caught you by surprise.
It ends with open pages titled More About You and Me — for whatever doesn't fit anywhere else.
Available in Desert Sand and Moss Green — same content inside, different cover. Designed to sit on a shelf next to the Lucy Darling baby memory book, which picks up where this one leaves off.
Shop the Love Grows Pregnancy Journal →
The prompts above are a starting point. The ones that feel hardest to answer are usually the ones most worth writing.
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