1 and 2 Weeks Pregnant

There's no doubt that your body works overtime when you're expecting — so help give it the extra nutrients it needs to baby-build by getting 400 to 600 micrograms of folic acid daily from all sources, including your prenatal vitamin and folate-rich foods.

Research has shown that taking folic acid beginning when you’re trying to get pregnant and continuing daily throughout pregnancy not only helps you conceive but has important health benefits for expecting women and their babies.

Folic acid (and its natural form, folate) can help reduce the risk of birth defects including congenital heart and neural tube defects in your baby, and has even been shown to lower your chances of gestational diabetes, preterm labor and miscarriage.

If you’re taking a prescription, OTC or herbal med, ask your doctor ASAP about whether it’s safe to continue it during pregnancy.

Herbal preparations are not tested or approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are not required to undergo clinical trials. Translation: Their safety, or lack thereof, is unknown.

Even herbs that you've heard could be helpful during pregnancy may be harmful at some point during the next nine months. So always get the green light from your practitioner before taking any medication or herbal supplement of any kind.

You could be weeks away from taking a pregnancy test, but Mother Nature may give you a heads-up in the form of early pregnancy symptoms.

Some, like a heightened sense of smell and tender breasts, can show up before you even miss your period, while others, like spotting and urinary frequency, happen a week or two after conception.

Haven't noticed any new symptoms? Plenty of women won't feel any until at least a few weeks or more into their pregnancies — and some lucky few won't notice any at all!

You're already imagining the moment when those magical double lines, plus signs or “yes” answers appear on your home pregnancy test. But before you get to that point, you'll have to navigate the drugstore aisles to choose the one you like best.

One question you might have: Are cheap pregnancy tests any different from expensive ones? Not really. All home pregnancy tests work the same way — by measuring the levels of the pregnancy hormone hCG — and are up to 99 percent accurate if you follow the instructions.

Some pricier tests might be more sensitive to hCG than others, or work a little faster. But rest assured, whether you choose a $5 or $25 test, your results will be equally accurate.

Your hormones will be to blame for pretty much every pregnancy symptom you'll experience for the next nine months or so — which is why it makes sense to familiarize yourself with some of the major pregnancy players.

Stuffy nose? Credit all that extra estrogen, which is helping the uterus grow and baby's organs form. Facial fuzz sprouting? Thank prolactin, which helps enlarge your breasts and kickstarts lactation.

Achy back and joints? That would be the handiwork of the hormone relaxin, which (true to its name), helps loosen the muscles, joints and ligaments in your body to prepare for labor.

Early pregnancy signs — like bloating, fatigue and tender breasts — are remarkably similar to PMS symptoms and can appear the week before your last period arrives.

Other symptoms, like a consistently creamy vaginal discharge or an elevated basal body temperature (BBT), are usually signs of pregnancy, but can be tricky to detect.

One symptom that only appears during pregnancy: a change in your areola's color or size (they'll look darker or wider).

Be an ovulation detective. At peak fertility — which, depending on how long your menstrual cycle lasts, is 11 to 21 days from the first day of your last period — your cervical mucus increases and becomes thinner, gooey and slippery.

To figure out when you're ovulating, you can use an at-home test called an ovulation predictor kit, which works by measuring the levels of luteinizing hormone (LH) in your urine.

Other signs of ovulation to watch out for include slightly lower basal body temperature (that then rises again), light spotting, cramps in your lower abdomen and an increased sex drive.