I just returned from a long, but successful trip to California. The purpose of the visit was to support and attend an important event Pregnancy Awareness Month (PAM). This is the inaugural year of PAM and it was great to be involved. The purpose of PAM is to build an awareness of the wealth of information that is out there to support women who are preparing to and becoming pregnant.

In the seven years since I first started on my adventure into Motherhood, information has changed dramatically about what we can do to support healthy child development from pregnancy and into childhood. Scandinavian Child wants to do what we can to help share information about important tools that are helpful to parents and parents-to-be.

The kick-off event on Thursday was a great first step. In addition to information tables from various authors and manufacturers (gDiapers, thecradle.com, stroller strides, Magda Gerber, etc.) there were two panel presentations. One featured Dr. Alan Greene, author of "Raising Baby Green" as well as Christopher Gavigan from Healthy Child Healthy World. I participated on a second panel on the all-elusive Work-Life Balance. Our panel was facilitated by Alanna Stang, Executive Editor of Cookie Magazine. My fellow panelists were Trisha Ashworth, co-author of the fabulous no-holds-barred book called 'I Was a Really Good Mom, Before I had Kids' (it's a must read!) as well as Celeb-Mompreneur Brooke Burke.

To be completely honest, we were all three a bit surprised to be chosen for this particular topic ... but as the discussion started, we realized that we really did have information to share on the realities of juggling parenthood with other commitments to work and family. (After all, we are mothers and business women and still managed to make it this event fully clothed and teeth brushed! LOL) If I had to summarize the advice that we gave it came down to 1) recognizing that you simply can't do it all, so some things have to give, 2) relying on credible resources for information rather than having to do all of your own research, and 3) being honest about how all the advice people throw at you fits into your family and your lifestyle.

The kick-off event was wonderful but, best of all, activities should continue for the rest of the month. I am excited to see how Pregnancy Awareness Month continues to affect people over the coming month through their various initiatives and activities ... and I am very excited to see how it grows over the years.