1. Join aqua aerobics - for grandmas. Not only does it help your expanding body during pregnancy, but she pointed out all the new grandmothers and aunties you are building who will care about your health, your baby’s health - many of whom will be happy to prepare food, crochet and more when the time comes.

2. Join any online parenting networks and listservs in your area. Even if you’re not looking for social support, the tips about local deals and childcare providers can be priceless.

3. Women also talked about how common it can be to be so exhausted in those first few months of motherhood in particular - postpartum depression, sleep deprived and otherwise -- that you don’t think you’ll ever be able to cope. Claudia said after she adopted her daughter there were times when sheer exhaustion made her feel willing to even hand her crying baby to the pizza delivery boy to get a break.

4. We talked about why this time in particular you need to be proactive about asking for help - and NOT SEEING IT AS A SIGN OF WEAKNESS, or caring about feeling judged that "you choose this, you deal with all of it alone."

5. Claudia suggested having a best friend as point person to coordinate the donated meals you will need in the first few months. She said to have a list of simple tasks by the phone so that if a friend offers to come over you can suggest something you might need in the house, or ask if they would mind doing the dishes or a round of laundry while there - rather than spending the entire time staring at baby. Most true friends will be eager to help out.

On the Choice Moms discussion board (another great resource for support), a woman working in the United Kingdom was talking about returning to the U.S. to build a new network around her existing family. She was looking for suggestions. Lily responded:

"There are no easy answers to this one. One of the things I did when I decided to go down this path was to assume that I would have to rely upon myself. In my case, that meant having the money to do what needed doing or pay someone to do it for me. I felt that if I absolutely required someone else's assistance for the process in order to make it work, I had to have a solid plan and agreement in place with that person. That wasn't really for me -- I had an idea how some people would react, but I had to assume that they would get hinky for whatever reason and bail out. So I sat down and looked at my job and my finances and did the math to see if I could do it on my own if I absolutely had to. I could, so I went ahead.

"My personal advice to you is to find the place where you can be entirely self-sufficient, should you need to be. Your stepmother might not have meant the offer seriously. She could get ill and be unable to help. If you move someplace because of her and then for whatever reason she's not in the picture -- do you have enough other resources to succeed there? Is the UK the place where you would have to worry least about money, a secure and flexible job, a place to live? How much time can you give yourself to try to make a life in the US before going ahead and trying to have a child? All of these things you have to figure out.

"While trying to set up a support network is great, you should first look at the way in which you will take care of the most basic needs. What many of us have found is that you never know who is going to support you and who isn't. It's often quite surprising. Some friends who made all kinds of plans to help out disappeared after the baby was born. People I barely knew got very involved. You will lose old friends and make new ones. As a general rule, in the early years you will gravitate towards those with young children themselves."