First Trimester Re-Cap
Chiming in here, wanting to re-cap my first trimester with our sweet baby boy! First pregnancy, so there were many surprising symptoms! Writing out a journey that I never want to forget.
Getting pregnant, you never know what to expect especially with your first. I’ve heard stories of bliss and stories of treachery so I knew there was a wide range of experiences I may have. The First tri wasn’t suuuuper difficult but also wasn’t a cake walk.
Summary of symptoms:
So. much. dry. heaving - I mean it was almost constant and sometimes out of nowhere. I’m not talking cute little dry heaves, these were intense and I never knew if I was going to throw up or not (which I only did a handful of times) but still. not very enjoyable!
Fatigue. Duh. I’m a pretty active person and have always struggled with rest. I’m not a couch potato by any means and honestly probably on the opposite side of the spectrum a bit too far. I spent quite a bit of time on the couch those first couple of months, though. We joked about the chaos that once was our perfectly organized fridge (and home, let’s be honest) I had pretty low energy, low motivation and was kind of in my own little world. I work a corporate job and would head to my car for my lunch break almost every day for a nap. Also not really a napper, but that first trimester I sure was!
Cramping. I had quite a bit of light-mild cramping the first trimester which did kind of freak me out but I guess is normal!
Coffee…ick… Zero interest in coffee which was one of my main aversions. I love to meal prep and plan out all the meals for the week but during this time could not do that. Most nights only very specific food sounded good, so I had to check in each night and eat whatever I could tolerate.
Slow digestion, also to be expected due to the rapidly increasing hormones like progesterone. I know from school and also clinical experience that constipation is just not it. I did water enemas (seasoned coffee enema gal here) multiple times to keep my digestion moving smoothly or if I felt uncomfortable. This is not medical advice, this is just want I intuitively felt good doing.
I had a few weeks of what I assume is perinatal depression. A lot of firsts for me here, I am lucky that I have never dealt with depression before outside of course of circumstantial events. I felt like a dark cloud was following me everywhere and I could not escape it. i felt lonely, cried a lot and extremely vulnerable. This did not match how I felt at all, I was overjoyed to be pregnant so the really low mood was so confusing. This lasted from about week 7.5-10. I utilized the homeopathic Ignatia Amara and wow! it helped me so much. A few days of that and the dark cloud was gone! I think the insane ramping of hormones was just a lot. (again, not medical advice)
Carbs please? Pretty much all I craved the first tri was simple carbs. Fries, quesadillas, I even had McDonalds for the first time in a decade. If we were traveling anywhere or had a long car ride… fries. I feel like I ate like a 5year old lol my body just really craved quick, easy simple carbs. Could I have stressed about this and worried that my 130gr of protein a day now looked waaaayy different? of course, but instead I chose to remind myself that my body is super wise. I have shared this online, but intuitively I also felt that pre-conception nutrition was more important for the first tri than actual nutrition the first tri (AGAIN, just my intuition!) no data to back this up. baby is so small during that time, it takes what it needs and if you have good nutrition leading up to pregnancy, you should have plenty of stores. Plus, a good quality prenatal goes a long way IMO. Second + third trimester you can work to rebuild those stores.
No strange cravings, except for a few! I had more orange chicken from Panda Express those weeks than I probably have in my whole life haha. One night, I could NOT get the tollhouse icecream cookie sandwich out of my head which I haven’t had since I was maybe 15. Bless my husband, he made it his mission at 10pm to find me one and it was the best thing ever!
The Boooobs O.M.G - by about week 7, no joke, I was up about 2 cup sizes. Not exaggerating. It took me by a great surprise lol I wasn’t gaining weight at this point, so it was strictly hormone/pregnancy related but wow. Nobody warned me about that!
