Pregnancy Journey: 1st Trimester

Now that I’m out of 1st trimester, I’m a little more well enough to recap it haha. The first few months of this year was such a blur… I felt like a shell of a person who just barely survived. So grateful for my Husband and rock who was soo loving and supportive through it — seriously don’t know how I would have it made it without him! He did everything from peeling apples in case the skin had bacteria, blowdrying my hair while I was in bed, making any food I was craving, and so much more. Thankful for the care and encouragement from friends and colleagues too! It really does take a village… and the baby isn’t even here yet!

Here’s a summary of my 1st trimester:

Nausea & Fatigue

All-day nausea started pretty early around 5 weeks and lasted until about 15 weeks… It felt like food poisoning or an intense carsickness from the moment I woke up to when I fell asleep. I tried everything from saltines (which got too salty, had to switch to oyster crackers), anti-nausea bands, ginger, and even these nausea sweets (which were basically glorified mints lol) that Husband bought one day when I was particularly ill. Nothing helped but time…

In addition to the nausea, I had this intense fatigue like I’ve never experienced. Even if I slept 8+ hours, it’d seem like I had barely slept at all. I was a zombie going through the day and had a brain fog I was so not used to. And at night, I’d sometimes be passed out by 8pm. Those who know me know I love to stay up past 2am+, but there was physically no way! Even during 2nd trimester now I still sleep pretty early.

Aversions

People talk about cravings so much that I was caught off guard by all the aversions. It makes sense with the unrelenting nausea, but all food and drink sounded gross, except I had to eat or I was nauseous… lol the vicious cycle. The aversion came for my coffee right away… I love my morning coffee but one day it just started tasting disgusting — I still don’t drink it now during 2nd trimester, but mainly so the caffeine won’t mess with my sleep or make me anxious. Fried food tasted bitter, and most foods tasted bland or too rich. I’d also have a weird chemical/metallic smell/taste?? Don’t know why. My dad came over every weekend and would make me bone broth or congee, and lighter-tasting foods like that were about all I could stomach.

At one point, I had an aversion to water and would feel sick just drinking it. But I needed liquids, so I started eating cereal just to get milk and ate all-fruit popsicles for hydration, and I drank juice even though I never did that pre-pregnancy. That was a rough period! Thank goodness water is okay to me now.

Certain shampoos of my Husband’s would make me sick, so he started using all my products so I’d be used to the smell. But even now I’m still not using anything with strong fragrances.

Cravings

I don’t have a lot of cravings, but during 1st trimester, a few were very strong. One was fruits like apples and oranges — I had two a day! I also really started getting into strawberry lemonade, which was so random because like I said I never drank juice. Husband would make pitchers of it! Then I had a cake phase for a few weeks, and Husband made a funfetti cake and chocolate funfetti cupcakes, and one of my sweet girlfriends made me the most delectable double chocolate cupcakes. I ate two a day! Thankfully my sweets intake now has normalized and is much more minimal.

So Long 1st Trimester

I finally no longer fit in any of my jeans because they were high-waisted, all except for one pair of low-rise stretchy skinny jeans I owned years ago. Even though 1st trimester was a doozy, I felt it was all part of the pregnancy adventure, and in a weird way, I was glad to have had that human experience. It’s really making me feel closer to my Husband, even though I thought we were already the bestest of friends, but going through this together has been next level. While physically pregnancy so far has already been challenging, I’m mentally and emotionally in good spirits because of all the love and support around me from loved ones.

I’m only a little way into 2nd trimester but I already feel better with less nausea and fatigue… I’ll update more on this stage in a future post!