I recently shared on social media that my husband and I are expecting our first child in early December 2022. We are having a boy 🙂 I always like reading about other women’s experience with pregnancy and also wanted to remember mine years from now so I thought a blog post would be the easiest way to document it. Originally I wanted to just post something on Instagram but soon realized I have way too many thoughts (lol). So here’s a recap of the first trimester of my first pregnancy!
Note: Even though I’m a dietitian, I was/am not an expert in all things pregnancy. I know what to do from a nutrition standpoint, but in a lot of ways I did not know what to expect because I had not learned much about being pregnant prior to getting pregnant. I only have a few friends who have children so I am learning as I go. Also there are so many different pregnancy experiences so please keep that in mind. Seriously it’s so wild how different this process can be. These are my thoughts about the first trimester (which I learned actually goes until the start of week 14!).
I’m pretty in tune with my body (I think an intuitive relationship with food has helped a lot!) and noticed nausea on a Wednesday-Friday around when I was supposed to start my cycle, which was very abnormal. I actually was going into the city for work and was like well, this is weird. I was a little suspicious that I could be pregnant but thought it was probably nothing. My parents were visiting that weekend and I was SO. TIRED. I ended up sleeping 11 hours that Saturday night and took a 90 minute nap that Sunday. So I was probably a lot of fun. I took a pregnancy test the following Monday evening (which is not when you’re supposed to take it lol it’s supposed to be first thing in the morning). It was positive and I didn’t take another test. I called my OB the next morning and had them test my HcG levels across a few days to make sure they were increasing because I was so anxious that something would go wrong. They turned out fine and I waited until I was around 5-6 weeks to have my first appt. If you didn’t know, the counting of your weeks of pregnancy actually begins the first week your cycle begins (during your period). So by the time most women find out (after missing a period) they are already 4-6 weeks!
In the first few weeks, I wouldn’t say I had major “cravings” but I did want cinnamon rolls. My appetite was low and my nausea was the worst from around 4-8 weeks so I was just trying to eat every hour or two to make it less bad. For a few weeks I slept with saltines by my bedside table because I would wake up really nauseous and eating something small helped. I also sucked on lemons when it was the worst and found some relief there. I only threw up twice – I know some women have it terribly worse and I feel for them! They say to eat ginger but I don’t like it so that didn’t help me much. I did start craving watermelon eventually and that helped with the nausea SO much. Smoothies, toast with butter, white rice, and bagels with cream cheese were all staples when I had little appetite and felt nauseous. I have no idea why cream cheese was helpful but I did crave that after a few weeks and still have been enjoying it. Around 7.5-8 weeks, my nausea got significantly better on a daily basis, then came and went until the end of the first trimester. Hunger absolutely makes nausea worse so I made an effort to not let myself get too hungry, even if that meant I had a snack every hour or two. It was sort of a nuisance but worth it. My OB told me to drink 90-120 ounces of water/day so I started doing that around 8 weeks or so, which feels like a huge chore but I know it’s important. I don’t have the research to back this up (maybe it’s out there!), but I think dehydration makes certain symptoms worse.
Caffeine is safe in lesser amounts during pregnancy, but I had started drinking decaf around November of 2021 because I wanted to see if it would help with my anxiety. Surprisingly (or maybe not so) – it really did! So by the time I found out I was pregnant I was probably drinking caffeinated espresso (my drink of choice is a cappuccino from our Nespresso machine) once a week. I did decide to go back to decaf once I found out I was pregnant, not because it’s unsafe but because I wanted to do anything I could to limit my anxious thoughts and felt like that helped. Honestly I’ve probably only had decaf 6-8x since getting pregnant (I’m now 19 weeks) because I just haven’t enjoyed it like I used to. My morning cappuccino was such a rhythm for me and with all the changes that come with pregnancy, it hasn’t been a part of my routine so far. It’s hard to describe but everything in that first trimester was so different than what I was used to that the rhythm of coffee in the morning changed too.
Body image feels like the giant elephant in the room when it comes to pregnancy. I’m sure I will have more thoughts on this as I go, but I wouldn’t say I’ve had a ton of anxiety around my body changing. Maybe that’s not true – in the first trimester, I did have thoughts and wondered how my body would change and I think any time our bodies change it is uncomfortable. Now that I’m passed the first trimester, I think body image was actually much harder then than it is in the second trimester (but I’m getting ahead of myself!). I think because you just feel so bloated during that first trimester but you don’t really have a belly yet it feels strange. As a teaser for how the second trimester is going, I will say I have really enjoyed watching my belly grow and I feel good in my body right now, which is weird to say! Who knows if that feeling will last the rest of the pregnancy.
But back to body changes – some women really do struggle with body image throughout pregnancy and I can certainly empathize with that. Ultimately I think what’s most important is what we do about it. So even if we have a concern that our body looks different during pregnancy or after birth (and it will!!), what impact will that have? Will we revert to old disordered eating behaviors or will we learn to respect and respond to these changes with care and compassion? I’m forever grateful that I healed my relationship with food and body image before getting pregnant because I already have this solid foundation of how to take care of myself and the expectation that over time my body will change. That doesn’t mean I will never have bad body image days (far from it!) but I do have the broader perspective and ability to respond with care.
This is just a note to say that I have never in my life felt so incredibly tired as when I was in that first trimester. I slept around 10 hours a night and was crashing around 2pm most days too. All I could do was sleep when I could. Hydration and food helped too of course.
“Exercise” for me was fairly nonexistent from like week 4 ot 5 to week 9ish. I went on walks when I could and tried a few weighted (by that I mean 3 lbs) workouts online but between the exhaustion and nausea, it wasn’t really happening. That was a little jarring, but I knew it would be temporary so I respected my need for more rest. Around 10 weeks or so I started exercising more regularly and was up to 4-5x/week by the end of the first trimester. Please keep in mind that my workouts look MUCH different than pre-pregnancy. It’s a lot of walking (no running – not interested), light weights, stretching and mobility. And it genuinely feels great.
Anxiety was tough for me in that first trimester. I would jump to worst-case scenario thoughts even though I had no reason to. Early on I felt like God told me this baby was a gift and when I had a lot of anxiety, I would go back to that. It was kind of like me constantly reverting back to that promise, so I’m not sure I can say the anxiety totally overwhelmed me but I did need to intentionally remember what I know to be true (which was that I have no good reason to worry and I need to be patient). I don’t like admitting that anxiety was my reality at different times, but it did take several weeks for me to feel confident and honestly now I think pregnancy is a risk from conception and this is just how it goes. So much feels out of my control, which I’m sure is a good learning experience for parenting.
The last thing I want to touch on is the need for me to respect my limitations both during pregnancy and otherwise. As someone who was very performance-driven for most of her life, it is not my preference to admit that I can’t do something or need help. But so many times in that first trimester I had to say to myself, “This is all I can do and it’s enough right now.” Overall I think I did give myself a lot of grace and did not judge my capabilities or engage in negative self talk like I would have five years ago, so I’m grateful for that. The reality is I wasn’t able to do what I did – physically or emotionally – before pregnancy and that’s okay.
I think that’s all for the first trimester! While it may seem like it’s been fairly easy for me (and truly it has compared to some!), I do want to say that pregnancy is HARD. Honestly a lot harder than I thought it would be but I have been enjoying it and am looking forward to this new season.
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