Hellobee

Pregnancy symptoms this time around have been… rough. I thought that I experienced some pregnancy-related symptoms in my first pregnancy, but in looking back it was pretty smooth sailing. This time around, now that I am in my second trimester, I am finally starting to feel human again. And while I am fortunate to share that I have yet to throw up (something that only happened to me once during my first pregnancy), I’ve been hit pretty hard by other symptoms.

Nausea
Pregnancy 1: During my first trimester I was nauseous while riding the train to and from work (about 40 minutes each way). But once I was off the train and in fresh air, I was totally fine. After my first trimester, the nausea mostly went away and I felt fine.

Pregnancy 2: Right now I can only speak for the first trimester, but the nausea was just terrible. Most days it started once I was on the train in the morning and lasted right through to going to bed at night, with few reprieves in between. I ate constantly, including a lot of high-carb foods, in the hopes that keeping a full stomach would help curb the nausea. I would sit at my desk during the week in complete misery, struggle to drink enough water (it just didn’t sound good to me), and just wish that I could throw up because I felt like that could at least bring relief. At about 7 weeks pregnant I had a work conference to attend out of state, and trying to survive the flight, meals at the conference, sitting in large groups for most of the day, etc. was almost unbearable! Now that I’ve hit 14 weeks, I’m fine most days, with the occasional rough commute on the train.

Food Aversions
Pregnancy 1: I was fine eating almost anything (and I probably did!) all throughout my pregnancy. The only exception to that rule was eating black truffles. The intense smell and flavor, something I normally love, completely turned my stomach! Mr. H and I did a fair amount of fine dining tasting menus during my pregnancy and the truffle courses were unbearable to me. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my life doesn’t exactly include this luxury ingredient very often, so 99.9% of the time I was a-ok when it came to food.

Pregnancy 2: So far, the worst has been when Mr. H pan fries any kind of meat. The smell is so strong and fills up our house with the smell, which then makes me feel nauseous and I can’t handle eating whatever food it is he’s prepared. This was mostly at its worst during the first trimester, but I still cringe just at the thought of it. I also had to stop eating spinach salads for awhile, was struggling with drinking water throughout the day, and couldn’t stomach a cup of coffee. Again, now that I’m in my second trimester I’m ok with most foods again.

Cravings
Pregnancy 1: None that I can recall. I definitely probably ate more than my fair share of bagels and cream cheese, but I think that was less of a craving and more of me indulging in a food I wouldn’t normally eat on a daily basis.

Pregnancy 2: Pickles! A tip-off that I might be pregnant was, before I took a test, I just had to buy pickles at the grocery store. I spent forever trying to pick out the best brand, and then once we got home I immediately opened up the jar and devoured the pickle. At 10:00am on a Saturday morning. If that doesn’t scream pregnant, I don’t know what does! Otherwise, I think about cookies-n-cream ice cream a lot, which has helped me get through some very nauseous moments, but so far I haven’t acted on that craving.

Fatigue
Pregnancy 1: I remember being tired, especially in my first trimester, and falling asleep by 9pm while watching tv with Mr. H. However, during that time we were also in the process of buying our current house, packing, etc. and I seemed to be doing my fair share of the work without being super fatigued.

Pregnancy 2: For the first 6 or 7 weeks I would basically help get Miss H to bed at around 7pm and immediately go up to our bed and crash. I was just so, so exhausted I couldn’t function. Miss H’s 2nd birthday party was right at the end of my first trimester, which meant making her birthday cake was still a huge effort at that time! I definitely learned that being pregnant with your first is just a wildly different experience because you have the option to sleep in on the weekends, come home from work and immediately put your feet up and relax, etc. For any subsequent pregnancies, you are running around after a little one (or multiple little ones, depending on what pregnancy it is for you!), getting up early 7 days a week, being woken up in the middle of the night by a crying child, etc. It’s definitely a different experience!

Overall I know that there are far, far worse pregnancy symptoms out there, and so far I’ve been lucky enough to bypass a lot of them both times. But I definitely have been struck by how significantly different my first trimesters were between the two pregnancies! When I was pregnant with Miss H I overall felt great (as great as one can feel while pregnant). I was incredibly lucky. Somehow I expected a similar experience this time around, which has not been the case.

Have your pregnancy symptoms varied from pregnancy to pregnancy?