Hellobee

Ahh the first trimester. I think if I had to describe those early weeks in one word, unfortunately the word would be fear. I felt on edge and nervous about a sticky babe (as hard as I worked to find excitement in each day), and fearful of what the next day would bring. Would it get worse? How bad would I feel?

Overall, I feel pretty fortunate with the first trimester. I have been documenting the experience on a weekly basis, and it has been fun to look back on.

Physically

While I’m not big on believing in the concept of luck, I do consider myself lucky that I didn’t have to combat any serious nausea or vomiting in my early pregnancy. The biggest challenge I faced was a ridiculous amount of food aversions, raging acid reflux, and a lack of appetite, yet constant need to eat. It wasn’t fun, and I certainly wouldn’t have survived if my husband hadn’t taken the reigns in the kitchen (which was hard because I love cooking).

Some other physical symptoms from the first trimester were terrible insomnia in the beginning. I was never a great sleeper to begin with, but the first few weeks I would wake up for extended periods of time in the middle of the night and was wide awake early in the morning. This tapered off to about 2-3 quick wake-ups a night in the second half of the first trimester.

I also had consistent cramping throughout the first trimester. I knew this was normal, but I definitely had to keep my anxiety in check on that one.

Emotionally

Holy hormones! This one took both my husband and I by a bit of a surprise. I mean you hear about pregnancy hormones, but until you’re in the thick of it, I don’t think you know what you got yourself into! One reassuring element of the crazy emotions that came along with new hormones racing through my body was that I was typically very aware of the fact that I was being ridiculous. The emotions would take over, but logic was still in there somewhere.

The first trimester will probably be remembered and summarized by what has become known as the pizza meltdown. One afternoon I wanted nothing but pizza in the peak of my aversions. When my husband expressed that he didn’t want pizza and I told him that was okay and he could bring home something else if he decided on it. When he decided on chicken burgers, we hung up the phone and I started crying. It didn’t stop for over an hour, and when he came home he was quite shocked to see my emotional state over not getting pizza. The snowball of wanting pizza, not getting pizza, not wanting to cook, not wanting to eat healthy, and beyond really created the most epic of meltdowns I’ve ever had in front of my husband. We both kind of laughed at pregnancy and after he served up some chicken burgers, I started crying again.

Highlights of the First Trimester

As we figured this whole pregnancy thing out, there were many highlights in these first few months.

It came with great debate as to whether to tell our parents early in pregnancy. I was a bit worried about my mom’s ability to keep the secret. When we found out, we already happened to have a joint dinner planned with both of our parents two weeks later. Considering my husband’s parents live over 12 hours away, we ultimately decided to take advantage of the opportunity. The dinner fell on the week of my mom’s birthday and we told everyone via my mom’s birthday gift – a birthday card from her future grandchild and a t-shirt that she was instructed she couldn’t wear until late April. The shirt said, “Great moms get promoted to Grammie!”

Throughout the first trimester we told close friends when we saw them in person, and in my eleventh week we announced to our extended family via my mom’s shirt. It was so much fun telling our loved ones.

As much as sharing with friends and family and laughing over a pizza meltdown are definitely fun memories from the first trimester, that first ultrasound at eight weeks takes the cake. The validation of the pregnancy and listening to a speedy little heartbeat made it all real, and brought relief like nothing else.

In reflection, the first trimester was definitely a period of adjustment. We managed a lot of fears, felt a lot of excitement and grew closer together in our relationship and marriage. Knowing our love had literally created a little person growing inside of me was something words will never be able to quantify. Before we knew it we had hit the second trimester and it was time to go public.

What were the highlights of your first trimester?