First Trimester Recap

 I’m writing this while 13 weeks 6 days pregnant (according to due date calculators). I’ll start from the beginning so my thoughts on pregnancy thus far are in one place. *Warning I talk about throwing up so don’t read if that bothers you.

When I found out. I was pretty sure I was pregnant, I just had a feeling and when riding in the car one weekend Mary’s Magnificat was like playing in my head and struck me in a super particular emotional way. Not sure enough though, to not drink that weekend. The next week, 9/11, a Friday I needed to pick up a lamp I ordered at Target so I went there at lunch and just since I was there I picked up a pregnancy test. It was really early, like a day or two before I was even supposed to start my period but I couldn’t really wait and wanted to know for practical reasons like if it was still okay to drink coffee basically all day. Seeing the two lines or whatever did feel like unreal and it was hard to just focus on working the rest of the day. At some point I snapchatted Bren the positive test. That night when Bren got home from work I just acted totally normal and we went to Lucky Star Brewery for dinner. We sat in our usual place outside on the patio, when Brendan ordered a drink and asked if I wanted anything I was just like “Omg didn’t you check snap” and then he did and I forget what he said right after that probably like, “Wow, you’re really pregnant.”. And then we finished our dinner and talked about normal things. I texted my mom casually two days later. The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was the Monday after I found out I was pregnant and in the Maronite Rite at least they do this cool Blessing of the Four Directions in addition to the veneration and stuff so it was nice getting blessed and being the only ones knowing I was pregnant. 

Weeks whatever until 6 - I made a Dr. appointment two days or so after I found out for October 13th and then an ultrasound a few days after. I went to my mom’s work for an ultrasound 2 weeks before that which was SO nice to be able to see the baby, which is always a relief and Brendan and my mom were there too. This seems cute now because they still don’t sound appetizing at all now but at the time it was a nice treat, but one of the first things I did was get decaf k-cups and non-alcoholic beer from Trader Joe’s. I felt pretty normal, a little more tired than usual. I downloaded the Baby Center app (later I switched to What to Expect) and found out I was due 5/23. This is the same due date the baby measured at when I went to my initial Dr. appointment. I ate all my regular foods and would go on 1 longish walk on the trail really near by for exercise. 

This is a schedule Brendan made to help me know when to take B6 and eat and stuff. I went to bed a lot earlier and ate a lot more.

Week 6 until 14 - This is when things started to change / go downhill. The 1st Monday of the 6th week I went on a walk before work and threw up almost immediately after going outside twice and I was totally surprised like what is going on / this is awk. That pretty much became the routine feeling sick all the time and throwing up a couple times a day. It’s hard to describe the feeling I guess its just “nauseous” but I had a hard time describing what it felt like besides just not good. Smells and a lot of foods totally repulsed me too. I deleted social media for a few days because people’s food pics would totally gross me out, and food commercials on TV were rough too. If Brendan would mention something like Roosters I would be like that sounds like that nastiest thing ever are you insane, I never thought I could feel so strongly about food. I also know that my sickness def wasn’t on the far end of how bad it could be, I definitely wasn’t throwing up everything I ate and I still worked daily etc. Bizarrely, the 3 times I visited Columbus it was like a night and day difference I still threw up sometimes but I felt a million times better. After feeling sick I REALLY appreciated all the times I felt normal. When I went to the Dr. they recommended Unisom & B6 for nausea like I was having (like not bad enough to need something stronger) this was the only thing that I did that noticeably made a big difference. 

Other things I got / did that helped in the moment:

• Lemon essential oil - I just got some from Whole Foods. This really helped if there was a smell that was really grossing me out and smelling it before I got out of bed helped too. 
• Gin Gins - These are hard ginger candies that you suck on, in the moment they did distract me and help but I don’t think they helped beyond that. In retrospect I would’ve preferred the kind of ginger you get with sushi.
• Preggie pops - These are actually really good. The raspberry flavor is my favorite. If I feel nauseous at all now I will grab one still. They’re pretty sour. 
• Morning Sickness Sweets - These were a good mix of ginger candy and regular candy. 

When I was 13 weeks I thought I was feeling a little better and tried not taking unisom one night, I also had some real coffee that day so I was up until 11pm, my normal bedtime on unison was no joke between 7 and 8. Anyways, I felt sick but I’m really bad at knowing when I am going to throw up and I went to bed, Brendan fell asleep like right away and I threw up next to the bed like a ton and Brendan woke up and I was like we need to find more unisom because I was out so it was a whole scene and we went to 2 places before finally finding it at the 3rd that was luckily still open. I’m still taking it but am going to try to not again tomorrow. Oh also notable event, I started cooking or helping cook dinner when I hit 13 weeks previously I was eating Trader Joe’s frozen things or bagels. 

Other questions that I would like to know

Are we finding out the gender - yes

Am I wearing maternity clothes - I got one pair of Blanqi maternity leggings but other than that I am just wearing clothes that fit or getting clothes in a bigger size that I can wear when I’m not pregnant. Working from home has been so nice for this and in general, I would probably be really stressed worrying about vomming at work because I just throw up wherever I am like while driving (low point lol). I don’t think my jeans have fit comfortably since like 8 weeks. 

Foods I‘ve liked - cheez-its 

TLDR: The first trimester was almost laughably bad/gross but now I am on the mend. 

Btw, I feel like it goes without saying but even though I am complaining a lot I realize a lot of people would love to get pregnant and aren’t able to. The baby & myself have also been healthy thus far.

Thanks for reading! 

Xoxo,

Sally