The First Trimester

I’d say the pregnancy symptoms started around six and half weeks, but by week eight, it felt like they had been around forever.  I don’t think I had a sudden onset of anything but rather a slow increase of symptoms. My main companions for the first trimester were Exhaustion and Nausea. I do feel quite lucky to not have spent the better half of my first trimester hugging a trash can (I haven’t thrown up at all, actually), but the exhaustion and nausea were no joke.

I would come home from work around 5 and spend the rest of the evening on the couch, occasionally catching a nap. Around 9 or so, I’d migrate to the bed and sleep a full night. A full night’s sleep has a new meaning, by the way. I consider it a victory if I only have to get up twice during the night to go to the bathroom. All of this exhaustion made it difficult to keep up this ideal I had in my head, which was that once I got pregnant, I would get back into swimming and go to the pool three days a week. Exhaustion laughed in my face. I can now happily say that as of Sunday, I have withdrawn the necessary Euro to pay for my pool entrance fee, so hopefully I will be making an appearance at the pool for some laps this week.

Until now, the only exercise I have been able to maintain is walking and some pregnancy yoga. The pregnancy yoga is even a little difficult. I never did yoga before, but I find the breathing a bit much. At times I think the instructor’s breathing is so quick that if I keep following her, I’ll hyperventilate. She also does too much up and down from the ground stuff (sit down and do this, now stand and this…). For someone who has always had pretty low blood pressure, this is never good, because I’ll black out. Add pregnancy in the mix, and I have to stand up twice as slow to prevent black outs.

And what can I say about the nausea? Basically, I lost my appetite for anything that wasn’t fruit for quite a while. Slowly, my appetite has come back, but I am still having trouble stomaching green vegetables (peas and lettuce in particular) as well as steak. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the day I first remember feeling nauseous, we were eating our favorite salad. It’s no longer my favorite salad. It contains the following: romaine, sugar snap peas, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, Feta cheese, steak, cherry tomatoes, bacon and Green Goddess dressing. Nothing in that salad sounds appetizing to me anymore.

The only other thing that I still don’t really want to eat is wheat bread. I don’t mind it if it has been toasted, but something like a PB&J just sounds nasty to me. I did test the waters today, though, and made myself a PB&J. It wasn’t so bad. I didn’t finish it all, but it wasn’t the horror I had imagined.

Through everything in pregnancy, I am trying to remind myself that all of the pain and discomfort will bring the best little addition to our family that we ever could have imagined. If that doesn’t make all of this worthwhile, I don’t know what does!

A few other things to note about the first trimester:

1. John has been a great help. He made dinner many of the nights during my first trimester when I was just too tired and or sick to make it myself. I’m a lucky girl.
2. Ladies and gentlemen, he’s also an excellent cleaner.
3. And best of all, he takes great care of me, and I love him. Thank you for all the help, honey! 
4. Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean that you’ll be cramp-free. Ha ha ha. I had no idea what was coming. At least the outcome here is good.
5. Around week 9, my pants started getting to tight, so I tried the rubber band trick. The problem was that my hair band started to tear the button-hole of my jeans, so I didn’t want to do the same to my nice work pants. Luckily, my BellaBand arrived during the 9th week. I have been wearing it ever since. I think my belly moved up a little around week 12, but I kept wearing the BellaBand because it was more comfortable.
6. Just because I say the BellaBand is “more comfortable,” it doesn’t mean that the BellaBand itself is comfortable. I think it makes my pants press in on my skin too hard, and it’s a pain to manuever on my many trips to the bathroom every day. That said, I don’t know what I’d do without it.
7. Do not wear heels during pregnancy. Just don’t. I think I did it once in week 9 or 10 and my back yelled at me the next two days.
8. I need to buy more flats.

I hope I don’t come across as complaining, because I really don’t feel negatively about any of this – even the appetite loss.  My purpose in writing this is to remember what these weeks have been like and to serve as a record for our little Monkey if he or she ever gets interested in reading what my pregnancy was like.