Today, I have a guest blogger telling us all about what she has learned in her first trimester of her first pregnancy. Welcome, Emilia!
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Hi there! I’m Emilia from The Happiest Heart Blog and I am expecting my first baby! Baby girl to be exact. Over the moon doesn’t even begin to describe how my husband and I felt when we saw those two pink lines on our pregnancy test. It took us about a year to conceive so after many months of negative tests, we couldn’t believe our eyes! We finally made it happen and our hearts were immediately full of so much love.
Week six rolled around and I quickly realized I was in for quite a ride. It’s funny how you can hear so many women talk about their experiences with pregnancy and yet you just don’t really get it until you are there. All of a sudden you are thinking “what in the what is happening!” Don’t get me wrong, excitement and gratefulness are there but so is worry, sickness, and a crazy ride on an emotional roller-coaster.
What I Learned in My First Trimester
1. “Morning” sickness ain’t no joke! And for me it wasn’t limited to just the morning. Walking around with a constant gag feeling in your throat while you try to function in your normal day is TOUGH! I gave myself a lot of pep talks and kept reminding myself it would most likely get better and I was strong enough to get through it. So I got myself out of bed every day and went to work. I sat in meetings praying I wouldn’t throw up and wondered if people noticed my lack of “effort” in looking put together. I was pretty darn sick until I was about 17 weeks. Nothing really made it better. Crackers, toast and sprite didn’t help and made me want to gag even more. Thankfully I am feeling much better and I am crossing my fingers the sickness doesn’t return for the final stretch of my pregnancy.
2. Eat whatever you can eat! I was so worried about eating well and it only added stress to not feeling good. I would beat myself up for wanting a Bean Burrito (hold the onion) from Taco Bell. But when it came down to it, eating a Bean Burrito from Taco Bell was better than not eating at all!!
3. Yes, it is possible to sleep 11 hours every night and still want a nap during the day. I have never been so exhausted in my whole life. At first I fought it. Well, as much as I could anyway. I didn’t want to go to bed early every night and I didn’t want to feel so lazy on the weekends but then I stopped fighting it. I mean, it finally hit me that I was growing a human! When you really think about what that means it’s easy to understand why you are so stinking tired! So I went to bed at 7pm every night and took a lot of naps on the weekend. It was awesome.
4. Fear. Miscarriages and other complications are more common than I realized and I lived in straight fear for the first 12 weeks. And if I am being totally honest, I still have fears. Trying to balance excitement and fear is no easy task. Throw in sickness and exhaustion, and I was a hot mess. It was hard to let myself be excited without fearing something terrible was going to happen. Those feelings still surface but I think I am going to feel that way for the rest of baby girl’s life. So I remind myself to be grateful and focus on the positive.
5. Pregnancy brain is real. Seriously, Google it. Growing this sweet baby girl became my body’s number one priority and it’s all consuming. Focusing on other things that just can’t compare to physically growing a human took a back seat. While it can be frustrating to feel like you are seriously losing your marbles, it is also amazing to see how your body and brain just take over. You are a Mama now and your body and brain know where to focus their energy. AMAZING!
Liz is a just a mom trying to keep it real about how little she sleeps, how often she gets puked on and how much she loves them. You can find her here every day writing about real-mom moments.
Olivia Cecil says
I just stumbled across this post and am immediately thankful. I am around five weeks with my first pregnancy and I have been so worried about the baby, hearing about miscarriages and everything else. I am so so soooo blessed and excited to have this little angel growing inside of me!