{"id":47578,"date":"2015-10-06T08:20:03","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T15:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=47578"},"modified":"2015-10-05T11:24:02","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T18:24:02","slug":"first-trimester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=47578","title":{"rendered":"First Trimester"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was around 5 months after going off the pill that I got the positive test result. Because I was so convinced it hadn\u2019t worked, I feel like I did everything wrong! I ate sushi, I drank wine and beer, I cleaned the litter box every day, I sat in the hot tub and steam room at the gym, I ate deli meat, I took Advil\u2026.<\/p>\n

The good news was that it was early enough that it should be ok. Everything I read and what my doctor said, those first few weeks most women don\u2019t even know they are pregnant and because it\u2019s just a cluster of cells and not attached to the uterus and getting nutrients through an umbilical cord, it\u2019s okay. That made me feel a little bit better but I was still beating myself up a little bit about doing all that stuff! The other good news: I had already been taking prenatal vitamins for months, so that was good.<\/p>\n

After the first positive result from the blood work, my doctor said to come back in 2-3 days to get another blood test to make sure everything was progressing as it should. It was a long three days, trust me!<\/p>\n

The day after I told Michael our news I got home from the pool and Michael surprised me with a Papa Murphy\u2019s DeLite pizza (black olives for my half since I can\u2019t have pepperoni or Canadian Bacon apparently!<—which my doctor has now said is ok, as long as it’s cooked well), a carton of vanilla ice cream and a bouquet of sunflowers!<\/p>\n

\"flowers1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I ordered some books <\/a>to start reading.<\/p>\n

\"icecream\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How I\u2019m Feeling<\/span><\/h4>\n

It was still pretty early and honestly I didn\u2019t feel any differently BUT I started to think back to some of the symptoms I\u2019d been feeling lately and the biggest one was fatigue<\/b>. I\u2019d been feeling extraordinarily tired lately but shrugged it off to the two week heat wave we had in Portland but now I\u2019m wondering if it was the beginnings of this little Nugget\u2019s life?<\/p>\n

The other thing I noticed was that the previous few weeks I\u2019d been leaning more towards vegetarian meals. I don\u2019t know why. It\u2019s not like I had an aversion to eating meat, I just didn\u2019t crave it like I did vegetables and vegetarian options. One trip to Trader Joe\u2019s I bought several boxes of their veggie Marsala burgers, Quinoa Black Bean burgers and other things like that. Weird for me for sure!<\/p>\n

Symptoms<\/span><\/h4>\n

Week 4 and 5<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Morning Sickness<\/em><\/p>\n

Supposedly morning sickness starts around 5 or 6 weeks. Before I was pregnant I already had an issue with nausea. I have no idea why and I spoke to my doctor about this many times to no avail. Maybe it was low blood sugar, waiting too long to eat between meals, I\u2019m not really sure. But Nausea and Me were old friends. My first thought was \u201cdoes that mean morning sickness will be unbearable?\u201d and then my next thought was \u201cor will I not even notice a difference because I already deal with it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Week 4 and 5 the main symptom was feeling bloated and gassy and burping a LOT. It came out of nowhere so it\u2019s not like I ate too much and felt bloated. It was just a constant feeling.<\/p>\n

\"5weeks\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 6 and 7<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Morning Sickness<\/em><\/p>\n

Early in Week 5 I had queasy feelings but it wasn\u2019t all the time and not just in the morning. Mostly it was just food aversions. Nothing really sounded tasty to me. Foods I usually ate on a regular basis didn\u2019t appeal.\u00a0I found that I\u2019d feel queasy if I didn\u2019t eat. So even though food didn\u2019t sound good, I forced myself to eat my normal foods and I added a few more snacks to the day just in case I started to feel nauseated.<\/p>\n

Morning Sickness started for real in week 6. No more “sort of queasy” feeling–this was fullblown, I might puke, sickness. Didn’t puke in Week 6 but felt like I was going to. It came in waves. Gross, nasty, unpleasant waves.<\/p>\n

Hunger<\/em><\/p>\n

This one surprised me. I felt like what I\u2019d read said the first trimester was all about food aversions and morning sickness, the hunger came later. But in Week 6 I started getting HUNGRY. Like wake up in the morning with a hollow, empty stomach that was grumbling and angry. In the past I\u2019d ignore that for the most part but I am learning to listen to my body and eat when I can. The only thing that sounded appealing to me was grilled cheese sandwiches. I normally love all foods that are pickled or fermented but apparently little baby does not. Total food aversion. So odd.<\/p>\n

Fatigue<\/em><\/p>\n

Holy moly is that true! Week 6 it hit me. I was so freakin\u2019 tired. I just felt slow, lethargic and low energy. Usually I am pretty high energy and can power through most things but this was dragging me down. I am not a \u201cnapper\u201d (like ever, except when I\u2019m really sick and even then I don\u2019t really nap much) but I just had the urge to take a nap. I felt like I was going to nod off during meetings at work, I\u2019d have to really focus when I was driving home at night. It was bad. I just wanted to sleep.<\/p>\n

Heightened Sense of Smell<\/em><\/p>\n

So much! It’s CRAZY how well I can smell everything, and I mean everything now. It’s disturbing how much I smell now.<\/p>\n

\"6weeks\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 8 and 9<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hunger<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The hunger is real and all-consuming. Nothing was working. The usual tricks didn\u2019t work, eating carbs only took the edge off. It was disturbing how ravenous I was–like I\u2019d swam 4 miles without stopping to rest and wanted to eat everything in sight like a giant dinosaur. I was actually starting to get a little worried about the hunger–if I\u2019m this hungry in the first trimester, what\u2019s going to happen later on when this baby is actually GROWING?!?\u00a0<\/span>Peppermint tea, saltine crackers, Gatorade and bread products are my staple right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fatigue<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s killing me. But with throwing my back out I spent about 3 days mostly sleeping so that helped I think. Blessing in disguise? I took a week off from the gym due to my back and just spent time resting. <\/span><\/p>\n

Week 10 and 11<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We told the parents! And swore them to secrecy (although we both had doubts that they’d be able to keep it secret). It’s the first grand-kid for everyone so they are all super excited, over the moon excited!<\/p>\n

I also had prenatal blood work done. They test for everything, including genetic stuff. The bad news? It takes a few weeks to get the results from the genetic testing. Waiting sucks. Thankfully the results didn’t take “several weeks” like they told me it would. All the results came back low risk, so no worries there!<\/p>\n

Morning Sickness<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s now moved to the evenings. I spend most evenings feeling really gross and sick. I’m hoping it’s on it’s way out in the next few weeks because I’m really not enjoying feeling sick all the time. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

Mood Swings<\/em><\/p>\n

So many emotions, drastic mood swings! Trying to just keep to myself right now because everything bothers me. I’m overly sensitive and just crabby (and part of that is due to feeling sick).<\/p>\n

Week 12 and 13<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Morning sickness is diminishing! Thankfully! I rarely feel nauseated now, which is a nice change. At the same time it’s kind of weird because now I don’t really have any symptoms. Trying to keep the anxiety at bay that everything is still okay. As much as morning sickness sucked, it was still a nice reminder that things were still “happening” in there!<\/p>\n

A friend of mine that recently had the world’s most adorable baby gave me a big bag of maternity clothes! SO AMAZING! I suddenly have tons of maternity pants and shirts and it’s a huge lifesaver since I’m down to only 2 pairs of my pants fitting now. It was so generous of her to give me her clothes.<\/p>\n

I made Michael watch the movie “Look Who’s Talking.” Can you believe he’s never seen it!? I loved it as a kid. He enjoyed it and said it was better than he was expecting. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Cravings<\/em><\/p>\n

Lemonade. Obsessed. Getting my appetite back and starting to want vegetables and healthy food again instead of just wanting to eat bread and pasta. I’m glad for that because I was feeling gross just eating pasta all the time.<\/p>\n

Body Aches<\/em><\/p>\n

Wondering if that relaxin hormone is kicking in. My joints and ligaments feel…weird. I started having a pain in my butt<\/a> which I am wondering if it’s pregnancy-related. Sciatica or something? I am still working out fairly normally but noticing that I am more sore and the soreness lasts longer. Recovery isn’t quite as fast as it used to be.<\/p>\n

Keeping it Secret<\/span><\/h4>\n

This was going to be the hardest part. Michael and I didn\u2019t want to reveal our news too early for a lot of reasons. Us both being older, I didn\u2019t want to get too excited about the pregnancy until we crossed some milestones first. And I definitely didn\u2019t want to tell people, even our parents, until we knew it was \u201csticking\u201d. While I didn\u2019t have a history of miscarriage it was still a concern for me.<\/p>\n

I tried my best to keep my anxiety at bay about this topic mostly by trying not to think too much about being pregnant. I would dismiss my fantasies when they popped into my head and tried not to think about it too much but it was REALLY HARD!!<\/p>\n

The biggest obstacle was going to be going to my family reunion. I knew we\u2019d be getting questions about when we\u2019d have kids but now that we were actually pregnant, how do I hide it? Obviously I wasn\u2019t showing yet but not drinking at all the entire weekend when everyone else was in party mode and I\u2019d normally also be partaking? Michael and I got to work plotting ways to be sneaky about it and how to dismiss the inevitable questions we\u2019d be bombarded with.<\/p>\n

How to hide not drinking:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like I was a huge drinker before. I was a social drinker for sure, with my 2-3 glasses of whatever as my limit. But I\u2019ve gone through phases where I didn\u2019t drink at all and no one thought it was weird. The main time was when I was trying to lose 100 pounds. I didn\u2019t drink anything for a year and a half. And there have been other times when I was trying to lose a few pounds since that I cut out the booze. That is the quickest and easiest way to reduce some calories in your diet! No liquid calories!<\/p>\n

So my go-to answer to why I wasn\u2019t going to be drinking was that I was trying to lose the honeymoon weight.<\/p>\n

Some other responses:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to drink yet, waiting for tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI already had some today, just taking a little break.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m on some antibiotics and I can\u2019t drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI over did it last weekend at a party and I\u2019m officially never drinking again!\u201d<\/p>\n

And the go-to easy answer if someone offered me a drink: \u201cThanks but I\u2019m a total beer snob and I don\u2019t drink that.\u201d <–truth, I am a beer snob.<\/p>\n

Other ways I got out of the questions:<\/em><\/p>\n

I drank non-alcoholic beverages in a red solo cup so it LOOKED like I was drinking but no one knew it wasn\u2019t real! \u00a0It seemed to work because no one questioned me about not drinking. Red solo cup win!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

First Doctor Appointment<\/span><\/h4>\n

My first appointment was at 5 weeks with an OB Nurse. It was basically an informational meeting to get my history and go over questions. We went through medications that were safe and not safe, food to avoid, exercise, etc. We discussed nutrition and she told me not to diet, obviously.<\/p>\n

The first trimester you aren\u2019t supposed to add more calories–in the 2nd you add 200 calories a day and the third 300 calories a day. I asked her what the base should be and she said for the first trimester I should be eating 1600 calories a day.<\/p>\n

If you remember, I had reduced my calories to a base of 1300 a few months ago in order to lose some weight (and did lose a few pounds). Even though I wasn\u2019t losing any weight this past month (now I know why), I was still pretty low. Plus I\u2019d eat back some of the calories I\u2019d burn in the gym. So on gym days I probably WAS eating around 1600 calories total. But I changed the number in MyFitnessPal to a base of 1600. Which was a weird adjustment. All of a sudden I had to get more food into my day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Second Doctor Appointment<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

I had my first ultrasound when I went to the ER for my back. They were checking for everything and the number one concern was obviously baby. I was in so much pain that I didn\u2019t really get to enjoy the ultrasound but Michael got to. He got emotional during it when we saw the heart beating (that was crazy to see!). Baby did a little flip, too. <\/span><\/p>\n

A few days later I had my first OB appointment and another ultrasound. She did a regular physical and discussed the pregnancy and questions I had. My main question was about the morphine I\u2019d had at the ER. The doctor had assured me it was safe at such a low dose and morphine leaves the system so quickly it can\u2019t hurt the baby. I was still freaked. My OB midwife confirmed that it was fine and no harm was done. <\/span><\/p>\n

She did another ultrasound and this time we got to hear the heartbeat! That was such a crazy, weird, surreal experience!! Baby\u2019s heart rate was 168. Same as it was at the ER a few days earlier. She said everything looked good, baby was measuring great and that was about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Third Doctor Appointment<\/span><\/h4>\n

Not much to report. All they did was weigh me, take my blood pressure and listen to the heart beat on a doppler. It was kind of a disappointment. The appointment lasted about 10 minutes and no ultra sound. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was around 5 months after going off the pill that I got the positive test result. Because I was so convinced it hadn\u2019t worked, I feel like I did everything wrong! I ate sushi, I drank wine and beer, I cleaned the litter box every day, I sat in the hot tub and steam […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,418,44,95,2559,169,1258],"tags":[370,6389,8776,8928,1565,8929,901,903],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47578"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48334,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47578\/revisions\/48334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}