First Trimester.

Finding out I was pregnant was a dream! But I quickly found out the symptoms that could come with having a little one growing inside you! In my September 21st post, I talked about how I found out I was pregnant. In this post I’ll like to give an overview of the ways my body changed during my first trimester. Pregnancy is usually counted by weeks, so that’s how I’ll be explaining my symptoms in my posts. 40 weeks = Full Term!

Headaches.

I had a headache every single day from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep. Thankfully, I could sleep through the night without pain! Now that I knew I was pregnant the only medication I was allowed to take was extra strength Tylenol. Normally an Advil or two would take my headaches away almost immediately). The Tylenol did nothing, so I decided to stay away. I stayed as hydrated as possible, but still nothing was taking the pain away. I was frustrated to say the least. I felt like the day would never come when I wouldn’t have a headache. I was referred to a neurologist. All she was able to do was tell me the headaches would most likely go away around my 12 week mark. I felt hopeless. These headaches were more like migraines. I slept a lot and tried to keep our apartment pretty quiet and dark.

The last thing I wanted was to let being pregnant change my life. One of the first things my OBGYN told me was “okay, being pregnant can be tough, but remember you are pregnant, you’re not dying”. With that, I continued to live my life as I did before I was pregnant (minus the drinks and raw fish). I wanted to continue being available whether it was a night out on the town, Bible study, or a family get together. So I did just that, even if I felt awful. I did my best to keep a positive perspective. I had dreamt of getting pregnant for the last 7 months! Thank the good Lord the headaches went away right at my 12 week mark.

Morning Sickness

You might have heard this already, but it’s definitely not only in the “morning”. Nausea and the feeling of needing to throw up can hit you out of nowhere any time of day! What joy! In my journey, I only had some sickness two days. Easy peasy. At least that’s what all the moms I’ve spoken to said. I would argue the headaches might be as bad as having morning sickness everyday. We are all different and pregnancy can be SO different for each of us! I did have nausea without actually being sick, but this was more because of the headaches or being car sick.

Exhaustion

Growing a human is exhausting!! Thankfully I haven’t been working, only volunteering a few times a week so I had lots of time for naps. I love naps! But I loved naps long before I was pregnant, I was a college athlete, napping becomes part of life. Anyway, during my first trimester I was super tired, especially around afternoon time. There’s not much to do about the tiredness, ride it out and rest as much as possible.

Working Out

With the exhaustion and headaches, I only got around to working out about 4 times during 12 weeks! Not like me at all. When I did try to workout my head would throb so bad. It was awful. I slept a lot. I wasn’t at all hard on myself for not working out during that time. I didn’t even have enough energy to be hard on myself. My body needed to adjust so I let it.

Appetite/Weight Gain

During my first trimester, I started to get full super easy. I would eat the tiniest amounts. Garrett had gotten use to ordering me more food than he would order for himself haha so it took him a bit to adjust. I started ordering only appetizers or off of the kids menus. I would definitely still had an appetite, but I felt like my stomach shrunk! This is most likely why I lost about 7 pounds during my first trimester.

Heart Palpitations

This was news to me! Randomly, I would feel like my heart would skip or all of sudden speed up out of nowhere. It scared me, it would only last a couple seconds, but I had no idea what it was! I talked to my doctor about it. She let me know I was having heart palpitations and it was completely normal. Making sure I stayed hydrated could help.

Bonus! (Sneezing)

I have no idea if this has anything to do with pregnancy. During my first trimester I sneezed 6-8 times every single day! So random, but this too stopped at my 12 week mark.