Now that I am well into my second trimester, (close to my third) I thought I would do a recap of my first trimester.
I'll go through how I found out, symptoms, things I bought and a few other things.
I want to try to do this for all of my trimesters for a few reasons.
1. I think it will be really fun to go back and read each one later on.
2. I love reading other people's trimester recaps. I'm also finding them extremely helpful now that I'm pregnant.
How we found out:
When we got home from Mexico and I had not started my period, I became suspcious. I am very regular, but every once in a while I can be a couple days late. When it had been about 4 days I decided to buy a pregnancy test, but told myself I would wait a couple more days.
Finally on day 7 I decided it was time.
I woke up that Sunday morning and took one of the tests I had bought. It turned positive pretty quickly. I feel like in the movies there is always a suspenseful 5 minute wait. No waiting for me. That thing was positive ASAP!
Sadly, J was out of town for work when I took the test. I wanted to wait and tell him in a really cute way when he got home, but there was no way I could keep this to myself for a week and half.
I immediately FaceTimed him to tell him before he went into work.
He knew something was up because I had tears in my eyes. (He honestly thought something was wrong with Ramsey.)
When I told him I was pregnant he was completely SHOCKED! We both had been traveling a lot the previous month so we weren't really trying. They always say it happens when you stop trying. haha
Symptoms:
One of the first things that tipped me off before I got a positive test was how tired I was.
I'm normally kinda tired, but I don't require a lot of sleep. When we got home from Mexico though I would instantly fall asleep for a little nap around 5pm every day. I thought maybe I was just recovering from back to back vacations, but still seemed a little weird.
My boobs were also EXTREMELY sore. I know that can be a period symptom for a lot of gals, but not for me.
Shortly after the positive test, I started getting nauseous almost every day. Some days were worse than others, but luckily I never actually got sick. I know every girl says this, but they really shouldn't call it morning sickness. It lasted all day for me and my friends said the same thing.
Who do we talk to about changing that name? haha
The nausea and tiredness continued until about week 12-13. Finally the nausea went away completely and the fatigue went away for the most part.
Pregnancy tired is like no other though.
There were so many days I told J that I didn't think I would ever feel normal again because I had completely forgotten what normal felt like.
Telling Family & Friends:
Since J was out of town when I found out we didn't tell anyone for about 2 weeks. I really wanted to see him and be able to celebrate just the 2 of us before telling anyone else.
When he finally got home I convinced him we should tell our parents. It was killing me not to tell my mom and even though J wanted to wait until our first appointment, he finally agreed we could tell our parents.
We got Ramsey a bandana that said "Soon to be Big Brother" and both our parents thought we were getting a puppy at first.
We also told a majority of our friends after our 8-week appointment. I know a lot of people chose to wait until 12 weeks, but it was really hard for us to hide it. I'm a very social person and definitely drink in social settings. Saying no to everything all of a sudden would have been a HUGE red flag. I actually turned down 1 party and posted a photo of ice cream and had a few friends start to "investigate" if I was pregnant. Our friend group is also EXTREMELY close so even if something happened, I knew they would all be there to support us.
I actually have a bunch of videos from us telling people that I need to edit together and post on IG.
Purchases:
I honestly didn't make too many purchases in the first trimester. Most of your clothes fit the whole time and there's not much else you would need.
I did purchase a pregnancy pillow when I was super uncomfortable one night and I can honestly say it's one of the best $75 I have ever spent.
I probably won't give it up even after I give birth.
I'll link it here in case you are looking for one.
Vitamins:
I started out taking the Ritual Prenatal Vitamins. I had heard so many good things about them and loved that they had a subscription service so you would never run out.
I took them to my first OB appointment and she also really liked them.
However, I am not the best pill taker. Add in the all day nausea and I was starting to gag when I would just think about having to take them.
Since I'm not good at taking pills and so many prenatal are huge I decided to go with a gummy.
These are the ones I take and I really like them.
One thing to note is that no prenatal gummy has iron in it. I take an additional iron gummy to supplement that and all my levels have been perfect so far.
If you can take pills I definitely recommend trying the Ritual prenatal.
Books:
I actually bought 2 books in the first trimester, but have only made it halfway through one of them. (This goes back to the tiredness. If I was on the couch or in bed I was sleeping. There was no time to read.)
I started with Expecting Better and I cannot recommend it enough.
I honestly forgot where I saw this, but I'm so glad I did.
This is a great read whether this is your first or fifth child.
There's so many "rules" in pregnancy and many of them are not really explained.
This book breaks everything down and in my opinion really helps you make informed decisions.
A lot of people on the mommy message boards will slam this book and say she isn't a doctor (which she isn't, but she also never claims to be) and that you shouldn't read this BS book.
I'll let you make the decision for yourself, but I personally have found it very interesting & helpful.
The other book I bought was Bringing Up Bebe. I haven't started it, but I'm excited to read it when I finish Expecting Better. My friends that have read it really liked it. It's more about raising the baby, so it's ok if I don't have time to read it until the third trimester.
So that's pretty much it for the First Trimester.
Let me know if you have any questions or there's something you want me to cover in my second trimester recap. Hopefully I'm able to get that one up quicker than 3/4 of the way through my third trimester. haha
