So here we are. As I write this, I’m on day nine on being a parent. I’m well on my way into this fourth trimester everyone talks about yet here I am sharing thoughts on my first trimester which seems so freaking long ago. To be honest, I planned to share this post during my second trimester (you know, once I’d made it through the first) but to my surprise (and shock), I shared almost nothing during my pregnancy.
I know I didn’t have to nor did I feel obligated to but I’ve worked really hard on this little blog, which I’ve had for 10 years as of March of this year, and I thought I’d be really into sharing all the things but I was not. I shared very little posts about food or pregnancy during the span of nine months. Since finding out I was pregnant, here is a list of posts I’ve shared over those 9 months (go revisit them):
End of summer watermelon salad
Five Second Rule: simple syrup
Favorite Instagram accounts to follow
Small things I’ve done to cope with staying home
13 posts in nine-ish months. Usually I write 13+ posts in a month. Anyway, I’m here now so let’s talk about this first trimester.
My first-trimester experience
It seems so surreal writing about this but my first trimester seems so long ago and now our sweet babygirl is here! Remember this is my perspective. If you’re pregnant, thinking about becoming pregnant or you have lots of children, your experience may have been different. Or maybe it was the same. At any rate, here’s mine:
You may have heard that during the first trimester you’re extremely tired and that’s true. That exhaustion paired with the fact that no one knew our secret made me tired and trying to keep up appearances was both physically and mentally draining.
Navigating not drinking ‘as much’ honestly, made me want to stay in the bed and be a hermit. Not drinking as much was the fib I would tell friends so they wouldn’t get suspicious. Luckily (but unluckily) the bulk of my first trimester was pretty busy so not being as social as I am usually, wasn’t that big of a deal because I was consumed with work stuff. Between hosting events, preparing to move our company to a new space, I was too tired to go party.
When it did come to social obligations, I put on my happy face and conquered said party or event. Sometimes it was easy other times it just wasn’t. It was such a huge event just to get me out of the bed. Needless to say, I said no to a lot of things during this time.
I started taking naps which if you know me, you know that’s unheard of. Once 3pm rolled around, I was beat. It’s like something in my brain would click and say, “you must lie down immediately.” So if I were able to lie down, I would.
While I’m grateful to have had this experience, I’d be lying if I said it was easy. For me, it was mainly very confusing. Lots of emotions, secrets and more confusion. We made the decision to tell our parents in the first trimester and that was nice to have that load taken off but we purposefully waited to tell our friends. I felt more comfortable if we waited until after our second doctor’s appointment, which was right before the first trimester was ending.
Overall, my experiences with the first trimester were all related to being dog tired. It’s like recovering from a hangover but without the fun or alcohol. Got any questions or have your own first trimester experiences? Let me know!
