The first trimester – Nausea, tiredness, irritability and excitement

Nausea, tiredness, irritability and excitement all rolled into the first trimester. For me, this is not the trimester of the pregnancy glow! Now on my second pregnancy, I see why they say no two pregnancies are the same. My first pregnancy was easy going.  Mild nausea which seemed start at around 6 weeks and end at around 9 weeks, plus frequent trips to the bathroom, is the total of the difficulty I remember experiencing. Not so with this gorgeous bundle, I am carrying now. My nausea with this little one started at 5 weeks and has persisted through my entire first trimester.

I have become this walking hacking machine with nausea from the minute I wake up to long after I fall asleep.  It never seems to give me a moment’s rest.  I walk from room to room with a bucket, although even with all the hacking and coughing nothing ever makes it all the way out of my body. Attractive… I know! On top of my constant nausea, I am exhausted during the day, that I can barely keep my eyes open. At night I wake every 2 ½ hours to go to the bathroom. At 5 am every morning I am wide awake, planning silly little things like what music I want to listen to while in labour. By 7 am when the sun comes up and my toddler wakes, I am ready to go to sleep.  Of course, it is time to get up.

The first trimester is a difficult one.  I am excited that I am pregnant.  I want to imagine what my baby is going to look like; will they be a little boy or a little girl?  Will they be adventurous like my first or more timid?  The challenge is that as soon as I think anything about the little baby growing inside me, I want to vomit. If I watch a video of a baby developing in the womb I want to vomit. Pretty much anything baby makes the nausea increase. It boggles my mind that we have evolved in a way that every time we think of our beautiful baby growing inside us, a wave of nausea hits.

There is a lot of information out there on what you can eat to try and help the nausea. The only thing that seems to work for me is to eat something before I get out of bed, keep snacking throughout the day and to try and keep all the rooms in the house well ventilated.  Walking from one room to another which has a different smell is a real trigger for me. My little boy is a great reliever of wind while he is sleeping at night (his little farty party). It seems he breathes in through his nose and out through his bum. So, during the first trimester my husband Carl is on duty to check on him before we go down for the night. It just too much for this first-trimester mommy!

Luckily the first trimester is short lived and the second trimester just around the corner. Goodbye nausea, hello hip pain! At least I can finally start thinking about my little one in my belly and only have feelings of love and excitement.