First of all, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for all the best wishes on my second pregnancy. I am so very excited and happy for the new member of our family.
But as we all know; pregnancy news and announcements always are proceeded by the infamous first trimester which brings on some very unpleasant symptoms (all thanks to the plethora of pregnancy hormones). As for me, this second pregnancy first trimester has been a lot more difficult than my first pregnancy. Although, since this is my second pregnancy, I have definitely figured out a few ways to manage and survive the first trimester.
How long is first trimester?
First trimester is from week 1- week 12 (end of week 12). Depending on your body, these first trimester unpleasant symptoms can last from 3 weeks to until the start of second trimester (week 14-15). My first pregnancy, I was nauseous from week 7 to until the mid of week 11. So around 3.5 weeks. I thought that was hard. But no, that was nothing compared to this pregnancy.
This time around, my nausea started around week 6 and was so much more brutal. I couldn’t keep anything down and nothing tasted good. I woke up nauseous with morning sickness and stayed that way all day. And it lasted all the way until week 15. Here are some of the common symptoms people usually go through-
- Morning sickness
- Nausea
- Fatigue
- Headache
- Tender breasts
- Food cravings/aversions
Not everyone gets all these symptoms, but a mixture of some of these. I mostly get morning sickness and nausea which just makes me very tired. So, probably fatigue as well. I also get a lot of headaches which I am taking medicines for still in my second trimester. As for food cravings or aversions, there isn’t any particular craving. But, I mostly wanted spicy Indian food. And I majorly missed Indian street food. So Much!
Now that we know some major symptoms, let’s see how we can survive them. And remember, you got this mama!
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Dealing with morning sickness and nausea
One thing almost every pregnant woman experience is morning sickness or nausea in some form. It is usually because of the increasing levels of HcG in the body in the first trimester. Some things that help with these symptoms are ginger and lemon. You can put a piece of ginger in your mouth or suck on a lemon whenever you feel queasy. I also really liked having cardamom in my mouth since that helped with my nausea. You can also buy ginger candies to suck on those if that helps.
If none of these things help, then you can ask your Ob if you can take unisom and vitamin B6. My doctor recommended to take ½ a tablet of unisom and vitamin B6 at night. Unisom also helped me sleep better at night and initially it was making me groggy in the mornings but I got used to it.
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Hydrate
What my doctor told me to keep in mind during first trimester was to keep hydrating your body. Eat as much or as little as you can but definitely keep yourself hydrated. If you cannot drink or like the taste of water (trust me, that does happen), you can try drinking sparkling water. Adding lemon to sparkling water also makes it taste a lot better. Or you can also try making infused water (adding sliced fruits to water to give it some taste rather than bland water) if that will help you drink more water.
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Small snacks throughout the day
I know as soon as you get pregnant, everyone starts telling you to eat this and that and eat healthy for you and the baby. But it’s not that easy. You either don’t like a lot of food or just cannot eat a lot of food because it makes you nauseous. All I would say is, eat whenever you can and whatever you can.
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Comfortable dressing
The changes to your body might not be very visible right now, but with always feeling nauseous and queasy, it’s just better to dress comfortably. For me, that means a lot of flowy, loose dresses or jumpsuits. I know a lot of women prefer athleisure during this time. My favorite legging for this time has to be my lululemon align leggings. They are not for pregnancy but the material is really soft, comfortable and stretchy, so it works really well for the pregnancy as well as postpartum. So, choose whatever works for you.
Along with that, you also are experiencing breast tenderness. So, invest in a bra that is soft and does not irritate your skin. My favorite is the one from itsbodily.com.
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Sleep and rest up as much as you can
This is one of the hard things for me to do. I like to be productive when I can. And that is usually when Neal naps in the afternoon. I get a good chunk of time and prefer doing a lot of chores like cleaning, organizing and stuff during that time. I tired doing it during the initial days of my first trimester in this pregnancy and I ended up with really bad headaches that lasted me all day.
So, I have been practicing letting go of some control over these tasks and instead take a small nap along with doing less stress work like folding laundry or sometimes I just lie down in bed watching tik tok. What I mean is, rest as much as you can. Your body is doing the most right now internally and for that, give yourself some grace and some shut-eye.
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Stay active, if you can
I know, it can be really hard to try to workout when all you want to do it rest. But trust me, moving your body- even a little- works wonders for you. Not just physically but mentally. Agreed, this time around, I haven’t done that much but I tried going on short walks whenever I felt a little better. And even though I was out of breath in one small lap, I felt accomplished and that just helped me get in a better mood.
I hope these tips help you survive the first trimester a little bit better. Comment below if you have any first trimester survival tips that I haven’t mentioned!
