My First Trimester Recap

December 7, 2020January 6, 20210 Comments

Thank you so much for the kind comments and excitement for baby number two! We can’t be more thrilled to add a little one to the family.

I was very quiet about things when I was expecting my son, since I’m really shy offline, but I’m actually looking forward to sharing a lot more pregnancy-related content this time around. I’ve always read these kinds of posts from fellow mums/mums-to-be and I find them really helpful, so here’s a recap of my first trimester of pregnancy.

How I Knew I Was Pregnant

Two positive pregnancy tests taken a few days apart confirmed what I kind of already knew, but I also knew that it was early days still. So after telling my husband, I called my midwife to set up an appointment. It’s always an uncertain time the first twelve weeks of any pregnancy, and I didn’t want to get too excited too early on.

My midwife appointment fell just before the strict COVID-19 measures, so the husband and I both got to see that the baby was doing just fine and growing very well, so that was a happy moment.

First Trimester Symptoms I Experienced

This pregnancy has been similar in ways to my first one, but it’s also been different. Whilst the first time around I didn’t have too many symptoms in the first trimester, the symptoms kicked in faster and a lot harder this time around.

Morning Sickness + Exhaustion

I had a lot of morning sickness this time around. Whilst I felt a bit nauseous with my son, this time around I was throwing up as soon as I ate or drank anything, and sometimes even if didn’t drink or eat anything. It luckily didn’t stick past the ten week mark.

I don’t think it helped that I had a very active but completely adorable one-year-old to chase after, but I was also utterly exhausted, to the point where I sometimes simply woke up tired and barely had enough energy to drag myself to the sofa or play with my son. The exhaustion only lessened late into my second trimester, but the tiredness is still pervasive.

Decreased Appetite

Just like the first time around, I had very little appetite in my first trimester. On the plus side, at least things didn’t smell so bad to me as they did during my first pregnancy, so I was able to eat things, just not much. I think I ate maybe a third of my normal portion size, because after that, I would feel really full and uncomfortable.

Hatred for Toothpaste

The most random but admittedly hilarious symptom that came back this pregnancy was my absolute disgust for toothpaste in the first trimester. I think it’s something do to with the menthol, but I’m not really sure. Brushing my teeth literally made me feel sick. So just like last time, I switched brands in an effort to combat this, but it didn’t really help. The hatred was just … prominent. All the time.

Bump pop

since I only started showing very late in my second trimester, I was able to hide my prengancy quite well the first time around. This time, I started showing early, at around ten weeks, so I had to pull out my maternity clothes a lot sooner than I had expected.

Finding out the gender

With my son, we knew very early on what we were having because we were part of a training my midwife team were having with a team of sonographers. This time around, we don’t know. We still don’t know, and that’s quite exciting to me, actually.

There’s still a bit of a debate going on in our household as to whether or not we want to find out, but regardless, we’ll be walking away with an envelope at our twenty week scan at the hospital, so we’ll decide there and then.

What I’m most excited about

I’m happy that I’ve already been through things once, so I feel like there’s a lot less I will be worrying about. I can kind of anticipate what will happen during each trimester and the birth and during postpartum recovery, and I’m noticably calmer this time around.

That said, as I’m writing this, no one even knows that we’re expecting yet, so I’m actually most excited about telling our family and friends the news. We have a bit of a surprise planned, so I’m hoping they’ll love it and that they’ll get it straight away.

P.S. Now that it’s a few weeks later and the news is out, I’m very happy to add that everyone loved it! 🤍