Pregnancy Announcement & First Trimester Recap
If you didn’t pick up the glaring hint in the title of this post…I’m pregnant! Baby Adams is due this November, and we are ecstatic! We found out at the end of February, and I finished up my first trimester at the end of April. I am definitely not consistent enough to post weekly bump-dates on Instagram, or even monthly updates, so I thought trimester recaps on the blog would be the way to go! In each of these three posts, I’ll cover a variety of topics, such as my pregnancy symptoms, cravings, preparing for baby’s arrival, and more.
In all honesty, my first trimester was a rough one, but not because of my pregnancy symptoms. Just two days before I found out I was pregnant at nearly 4 weeks, my mom told me she found out she had cancer. By week 8 of my pregnancy, I was flying by myself to Seattle to help take care of her for a week. By week 10, Austin and I made the drive from North Dakota to Seattle for her memorial service. Needless to say, it was extremely difficult to get excited about my pregnancy in the wake of everything else happening. On top of these events, I still had five classes to juggle for my master’s program, in-school observations to complete, a job, and a two month vacation to prepare for the following month. All I wanted was to wallow in sadness and embrace the looming feeling of apathy, but Austin helped power me through these tough couple months (thank you, Aus!). I am just grateful that I was able to surprise my mom with the news of her first grand-baby before she passed.
In terms of pregnancy symptoms, I completely lucked out. Maybe the universe decided to cut me some slack, but I am extremely grateful that I did not have a lick of morning sickness in the first trimester. Around weeks 4 and 5, I had some intense fatigue (but I mean, who doesn’t love an excuse to take a nap every day?). My hunger was (and still is) through the roof — I want food all. the. time. The only time I got nauseous was if I didn’t eat anything at least every three hours, on the dot. And throughout the entire first three months, I just got what felt like period cramps every single day, though it was mild for the most part; maybe a few times a week it was so painful I had to stop what I was doing and wait for it to pass.
As for pregnancy cravings, I never really got any. However, I did find that I gave into my regular-level cravings more easily, using the pregnancy card as an excuse. So we did have a lot more pizza and chocolate milk than what is normally allowed in our house. And luckily, I didn’t have any food aversions either. The closest it got was if something didn’t sound good, I couldn’t force myself to eat it or else I felt a little uneasy. But this didn’t happen with any specific food, and there were always other options if something didn’t sound good to eat.
I didn’t take any bump-date pictures during the first trimester because I wasn’t showing whatsoever. Looking back through my phone, I actually don’t have any pictures of myself from these three months. The only exception is a video I took of myself seeing my pregnancy test result for the first time, so I grabbed a screenshot of that for the purposes of this post.
But things got interesting as the second trimester began — telling friends and family, creating a baby registry, and backpacking Europe for a month! Stay tuned for my second trimester recap coming at the beginning of August.