We are Having a Baby!! + 1st Trimester Update

I can’t quite believe the day has come and I’m actually writing this post….!

We are HAVING A BABY!!

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If you know me, you’ll know that becoming a mum has been a dream of mine since pretty much forever, it was something I always knew in my gut that I was made to do, it was one of the only things I was certain of in my life: one day I will become a mum.

I’ve been waiting patiently for the day when we would be ready to start a family, and the time has come…! (although are you ever truly ready?!)

I am currently just over 16 weeks pregnant, and so so incredibly excited to be growing a little angel baby!

We found out we were pregnant over the summer in France, a time I will cherish forever. I felt incredibly lucky to be with our families during this very special time in our lives. It was definitely perfect timing, you can never quite plan exactly when these things will happen but this baby knew what it was doing (I also truly think that being back at home away from the stress of the city and lockdown, relaxed, in the sunshine, surrounded by family was exactly what my body needed!).

I will release a video update at the same time as this blog post so do check it out here!

I have so much to say and so much I want to talk about..! If you’re not into TMI details, bodily fluids etc.. then maybe don’t read on?!

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

We found out when I was just 4 weeks 1 day.. I basically waited one day to see if my period would turn up and then we tested (I learned from previous months that testing early was NOT good for me mentally… I would just get ahead of myself - so Michael made me wait until the day after my period was due.. and oh my gosh the impatience!)

I basically had cramps on and off from about a week before my period was due, which was strange but not unusual for me to have some cramps here and there at this time in my cycle, and looking back now that was pretty much my only symptom/sign of a potential pregnancy.

The test came up positive before we even set it down to wait for the 3 mins…haha! I saw the second line appear pretty much straight away and started jumping with excitement but we still waited the full 3 mins (longest time of your life) Ahhh those two (very) dark lines… the best news in the world. We were both so excited, so happy, and a little in shock - no matter how much you want a baby, when you see those two lines there’s this overwhelming feeling of OH MY GOD IT’S HAPPENING!!!! I straight away did another test… just to ‘double-check’ while being in slight disbelief..! Just the same, came up positive pretty much instantly.

I will never forget this day. It was pure excitement and pure magic!!

My first trimester started off great, for a hot second. I didn’t feel any different until week 6 came around, then all of a sudden exhaustion and nausea hit me like a tonne of bricks… At first, I felt mostly exhausted and took a lot of naps. I would basically go for a ‘little lie down’ and would wake up 3 hours later as if no time had passed, it was the strangest thing! I felt low in energy and not myself especially in the heat of summer (which was hard to hide from everyone else, I explain a bit more how we told our families in the video!).

During this time I was also a little worried and had some moments of stress (as I found out as time went on, the worries of the fragile 1st trimester do stick around!) and I had been warned by my doctor that spotting in early pregnancy was very common. Since it happens to a lot of women, not to worry unless I started having bad cramps and red bleeding. So having had that little warning, I was probably less worried when it did happen, but still, every visit to the loo was filled with dread and anxiety, it was definitely a trying week, but I tried my best to stay calm and get my mind off it as much as possible (it felt impossible at times, Michael was a true angel through it all, reminding me that stressing about it won’t make any difference to the outcome, to trust my body, and to STEP AWAY FROM GOOGLE).

Luckily the spotting stopped after a week, and never came back - which was the biggest relief! But it’s definitely something I wanted to share (even if it’s definitely TMI...but you all know I’m all about the TMI anyway, so get ready for it this pregnancy) because as much as I knew it was quite common, I didn’t have any direct experience of anyone around me who had spotting in early pregnancy, so if this is you right now, then I want you to know you’re not alone and to trust your instincts (You’ve got this! Do check in with your doctor, mine was incredibly reassuring, and it helped me to not spiral!).

As time went on, nausea, food aversions and sensitivity to smells grew in intensity. If you’ve been there, you’ll know… (just typing this sentence out brings back all the memories still very fresh in my mind..!) I was lucky enough that I wasn’t vomiting, so I can’t complain too much but I do want to say that that first couple of months felt very lonely at times because no matter how much people care for you and look after you, it felt very isolating to feel unwell like this all day, without much of an idea of when it would stop and no matter what you tried nothing seemed to really help much. I was definitely counting down the days until I would hit the end of the first trimester and felt better like everyone promised! Again just being honest with my experience - it doesn’t take away any of the excitement I felt and happiness of being pregnant, but it did mean I had some low days, lots of crying..! (but also an overwhelming sense of gratitude and happiness through it all!)

Partly because of this, we decided to go for an early private scan at 8 weeks. I wanted to put my mind at ease that all was going well, I was a little scarred from the spotting early on, and I felt like 12 weeks was a LONG time to wait for any real reassurance that everything was going well. Oh gosh, the sweet sweet relief hearing that magical heartbeat for the first time…! and seeing this tiny little bean somewhere in my stomach…the craziest feeling! Michael was with me as well which made it so very special [he was then not allowed to be at my 12-week scan once we got back to the UK :( ]

The pregnancy symptoms were the strangest feelings to wrap my head around, there was no real ‘fix’, some things helped but truly I just had to surrender and wait for it to pass. The combination of nausea (which by the way was on and off all day at first, and then in the last few weeks maybe week 10 to 13 was more in the evening) + food aversions (I couldn’t look at a vegetable in the eye, or eat anything with a strong taste and smell, it was the strangest thing!) + smell sensitivity (onions/garlic were my nemesis, ANY cooking smells - I had to actually leave the house, the smell of coffee.. it was not fun) all of it together made for a fun combo.

The food aversions were definitely the strangest and not something I could have ever imagined, my body was literally repulsed at the sight and even idea (yes I couldn’t even THINK about vegetables) of certain foods, pretty much anything other than simple beige carbs (PLAIN PASTA, BREAD & BUTTER, CEREAL, MASH POTATOES, TOAST AND MORE TOAST!) and (thankfully, miraculously) fruit. It was very confusing and stressful at first because I just didn’t know WHAT to eat… and every meal was this battle of “I cannot THINK about food or I’ll be sick, but I’m also STARVING and NOTHING appeals to me” like I mean nothing…

Michael was my true hero, this whole time he has been looking after me like a queen, making me food even at the strangest of times (11pm after we’ve gone to bed sudden need for food haha yep, or first thing in the morning before I could even get out of bed..) He’s been just a dream, and I feel so incredibly lucky to have him by my side through it all, I couldn’t imagine doing this without him. I basically didn’t cook for 3 months…

It meant that for a solid month and a half I felt stuck honestly, and I couldn’t do very much, physically but mentally also. I was exhausted, and every moment of the day was spent trying to not think about food but also always thinking about food… I would say the worst of it for me was between weeks 6 and 10, then it eased up a little bit to me feeling better on some days, or just feeling really bad just in the evenings or if I got really hungry - but it did pass. During week 10 I could stomach green smoothies, so I made a lot of these as my main source of vegetables/greens basically; green smoothies and PBJ smoothies (with sneaky hidden greens in there) were lifesavers!

Around week 13 I felt like things had shifted, I felt less tired during the day, and I was slowly tolerating foods that I couldn’t even think about for weeks. Still to this day, I have my moments where I don’t feel great if I’m too hungry, but it’s night and day with what it was like at its peak.

I found it difficult to relax into it at first - I’m all about healthy living and eating and I know how to feed myself well and have a balanced diet, so when that got thrown out of the window and I had to go into survival mode of eating toast and beige foods it took a while to wrap my head around it, and let go.

I knew it was the only thing I could stomach so eating ANYTHING was good for me and baby, but I also knew it was not serving my body in the best way. I knew that the baby at that stage was taking everything it needed from me no matter what, so I felt some relief in that sense, but I knew that IF ONLY I could eat better I would have maybe felt better (but who knows, I probably would have felt just the same, those hormones are STRONG!)

When you’re in that stage, you are truly just doing anything you can to just eat something (toast, so much toast, luckily it was M’s sourdough!) so that’s exactly what I did. I finally LET GO (first lesson into motherhood?!) and trusted that my body was doing what it needed and WE were going to be ok.

I was very diligent about taking my prenatal vitamins - I also took probiotics and vegan omega 3s. Towards the end of my 1st trimester and since the beginning of the 2nd I’ve also been taking magnesium at night which helps me sleep like a log.

Through it all, I had some good days and some bad days, I just wanted to be honest about how I felt and not just tell you it was rainbows and butterflies and brush over it, because I feel like the 1st trimester is not talked about very much, and it can be a hard time for some women but no matter your experience, if YOU felt like you were struggling then your feelings are valid and it’s OK to feel that way AND at the same time be the most excited you’ve ever been to have a baby! It’s for sure conflicting at times, and I just really wanted to make a point of sharing this as I know a lot of women feel this way.

Since week 13 which coincided with us coming back to our home in London, I have felt much better. I still feel this sense of ease and calm that my body knows what it’s doing and we’re going to be ok.

I am an over-researcher and I like to read and look into topics for days on end, but weirdly enough since I became pregnant I didn’t feel the need to read much or look for information or advice through other sources. I think this is now slowly changing as I get more and more excited and I’m starting to want to learn and prep for birth and beyond (I have shared a few of the books I got on here - excited to start reading!)

The 2nd trimester was the promised land they all talked about haha what a sweet relief! I have much more energy, I can eat normally again, most of my weird symptoms have gone, goodbye nausea, goodbye smell sensitivity and food aversions! I do feel very tired in the evening, and can’t go too long without a snack, but I’m feeling GOOD! I’ve started moving my body more, including my pilates workouts and prenatal yoga at home again, walking a lot with Nemo and finding my groove again.

If you’ve made it all the way to here, then I applaud you! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below or in the comments on my Youtube video and I’ll make sure to do a little Q&A soon! In these strange times, we have to stick together and I want to be able to share in a candid way, and be real with you! If you’re not here for the pregnancy and baby updates, know that I’ll still be posting my regular content amongst it all. Thank you for the support and love thus far!

Check the video update to see the bump here!!