What's The Most Dominant New Symptom In Your First Trimester?
Traditionally it's a time where you keep the pregnancy a secret, but as you'll see it's the time when the most support is needed.
“Anxiety. The crippling fear that every pain, every discomfort, and any movement could result in ending the pregnancy.”
“I am nauseous 24/7, exhaustion and headaches. It’s like I’m always getting over a fever or always have a bad hangover.”
“I’m frustrated and exhausted of feeling sick all the time. I have stopped trying to push myself to any positivity or doing anything at all. My fear is that it won’t get better.”
“I’m quite worried that I am having no symptoms and just anxious to find out if everything is OK.”
“Migraines, every day for 8 weeks. The awful kind with 2 hour aura's that make you dizzy as anything followed by sickness.”
“Depression. I’ve started counselling.”
“Literally everything. Nausea, vomiting, night sweats, hip pain, back pain, abdominal cramps and omg my boobs hurt sooooo bad. Taking off my bra is a whole different level of pain.”
The phrase “morning sickness” is such a glossed-over expression to summarise the symptoms of the first trimester. Quite honestly I don’t know how some of these women continue to go to work each day? If men started going through any number of these symptoms they would be straight to the doctors and women keep quiet about it as to not reveal the reason incase it doesn’t work out. It’s no wonder that men don’t quite know how to support their partners during this. They can’t understand how all this could be going on and you are still managing to function (for the most part). One woman in the chat said she had to grab her partners hand and place it on her very small but growing belly just to get him to understand that she was pregnant, as if her symptoms weren’t enough.
Typically the first trimester is the worst for physical symptoms. It’s also the trimester that’s full of so many unknowns. Most miscarriages happen in the first 10 weeks and you have an ultrasound scan at about 11-13 weeks to detect any abnormalities. Together with the uncomfortable symptoms and your emotions flying around, it’s a big burden to carry around! The burden is as real as it is invisible and it squeezes you, it drowns you.
For me it was the depression that was the worst.
I was lucky in a lot of ways. I had half a day of nausea and that’s it. There was nothing else physically that I could have attributed to the pregnancy. A few of my girlfriends told me about their first trimesters from hell, some with nausea that lasted the entire pregnancy! I felt guilty for having nothing to add to the conversation but I probably would have traded it all in to just be happy.
We remained in Mexico until the beginning of the 2nd trimester and truth be told I can’t recall too much of it. It was a lot of crying and numbness. I felt extremely isolated because we didn’t tell anyone (for reasons my partner had). I couldn’t participate in anything because the drinking/smoking/drug culture is so big there. I didn’t really want to see anyone anyway because I couldn’t experience joy or “put on a happy face”. For this Mexico will be on my list of places I never want to go to again.
At the most inconvenient time a few influencers I followed on Instagram were documenting their perfect, happy pregnancies and I couldn’t even bare to look at it. All these beautiful (and v over-the-top) baby showers which I was sure I wouldn’t even get to have and photos proudly holding their bumps. The worst for me was one women in her third trimester whose partner diligently gave her a back massage every night. She even told him he could take a night or two off but he was adamant and said “You don’t get a break being pregnant so why should I?” Wow. I couldn’t even be happy for anyone else.
The only respite I had was my routine, even if it was the same each day. Wake up, a cup of weak coffee, weight session at the gym, make breakfast, cry in the shower, work on the computer, sit on the patio and stare into space, walk the dog and catch up on voice messages from friends overseas, make dinner, Netflix and sleep.
After a few months of monotony I visited my sister for a work trip. Now she’s always been my “ride or day” since day 1 and when I arrived it was like I could breathe again. It was SO nice to be celebrated and feel loved on. She knew what a complicated mess my life was and still honoured me and my pregnancy like it was a divine being coming into creation. This is what it should feel like and this is what I was grieving for. I wanted so much to feel worthy! Those two weeks didn’t feel like real life because I had gotten used to feeling something different.
We are worthy.
We just forget it along the way. Science and technology has brought us a great many things but as far as I know we still cannot create a human being with divine consciousness, yet women have been doing it since existence. When you really think about it women should be worshipped for this innate capability! But sadly as we have discussed previously this is programmed out of us from an early age and we are often left to think that pregnancy will ruin job prospects and force us to give up our goals and dreams.
Going through the first trimester is a labyrinth. Some find it super easy to figure out and others get suck with the spirals and obstacles along the way and begin to feel so completely lost. Which is why I think this outdated “12 week rule” of secrecy is stupid and serves absolutely no purpose but isolation. If you can, find your tribe now and reach out to one to two people that are capable of holding the space for you. Online communities are great but your heart needs meaningful connection in person. Be careful though, some people won’t get it so try not to be disappointed. They won’t reach out with offers for company and instead make a joke of how “you won’t be lonely soon when baby comes” like I received. It can be suffocating these feelings of fear and shame but trust me they lessen and sometimes disappear when you share it with the right ones.