Expecting My First Baby: The First Trimester
If you follow me over on Instagram or subscribe to my email newsletter, you’ll already know that my husband and I are expecting our very first baby! I’ve always wanted to have kids, but I was single for a very long time (and I was definitely not interested in single parenthood), so I had resigned myself to not being a mom.
Which wasn’t the worst thing in the world. After all, I had lots of friends whose babies called me Auntie, and I loved being flexible and available.
Then I met my husband. (More on that journey another time!). We aligned on many values and goals and dreams, and we were soon married. We knew we wanted to start having babies soon, too.
Children are a gift from the Lord. I know that not everyone is able to have children, so I’ve definitely not taken this journey for granted! Here is how I prepared for pregnancy, and my experience so far. I’ll be dividing this series into the three trimesters (I am currently in my early 3rd trimester).
Before Conception
We made a point to eat healthy before conceiving, first off. One thing I decided to do was introduce beef liver into my diet. I bought it frozen from the grocery store and ground it up in my meat grinder. After mixing it with regular old ground beef, I made meatballs. This was the most palatable way I found to eat liver, as I’m really not a big fan of the texture of straight-up liver.
My husband regularly took zinc, and I started taking a basic prenatal. We are already pretty clean eaters, and both of us have fairly active lifestyles (my husband plays basketball and works a blue collar job, while I enjoy long walks and bouldering to stay strong).
First Trimester
Things are going to get a little deep here.
I have always been so excited to bring a baby into the world and go on this sacred journey of motherhood. Children are truly a gift from the Lord, and I knew this going into pregnancy.
However, I’m also a firm believer in honesty and not sugarcoating things. So I’m going to be completely upfront. I believe that pre-pregnancy counseling should be a thing, if it isn’t already, because I could definitely have used a course in mentally preparing to become pregnant.
Even though nothing can really prepare you for the experience of expecting, especially because each woman’s body is so different, I do think that talking through what to expect mentally and emotionally and physically would be helpful before actually getting pregnant.
Of course I knew the basics of what was going to happen, but I did NOT expect to go through so much body dysmorphia and discomfort and fear and anxiety and selfishness and worry. After all, like I said before, children are a gift! Pregnancy is sacred and beautiful and important work! BUT.
There is definite worth in acknowledging the hard parts, the parts that don’t make it onto your favorite Christian influencer’s Instagram story. I didn’t know how much I would struggle with the knowledge that my body would literally never be the same. In the first trimester, before I could really emotionally connect with my baby, all I felt was sick and exhausted. It was a very difficult three months.
I was very lonely, but didn’t feel well enough to go anywhere or entertain visitors.
I was very sick, and could barely keep any food down.
I lived off of Dairy Queen French fries, Lays potato chips, cheddar cheese, saltines, Coca-Cola, ginger ale, and sometimes (rarely) apples and peanut butter.
It was also the dead of winter. And realizing that I was only going to get bigger, and have to give up my freedom and sleep and flexibility, was hard. Was I actually ready?
Then we saw her tiny form at 10 weeks, wiggling around in my belly, her tiny heart beating so fast.
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.”
And I knew I could do this. I would just have to do some soul searching and preparation, get over a few things, and embrace this journey fully. And I think that some of that could have been work that I began before getting pregnant. I do not regret conceiving or pursuing parenthood with my husband one bit, but I do think that women should receive more mental and emotional preparation for the experience of pregnancy.
Second Trimester
Stay tuned for part two! I’ll be talking about my experience in the second trimester, some choices I decided to make for my mental health, and what I ate and did during this trimester.
