Also Known As: The First Trimester

Anna, when you pee on that stick and it turns the faintest pink, hooray!  That’s so exciting! (I hope. We’re late enough in life that it’s probably more exciting than terrifying at this point, but who knows.  Happy to drive you to any clinic you need any time). Now buckle up, buttercup, because shit’s about to get real.  I seriously hope you have one of those magical pregnancies that you barely notice until that cute little belly bump pops out, you sneeze during labor and your beautiful baby pops out, then she snuggles on your chest and begins to breastfeed like a champ.  Just in case that doesn’t happen, I’ll tell you about my experience and what helped.  When you’re stoked that you have a bun in the oven but don’t really want to tell anyone yet, you can remember my experience and use any nuggets below that you think might help.

Why doesn’t anyone really tell you how truly horrible being pregnant is? I know there are some people who enjoy it, but I’m fairly convinced these are mythical beings. Also, everyone feels so sympathetic for the third-trimester moms mimicking a manatee because they’re so obviously pregnant and uncomfortable.  But honestly, I’d take the swelling and extra 30 pounds of heft over the first trimester any day of the week.

No one talks about the worst part of pregnancy because it’s so early and iffy. No one wants to excitedly scream their impending doom from the rooftop because they don’t want to later circle back and tell everyone they’re no longer pregnant if things don’t go as planned. So, most people just avoid it and hide their early pregnancy.  But this just leads to millions of women suffering in silence while caring for their families and continuing to go to work.  I wonder if society would be any different if men also got to experience this magical time of glowing pregnancy bliss?

This hiding (plus probably hundreds of years of men dominating obstetric practice), led to misleading terms like “morning sickness” or “food aversion.”  Apparently for some people, they don’t even realize they’re pregnant or their symptoms are so mild, they’re not bothered.  For me, this was so far from reality that I seethe with jealously just hearing about their Zen-like first trimester experiences.  Simultaneously, I cringe when I hear about people with even worse experiences than mine.  Hyperemesis is real and I hesitate to ever complain about my experience because I don’t want to be smote by the pregnancy god (I can’t think that a goddess would be so cruel, but also can’t conceptualize a man being in charge of pregnancy.  But then you think about what a disparate burden exists around childbirth, infant survival and child rearing, and it seems pretty logical that it’s a god. Asshole.).

Right before I got pregnant, I was really getting into nutrition science regarding athletic training and health optimization.  I read a series of books on the topic (it all started with the Obesity Code. Super interesting but not recommended during pregnancy. As with nearly everything, take it with a grain of salt.) and was planning on training for a marathon.  I wanted to get the most bang for my buck out of training + nutrition. And then I got pregnant and figured, “Pregnancy is way more physically demanding than marathon training. There has got to be a good way to feed the body while you’re growing a tiny human.” Funny enough, I couldn’t find a ton of research or literature on the subject.  I did find Lily Nichols’ book on the topic because this is how I learn about any new topic, buy the book on it, and read it.  I bought her book, learned all about pregnancy nutrition and got so excited to feed my body all the right things to make this little parasite the strongest super baby possible, and ideally, feed her well enough so that she would a crappy parasite and need to steal as few of my nutrients as possible.  

I excitedly planned a week’s worth of recipes out of the book with ingredients like liver and lots of fish and returned triumphant from the grocery store with my haul. I swear to God, the next day I was struck with the most intense “food aversion” and nausea that I had ever experienced.  I couldn’t smell, look at, or even THINK about food without getting waves of nausea.  Food aversion is the term that everyone uses, but it’s such an understatement.  I could be across the room from my husband when he opened the refrigerator, and I would smell it and start retching.  And our fridge was clean! Maybe some leftovers in there, but nothing super smelly from a non-pregnant perspective. 

The “aversion” was more accurately called “repulsion.”  I’m the primary cook and grocery shopper in our house, and all of that ceased when I was about six weeks pregnant, and the longest hangover of my life started.  All the healthy food that I had just purchased rotted in my refrigerator because I couldn’t even go near the thing.  My husband, trying to step into food provider role, became an expert at take-out and as a Chicagoan, pizza is his go-to.  He still teases me for putting the kibosh on ordering pizza during pregnancy because it was so smelly.  There is still one shop I won’t let him order from because my association with that pizza joint still elicits waves of nausea. 

How long does this last you ask? The party line is that it peaks at about 10 weeks. The worst of it lasted through week 15 or so for me. Then I had less true nausea but occasionally would still retch or puke. It was a fun game of roulette to play.

I gave up the healthy eating plan I had and just opted to eat anything that I could stomach.  My baby basically grew on potatoes, cinnamon rolls (the best recipe also contains potatoes. Pro-tip: double the filling and melt the butter to make spreading easier), and oranges.

Ok, we covered the problem.  Now the solution: Drugs.  Just kidding, even the drugs don’t work. Nothing *cured* the nausea or repulsion, but here are some of the things that I tried.  You can try them to see if they work for you too.

Nausea Helpers (In Loose Order of Efficacy):

1. Metaclopramide. I was on this every day until probably midway through the second trimester.  It allowed me to eat. I could go into the grocery store and only retch half a dozen times or so, but didn’t need to turn around and leave.
2. Doxylamine (Unisom) + B6. Unisom knocks me OUT! When you’re not awake, you can’t be pukey.
3. Smelling citrus. It works! One of my girlfriends recommended this to me. She would carry a bag of orange peels with her to work and clandestinely huff them periodically throughout the day.  I remember her doing this at that time, and not knowing that she was pregnant, just thought she preferred the pleasant citrus scent to the general malodor of rotting flesh and melena that occasionally wafted through the ER.
4. Avoiding an empty stomach. Eh. This helped prevent my stomach from hurting, but I’m not sure how much it helped the nausea. I kept almonds near my nightstand and would chew a few before getting out of bed every morning.
5. Pregnancy hard candies like Preggie Pops or Pink Stork. Another ER doc friend of mine recommended these bc they worked for her.  They didn’t help me at all and I really disliked the sugary taste.
6. Ginger chews. These taste like shit and didn’t help at all.
7. Ginger pills. Didn’t help.
8. Relief band. Basically electrocutes a trigger point in your wrist to help ease the nausea. Didn’t work for me. Save your $$$.
9. Sea bands. Same premise as above minus the electricity. Acupressure point. I wore these for weeks, but I don’t think they did shit.

11 Unexpected Enemies During Pregnancy

1. My rug. It is made of wool, and while pregnant, was one of the most offensive things I encountered.
2. My deck. The sun heated it up and I could smell the wood and stain. I made my husband keep all the doors shut in the height of summer to avoid the smell.
3. My refrigerator. Keep that door shut! Brian asked me once why I was retching so far away from the sink. The sink was closer to the fridge. It was a risky game, but I opted for the distance retch and crossed my fingers nothing would manifest.
4. Pizza from Creekside. Get that shit out of here!
5. Driving without metoclopramide.  Tried this once on accident and spewed all over the dash of my husband’s car while on the freeway.  Tried to catch it in a hat (all I had on me). Hats do not hold liquid well.
6. Our dog. Our poor dog got a weekly bath when I was pregnant. Currently, it’s been probably two months since her last bath and I still can’t smell her.
7. The meat counter at the grocery store. During covid, they closed one of the entrances to the grocery store, so you had to enter near the meat counter. Cue instant retching.
8. The grocery store in general. I kept my head down. I got in and got out.
9. Coffee. Oh, how I love coffee. But not during pregnancy. It gave me no joy.
10. Hot showers.  I am traditionally a cold person.  I love warm sweaters and hot showers. But the second that hcg climbed, my scalding shower got turned waaaay down. It was too cold for my hot blooded husband to even tolerate.
11. Blankets, sheets, and cuddling.  Too hot! I started bringing an ice pack to bed or a wet wash cloth to spread over my naked chest when I went to bed.  When did 65F become sweltering?

6 Practical First-Tri Tips

1. Methylfolate. You’ve heard that you need a prenatal vitamin and that folate is important.  Unfortunately, a good portion of people can’t absorb the commonly available folate in most prenatals. Methylfolate is more universally absorbed, so look for a prenatal with this type of folate in it. SmartyPants prenatals have this. Pro-tip, the organic ones taste bad. Go for the regular kind 😉 If you’re reading this pre-pregnancy, start your prenatals now. Gotta get those nutrient stores up!
2. Swap the gummy vitamins for pills when you can tolerate them.  See below.
3. Try to brush your teeth/floss if you can. If you’re pukey and gag every time you try to brush your teeth + you’re chewing gummy vitamins every day = lots of cavities to take care of during maternity leave. #5cavitiesofFun
4. Just let it go. I took a nap when I needed it and went to bed at 7pm not infrequently.  Use this time to give yourself some grace.  It will be a handy skill for later.
5. Get your partner to cook if you can. I could eat food in front of me without too much nausea but if I had to *think* about the food, the nausea would come.
6. Lululemon Align pants. You can wear these throughout your pregnancy if you just buy one size up, and they can last post-pregnancy too. The key is no seam at the top of the waist. Any other pant that doesn’t have a seam at the top would work well here too, but I haven’t found one yet. I hate the idea of investing in a garment that I will only use for a few months.

Pre-pregnancy/First-Trimester Reading Recommendations

• Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols Super interesting but mostly aspirational for me.
• Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina. For background on why you feel so shitty during the first trimester. FWIW the baby brain rules book >> adult brain rules book.
• Expecting Better by Emily Oster. An economist’s take on prenatal data. It’s a breath of fresh air and should help you calm the fuck down about some stuff everyone stresses over.