First Trimester Recap

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Hi, I'm Tina!

I’m the owner of Carrots ‘N’ Cake as well as a Certified Nutrition Coach and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P). I use macros and functional nutrition to help women find balance within their diets while achieving their body composition goals.

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I am so excited to write this recap. I can’t believe my first trimester is over, and I’m already midway through week 16. Crazy. Time flies!

Ok, let’s get right to it. First things first: belly pics!

BELLY PICS

I actually didn’t start taking belly pics until my first trimester was almost over because not much was happening in that department. My boobs grew like crazy (seriously, when are they going to stop?), but my belly didn’t start to get bumpy until recently.

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CRAVINGS

Orange juice, gummy bears, fresh fruit (especially pineapple and raspberries), pizza/English muffin pizzas, yogurt (oh, so much yogurt), macaroni & cheese, steamed spinach with vinegar (super random), all kinds of potatoes (especially with melted cheese).

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AVERSIONS

Sriracha. OMG, Sriracha. Top of my list and it still makes my stomach turn. I eventually threw away an almost-full bottle of Sriracha because every time I opened the refrigerator and saw it, my stomach did flips. Other (less intense) aversions: cumin, paprika, any smokey spices, most veggies (especially raw ones and bell peppers), sunflower butter.

OTHER SYMPTOMS

Frequent urination: I thought I peed a lot before getting pregnant, but the first trimester was insane! I was probably peeing 8-10+ times a day plus another 4-6 times at night, and I was always thirsty! I was a peeing machine!

Morning sickness: All day and all night. I didn’t know this until I was pregnant, but morning sickness is not just sickness in the morning. For some women (like me), it’s an ALL DAY event. I started feeling sick at the end of week 6, and it got a lot worse up until about week 12. I never actually threw up, but I always had the toilet within an eyeshot in case I needed to make an emergency visit. Ugh, it was awful. I actually felt okay in the morning, but as the day progressed, I felt more and more sick… basically really carsick and super nauseous. By the time it was 7:00 PM or so, I felt terrible. Most of the time, I would sit on the couch and eat saltines with peanut butter and then go to bed early just so I didn’t have to feel bad. I still feel a little sick late at night in week 16, but I’m a million times better than I was! So glad that part is over!

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Exhaustion: Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in my entire life. I’m usually someone who can’t sit still and never stops moving, but my first trimester definitely took my usual non-stop, go-go-go ways down a notch. Most nights, I would fall asleep on the couch around 7:00 PM (or earlier), wake up around 9:00 PM, climb into bed, and then sleep straight through to the next morning. One night, I even slept 14 hours, which is most definitely a PR for me.

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As far as my workouts, I barely missed any of them due to exhaustion. Exercising actually made me feel better (morning sickness-wise), so I stuck with my usual routine. During my first trimester, I went to CrossFit 3-4 times a week with a run mixed in, but I went lighter on my weights and didn’t push myself too hard.

The only reason I didn’t blog more about my workouts is because I thought you guys might catch on to my scaled-down workouts at CrossFit. I often felt really tired during workouts. My body just wouldn’t move, so everything was so much harder, especially cardio exercises (like Burpees) and running.

Most of my runs during my first trimester were actually run-walks because I just couldn’t run the entire time. I actually have no idea how I survived the Runner’s World Hat Trick during week 8. I was so sick, but somehow I ran all 25.4 miles without stopping! Super pregnancy powers?

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Hunger: Apparently, some women get such horrible morning sickness, they can’t eat anything and actually lose weight in the first trimester. Well, I didn’t have that problem at all and found myself hungry all the time. I pretty much ate non-stop in order to help settle my queezy stomach. And if I let myself get too hungry, my nausea would get so much worse. There were at least a dozen times when I woke up in the middle of the night because my stomach was uncomfortably growling. I’d usually eat yogurt or saltines and then go back to bed.

Weight gain: 12 pounds, which is more than double what is recommended for the first trimester, but my doctor didn’t care at all, so I wasn’t worried about it either. Plus, I think about 90% of the weight gain is in my boobs.

SYMPTOMS I DIDN’T HAVE (*knock on wood*): UC symptoms!

Amazing, right? As soon as I got pregnant, all of my UC symptoms went away. Completely. My G.I. doctor explained that when a woman gets pregnant, her immune system needs to regulate itself so it doesn’t attack the baby. A lot of women are symptom-free their entire pregnancy while some do experience flares, which I am hoping and praying doesn’t happen to me. Typically, after the birth of the child, most women will start to see colitis symptoms once again, but others stay healthy for years. There is no way of knowing what will happen to me, but I am enjoying being healthy right now.

HOW I FOUND OUT I WAS PREGNANT

Remember the week that I had back-to-back blog trips? I went to the Cooking Cottage in the Hamptons and then immediately to a CVS blogger event in Rhode Island? Well, when I got home that Friday afternoon, my period was two days late. You might not think a couple of days is a big deal, but my period was always like clockwork prior to that. I knew the exact day and even the of time it would come, so I thought it was a little weird it hadn’t arrived yet.

Mal and I were not not trying to get pregnant, but I thought it was a longshot that I actually was, especially with all of my UC stuff over the past 1.5 years. Even still, I took a pregnancy test. I had actually just ordered a bunch of pregnancy test strips from Amazon after Caitlin tipped me off to how much cheaper they were than the drugstore ones. Basically, I had 20 pregnancy test strips in my bathroom and my curiosity was killing me, so I took one. Plus, if I wasted one, I still had 19 more! Who knows, maybe I knew I was pregnant all along?

I took the pregnancy test and then started unpacking from my trips. (FYI: Mal wasn’t home from school yet.) I had been away for a week, so in typical Tina fashion, my stuff “exploded” all over the living room””sort of like the photo below, but ten times worse. Seriously, my crap was everywhere, and it took me forever to put it away.

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About 30 minutes later (seriously, it totally slipped my mind), I remembered the pregnancy test I had just taken, so I walked into the bathroom and picked it up. I totally expected it to be negative, but sure enough, there were two solid purple lines staring back at me””positive!

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I immediately burst into tears and then hugged Murphy, who had followed me into the bathroom. (I definitely appreciated his pug nosiness that day!) I’m pretty sure I also said something (super ladylike) along the lines of: “Holy f*ckballs!” I was totally shocked and, of course, so, so, so happy. And then I immediately took a second (and third) test just to make sure. (All three were clear-as-day positive.)

HOW I TOLD MAL

So Mal and I both love cake pops””like a whole lot. We often joke that we love them so much, we’d name our first born child “Cake Pop.” (You see where I am going with this?) Well, I went out and bought Mal a couple of cake pops to tell him our news.

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I taped a positive pregnancy test strip on each of the cake pops (c’mon, it’s just a little pee…) and then stuck them back inside the Starbucks bag to give to Mal when he got home from school.

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(At the time, this seemed like a really cute idea, but now I’m not so sure. Oh, well. It’s a good story, right? Haha!)

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Anyway, I gave Mal the Starbucks bag when he got home from school, thinking he would open it right away, but he sort of blew it off. He thanked me and then set aside the bag without even looking inside. Whomp whomp. We chatted for about 10 minutes and then I finally handed him the bag again and told him to look inside. I couldn’t wait any longer!

Mal opened the bag and immediately saw the cake pops inside. He still wasn’t that excited, but then he took one out and saw the test strip on the side. He was definitely confused at first. But, then he looked up and asked: “Are you pregnant?!?” I said yes, we hugged, and then Mal jumped up and down and clapped like a big goober. Haha! He was so excited!

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HOW WE TOLD OUR FAMILIES

Waiting to tell our families and friends was SO HARD. When we counted the weeks to the end of my first trimester, we realized it fell during the week of Thanksgiving, so we decided to wait to tell our families until then. (We told our friends shortly after that.) We wanted to make our announcement fun, so we enlisted Murphy to spread the good news by having him wear a doggie hoodie with a special message printed on it.

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We told Mal’s parents first…

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The pug was ready to make his entrance!

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Both of my in-laws were a little confused when they first saw Murphy’s shirt, but once they realized what it said, they were so excited, especially my mother-in-law since this baby will be her first grandchild (and she has maybe hinted at grandchildren a few dozen times now).

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The next morning, we told my side of the family. Same pug shirt method.

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Both my mom and grandmother were totally shocked by our news, but really happy too. They both said that they weren’t sure if Mal and I would ever have kids, so it was an especially nice surprise.

If you’re curious, we basically explained to my mom and grandmother that we waited so long to get pregnant because we got married pretty young, we wanted to travel, and, well, we just wanted to do own our thing as long as possible until we were truly ready to have kids. My sister having a baby sped things up a little bit for us, but Mal and I had already been talking about kids for awhile before that. Speaking of my sister, she was totally pumped about our news. Our baby will be less than a year younger than Matthew, so they will definitely be best buds.

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So that’s that: my first trimester in a nutshell. I still can’t believe it is already over.

Again, thanks so much for your sweet comments on my Thrilled post. You guys are the best, and I am so excited to share this next stage of our lives with you!

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