I didn’t cry when I found out I was pregnant, but I did shake. My voice, my hands. I was overwhelmed with joy. We’d wanted this for a while, and it was finally happening.
Our sweet baby was coming in September 2024.
Because baby girl was not a surprise, I found out as early as a few days after my missed period. I was four weeks pregnant and felt amazing. That was my first clue that I was pregnant.
For me, Mother Nature usually comes calling with a vengeance each month. I feel her lingering before she arrives, and when she comes a-knockin’, I’m down for the count with pretty gnarly symptoms for two days. But when the end of December came along, I felt nothing. I felt great.
I stayed feeling great until week 6. Then the nausea set in.
Five weeks pregnant!
All My Symptoms:
Nausea
The last time I threw up was after my sister’s wedding, 8 years ago, and the only reason that happened was because I was drinking and dancing like a maniac. Once in a while, I’d feel nauseous during my menstrual cycle, but this kind of nausea was like nothing I’d ever experienced.
It was nagging.
Mark did extensive research on nausea remedies and I also asked my doctor for suggestions. Both recommended a combination of vitamin B6 and Unisom, a natural sleep aid. Mornings were fine, so I took the B6 at lunchtime and bedtime with the Unisom and that did seem to help, but only for so long.
My body got used to the nausea-busting combination, and by week 9, I was back to feeling crummy. I was gagging and dry-heaving, but I wasn’t actually sick. It was just this never-ending feeling that I had to throw up, even though I didn’t. My body would go through the motions; I could feel all of my insides contract. It was painful. So I asked my doctor for medication.
These wristbands are for motion sickness, but they helped a lot at night and on car rides.
Things took a turn for the better once I was prescribed Bonjesta around week 10. Not only did the nausea subside, but I could eat again! Something I had also been struggling with.
Food Aversions
At the same time the nausea set in so did food aversions, and boy did I have a lot of those. It was like overnight I hated: All meat, salmon, eggs, avocado, olives, water, ramen, tea, chocolate chips, soda (except ginger ale), and probably more I can’t think of right now.
I essentially lived off of carbs for four weeks: English muffins with butter, bagels with cream cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, crackers with peanut butter, crackers with peanut butter and jelly, pizza, mac and cheese, cereal, Maria cookies, and saltines. I did like fruit, though. I went through an orange phase, then a strawberry phase. I loved Haagen Dazs chocolate ice cream, a craving I think I adopted from my sister (hi Katie!). I also liked smoothies and oatmeal. I loved pickles and cantaloupe and cheese.
Four weeks may not sound like a long time to eat the same things, but it is. I was overjoyed when I could eat protein again. Egg sandwiches tasted like heaven. I literally called my nearest McDonalds from my bed to see when they stopped serving breakfast, then shouted at Mark to get dressed because I desperately needed an egg McMuffin. They still hit the spot, as do bagel sandwiches, egg wraps, avocado toast, etc.
A Metallic Taste In My Mouth
This one overlapped with the others, making it even harder to eat because it warped my tastebuds. It felt like I constantly had pennies in my mouth, and they were scraping my tongue, coating it with metal.
To combat the taste, I ate a bunch of salt and vinegar chips and sour candies - War Heads, Sour Skittles, and Sour Patch Kids were my favorites. I also couldn’t use traditional cutlery, either. I still can’t use normal spoons. I could only use plastic utensils and glass cups. Once, I took a sip from a metal water bottle. Big mistake. That set off the metal taste tenfold.
Dealing With Loss
Tina and I, shopping for my wedding rehearsal dress in 2017.
I was seven weeks pregnant when I received the news of Tina’s passing. Just shy of the eight-week mark. Mark and I had planned to tell our parents that coming weekend. I was going to tell her and the rest of my close circle the weekend after that. I never got that moment; it was one we talked about not long before she passed. We couldn’t wait to be moms together someday. We hoped our kids would be close like we were, and looked forward to that chapter of life when the little ones would go off to play and we’d sit down for tea.
Losing Tina was, and still is, one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through. It was completely unexpected. A series of events I will never understand. I didn’t even know she was in the hospital. If I had known, I would have been there. Knowing that I wasn’t there for her in her last moments, paired with the grief of losing my life-long best friend, was debilitating.
For weeks, I existed in a cloud of grief. I stopped working. I got up from bed, went to my couch, lay all day long, then crawled back into bed at night. I didn’t read. I wasn’t writing. I didn’t want to think. So I watched a lot of TV and cried.
This time overlapped with those murky few weeks when I felt yucky and ate very little. I think that’s why a lot of that time bleeds together in my mind. I was trying to block it out, trying to numb the excruciating hurt. Unfortunately, as a result of this numbing, I also wasn’t connecting with my baby. I wasn’t celebrating the fact that I was pregnant. I wanted to feel happy, but, for a while there, felt nothing but lost.
Telling our family and friends.
Of course, one of the highlights of the first trimester was telling our immediate families and closest friends we were expecting! We called our siblings and were met with cheers and happy tears. I bought Ashleigh and Megan little gifts to let them know they were about to be aunties.
It was my mom’s birthday weekend when we spilled the beans, which was perfect because I hid our announcement in her gift. I got her a crocheted pumpkin I found on Etsy, and inside its packaging was a card that read: “Another little pumpkin is joining our patch! You’re going to be a Grammy… again!”
Photo courtesy of Etsy.
Naturally, I was met with giggles and screaming from my mother. My father flashed a big smile. Lots of hugs were exchanged between the four of us. My mom is the sixth child in her family. I am her youngest, and am giving her her sixth grandchild! A fun fact I didn’t realize until she pointed it out. She and my dad have nicknamed the baby “Olive,” after one of my “what fruit is she this week” updates.
We told Mark’s parents with a very clever wine label switch. Another Etsy find, the stick-on label declared, “Always read the fine print,” and, in very little text, “Baby Guerra coming soon!” We hit a small hiccup with this announcement; my mother-in-law thought we were opening a winery! Haha! But once she realized what we were really announcing, I was met with happy shrieks and tears.
Seeing our daughter.
In addition to telling our loved ones the good news, seeing our daughter at our 8 and 12-week ultrasound appointments were some of the happiest times during the first trimester. Seeing what our love had created, this tiny little miracle, was amazing and made it all feel that much more real.
I can’t even imagine what it must have been like years ago when ultrasounds weren’t a thing. I’m 18 weeks pregnant as of this past Wednesday, and wish we could fast forward to our 20-week ultrasound and see her again. It’s a very weird experience to have this little human growing inside you day after day, and not see or feel them. I know the latter is coming, but my patience is wearing thin. I don’t want to rush this process, but I also kind of do!
In Summary
My first trimester was… a lot of things. The nausea was rough at times. Not being able to eat 80% of what I would normally consume on a daily basis was also not fun. But looking back, I didn’t have it nearly as bad as other mamas do and I’m grateful for that.
The worst part of those three months was losing Tina, and learning how to live with the fact that she isn’t physically here with me as I go through this. She’s not on the other end of our texting conversation anymore, and there have been plenty of times I’ve wanted to talk to her about how my body is changing. How wild and incredible it is. How sometimes it takes an emotional toll.
But the happy parts? The finding out I’m pregnant part? The growing a person inside of me part? The immeasurable love Mark and I already feel for this little girl part? I would endure anything for her. I will endure anything for any other child I’m blessed with. I’ve always wanted to be a mom, and I feel really lucky to become one.
I’m halfway through my second trimester and almost halfway through the pregnancy! More to come on that another day.
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