The Early Weeks of Pregnancy

Most of, if not every resource on pregnancy will tell you the first trimester is the most critical stage. This is when the baby’s body structure and organs are formed. A very delicate time it is and also the time when most miscarriages happen.

Interestingly enough, it is the time when no one knows you are pregnant unless you tell them…I think. Yeah, I know most movies will show that mothers of pregnant teens can look under the girl’s eyes to tell she is pregnant. Er….nothing changed in my eyes. Or perhaps I didn’t know what to look out for? Help me someone! And then, the famous morning sickness! Every single movie I have watched that has a pregnant lady has her throwing up in the morning.

So how did I escape morning sickness? Simple answer. We are all different. So, yes. The movies have lied to us. We all don’t experience the same pregnancy symptoms. In fact, even for each baby you carry, you may have a different experience. Like my doctor said, “The vehicle is the same, the passenger changes.” But I am yet to know that for sure though. Mother of multiple kids? Let us know more of this in the comments below.

So what did I experience?

Evening sickness

For someone who works in a predominantly male environment, I was actually dreading morning sickness and sure was glad that I escaped them. At least I did not have to make too many visits to the bathroom while at work. Did I like that they were replaced with evening sickness? Well…guess I had to have something.

So every day from about 4pm, I began to feel some nausea. This made me slow during my last hour and a half at work. This continued during my trotro ride and my walks to pick my next trotro. It was mostly the nausea though. I did throw up on 2 or 3 occasions, and these happened when I was back home. Perfectly timed.

Tiredness

My goodness! I was tired! Forming a baby isn’t easy huh? The afternoons were also when I experienced this the most.’I’m sure I ran out of excuses to explain why I had to put my head on the table almost every day.

Lack of appetite

Remember in my first post I was so glad the doctor didn’t say I have to stop eating pizza? Well, he could as well have said so. For once in my life, I could have pizza in front of me and be so disinterested. I was amazed. I think okro got off my menu as well. Like literally everything was bland. I just ate because I needed to eat to take care of myself and my baby. One thing that helped was pepper. 🙂 Peppering (or should I say over-peppering) my food really helped me enjoy it better. I also couldn’t stand the smell of more than one meal around me, if you get the picture. I stopped eating in the kitchen at work to take care of this. Smelling jollof and beans and fried yam and waakye all at once was very unpleasant to me.

The not-so maternity clothes

So if you are lucky, you will barely ‘show’ in the first trimester. You will however begin to put on a little bit of weight and may get a tiny bump. You have to kiss good bye to your skinny jeans, yes, but you don’t have to jump into maternity clothes yet. I’m a T-shirt and jeans kind of lady – I wear that everywhere except from church (thank God for working in a startup) – so nothing much changed in my everyday wear. Church clothes were the problem since most of my dresses for church are the fitting kind. I am not a flare dress kind of lady. The only day I showed without meaning to was during week 11 at a wedding. My friend who knows my flat tummy far too well noticed my tiny bump in my dress and asked. I didn’t deny it. Lol. But I made a mental note not to wear that dress again which turned out eventually to be more of not being able to wear the dress.

The telling

Somewhere at the end of the 1st trimester, we told family and a handful of friends about our growing baby. The rest of the world was left to find out when I finally started showing.

So there you have it. An overview of my life when I knew I was pregnant but no one else knew. I kinda wish the bump comes earlier or better yet first trimester is not so crazy. It’s easy to run out of excuses for why you suddenly don’t like pizza or why you are always looking tired.

How about you? How was your first trimester? Or how was it for someone you know? Let us know in the comments below.

Do you have any questions about the first trimester? Do ask. I will reply if I can or you will hear from others. 🙂