First Trimester Morning Sickness

I hear that some ladies are lucky enough not to experience nausea during their pregnancy. However I’m sure that the majority (including me), do!

My personal experience was nausea from about Week 7 through to Week 12. And it certainly isn’t “morning sickness”, it’s “all day every day, hit you any time, anywhere sickness”. I had an almost constant feeling of wishy-washy nausea, but never actually threw up. I guess I was lucky, as I know a lot of women vomit a lot, causing dehydration and weight-loss. I however, just constantly felt off-colour, for about 80% of the time that I was awake, occasionally wretched here and there, but never vomited…

As you’ll know from this blog, I’m a real foodie and love to eat! So the most frustrating thing for me, during the first trimester, was completely losing my appetite and desire for food. Eating, cooking and thinking about food was no longer my favourite pastime. Instead, I virtually had to force myself to eat, little and often. I read lots of tips online which told me to eat bland, dry food 6 times a day (crackers, toast etc.) and when I was hungry and able to stomach food, to make the most of it and eat as much as possible.

Staying Healthy

I had delusions of being the picture of health during my first trimester of pregnancy. I wanted to fill myself with fruit and vegetables and grilled meats and proteins – my body would be my temple! In reality, all I wanted was salt n’ vinegar crisp sticks and super noodles with cheese. And I don’t think these were weird cravings, I think it was just needing salty carbs and not being able to stomach complex flavours and textures. So that’s what I did, snacking on nuts where I could and having fruit and yoghurt for breakfast. My dinners would be when I’d try and pack in some good veg – mushrooms, green beans, tomatoes and peas. This seemed to get me through and the midwife was supportive saying she’d rather I ate bland carbs, than nothing at all!

My Weight

Disclaimer: Now, I’m only sharing details of my weight, to be as informative as possible on my personal experience. It’s not for anyone else to compare themselves against and it’s not because I was fixated on my weight. It was more a sort of guidance and so I could monitor my progress throughout my journey.

I lost 2lbs during Weeks 7-12 of pregnancy, not something I expected at all and not something I really desired. But I read that this is a common result of first trimester nausea, as it’s just tricky to pack in enough calories and keep them down!

Appetite returns

It wasn’t until about 12 +3 weeks (you’ll get used to seeing time written in this form!), my appetite started to return and I finally felt able to clear a full plate of food. By this time, I enjoyed a variety of foods again and was able to stomach things I just didn’t fancy a few weeks previous.

There were still things I didn’t fancy eating, that I liked pre-pregnancy (like baked salmon), but I guess that’s just one of those things and you sort of just have to roll with it.

Cravings

No real cravings at this point (apart from a very random desire for a baked-bean and cheese roll…yes roll!), but my sweet tooth did increase. I’m not really a dessert person and always pick savoury over sweet, but I found that I thought about ice-cream, chocolate or cake after all my meals.

So that’s my experience of first trimester morning sickness, but I know it differs from person to person.

How did you feel? Or are you currently in your first trimester?