When I was pregnant with Tara, my entire first trimester was a secret, I slept a LOT, and was nauseated pretty much 24/7. This time, we announced a little early, I didn’t get to sleep much more than usual, and I was nauseated only periodically.
Sleep is one of the desperately desired things in the first trimester of pregnancy. However, when you have a toddler to entertain and care for, you don’t get to sleep whenever. I started napping whenever she napped (for 1-3 hours in the afternoon) and going to bed around 9 pm. Of course, no matter when I went to bed, I had trouble sleeping around 4 am because of nausea.
The nausea this time around wasn’t as constant, thank God, however it was worse. Whenever it did hit, I got sick – sometimes repeatedly. I couldn’t eat meat at all (a single bite of turkey once sent me running for the porcelain god almost immediately), I couldn’t stand almost any veggies (gagged on broccoli after only a couple of bites), and got terrible indigestion from almost all foods. The only thing I wanted was mac and cheese or fettuccini alfredo.
Unlike last pregnancy, I didn’t lose any weight in the first trimester, despite getting sick fairly often.
The nausea was also a little funny. One day I could drink orange juice, and the next it made me vomit. I didn’t drink OJ again until three months later. One day I was in love with chili…the next I couldn’t even look at the stuff. It also lasted until about 16 weeks in when it went away at only 13 or 14 the first time. And I still have bad days!
I also noticed that while I had the barest of a baby bump at 12 weeks with Tara, this time I got big in a hurry. I showed at 8 weeks and until a good 20 weeks in, always felt like I was a week or three ahead of how I looked the first time around. This is called the “warmed-up” effect. Body’s already done it before, so it was more stretchy and got with the program earlier.
As for sharing the news, we decided that since the first pregnancy went so well, that we were pretty comfortable sharing early this time. Our first prenatal appointment was at about 9 weeks, and we decided to announce once we heard the nice strong heartbeat. So the day of the appointment, we had Tara dressed with a special shirt and after we got home we took a picture of her to text to our friends and family (and post on FB). Here is that picture, followed by the blurb that accompanied it 😀
[picture removed, but was of toddler Tara with a shirt that said “This girl’s getting promoted to big sister!” with two thumbs pointing at herself]
“Coming to Minnesota, this September… Tiny Curran – The Sequel!”
I made the mistake of texting my mother first, so in order to finish sending out the texts before I forgot someone, I had to ignore two of her calls and then call her back. I got a voicemail that matched the first words she said to me when she answered my callback, “You can’t tell me something like that and then not answer your phone, that’s just mean!” So we got to surprise some people and share the news in a fun way, especially since we don’t live near anyone anymore. We got a lot of congrats and it was just a good time 🙂