I’m incredibly excited to sit down and give you a recap of my first trimester of pregnancy! It’s insane that the first trimester has already flown by!! In addition to sharing a recap of how it’s gone, I’m also sharing my must-haves as a first time mom in her first trimester. Currently, I’m 15 weeks pregnant with my first baby, so my first trimester ended a couple weeks ago!

I hope that these must-haves and my updates will help you if you’re also in the first trimester or just found out you’re pregnant (which, CONGRATS by the way!!! Eeep!) So, let’s dive into all of these updates!! Feel free to watch the video or keep on scrolling to read! :) 

Recap of How I’ve Been Feeling

We found out that I was pregnant really early – so it’s been fun to officially “know” super early and track how I’ve been doing!! Technically I was 3.5 weeks “pregnant” when I found out (really about 10 days pregnant, though, if you know how that works!) Early on, my symptoms were pretty non existent but around week 8, things got a bit harder. I will say I’m super grateful though, because I wasn’t nearly as sick as I know some pregnant women go through!

My sense of smell has been SUPER strong ever since getting pregnant, and I felt really bloated and somewhat queasy. From weeks 8-12ish, I had a lot of hard symptoms like all day nausea, more fatigue, and SUPER strong food aversions as well (foods definitely made me feel sick a lot!) But, by weeks 13 and 14, things have worn off and I’m happy to say I feel so much better!!! And eating all my normal foods now!

Emotionally, I have been feeling great! Some days are hard, but I’m learning how to give myself grace when I need a break or extra rest. That’s been a huge (and hard) lesson for me to learn. I have to remember that I don’t have to be super productive every single day if I need rest – I’m growing a tiny human! But, I’m just so grateful that everything has been pretty mild and easy for me so far. 

Big Milestones in the First Trimester

Some big milestones for us during this trimester was obviously finding out really early on! I think I was maybe 10 days pregnant, which is just crazy. A lot of times it won’t show a positive test that early, even if you are pregnant… so it was really special that we found out so early! Then, we got to share the news with our friends and family. We are really close with our families so we told them pretty early on! You can see more from our announcement here. This is actually the first grandbaby on both sides of the family which made it even more special to share the news!

Another big milestone was sharing that we are pregnant on social media with my followers and students. It was SO special to hear all of the support from everyone. Honestly, it was really hard to keep this a secret from my community but finally getting to share was such a good feeling too!! 

We are planning a home birth with an amazing midwife and doula! That’s something we are INCREDIBLY excited and confident about, and looking forward to so much! Currently (and hopefully the whole time!), I am considered a low risk pregnancy, which is something I am very thankful for. Since before I even got pregnant, I’ve known I would want to avoid a medicated birth and keep things as natural as possible. After getting pregnant and doing a TON of research (it’s all I did for the first two months, haha!) I’ve found that home births are actually more common than you might think and much safer too (here’s a HUGE study that was done on planned home births with a midwife present. The results are incredible for healthy, low risk women!) We are so excited we found a plan that fits well with what we envision our birth looking like! 

First trimester must-haves!

If you’re newly pregnant or in your first trimester, here are some things that have gotten me through and that I would recommend to you!! :)

Mama Natural book: I truly believe EVERY pregnant woman needs to read this book. I was hesitant to buy it at first because a lot of reviews called it super “hippie” but it’s far from that!!! Truly, such a great, informative book on having a healthy pregnancy and preparing for birth, no matter what that looks like for you.

Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols: Reading through this book at the recommendation of my midwife and it has helped a LOT with nausea, for me! A lot of nausea is related to my diet and not only that, but I’ve learned SO much about what foods I need for all the nutrients my baby needs (especially since getting prenatals down has been very difficult for me).

Study on home births: This is the study I mention in the video! It’s a big study done on planned home births and the outcomes and shares how safe they really are for healthy, low risk pregnancies!

Baby & Me prenatals: When I was taking prenatals, this is what I was taking! Mama Natural talks about the importance of a whole food vitamin, and this was my favorite I had researched.

Yeti mug: I use this to help me drink plenty of water every day! I love it because it keeps my water ice-cold AND has a lid with a straw I purchased separately here: Straw for yeti mug

Primally Pure body butter & baby oil (STEPHKASE for 10% off): I LOVE using Primally Pure in general for skincare, but since getting pregnant I’ve been using these two things on my belly every day! I will report back on what I feel helps the most, haha!

Free People set: This is SO COZY and comfy when you’re pregnant! Worth the price tag, IMO. Great for mixing and matching the top/bottom and the band is NOT tight at all. I got my normal size (medium) and I love the loose fit! It will fit me far into pregnancy!!

RMO Essential Oils: Especially the peppermint oil! It helped me a TON on days when I felt super nauseous, all it took was for me to take a sniff and it helped so, so much!!

Pregnancy & Birth Made Easy Podcast (My Essential Birth): One of my FAV podcasts I’ve been tuning into as I continue into pregnancy and prepare for birth! No matter what type of birth you are planning for or what your pregnancy looks like, they do an amazing job at sharing on different topics from a non-biased standpoint, with lots of research and facts to share. I truly love that!!

Baby balloon for baby announcement: If you’re curious what balloon we used for our pregnancy announcement, this is it! Since we didn’t do any ultrasounds in our first trimester, we weren’t able to include any in our announcement photos and had to get creative… I love how it turned out!

Skirt I wore for pregnancy announcement: Again, the skirt I wore for our pregnancy announcement!!

Pregnancy + app: My favorite iPhone app I’ve used, mainly to see the size of baby each week!! :) If you’re curious how I’m seeing what size foods or sweet treats the baby is each week over on my Instagram, this is the app!

Planning to Do in the Second Trimester

Coming up in the next few months, there’s a few things we want to do in the second trimester. Here are some things that are on our to-do list to keep pursuing and learning more about!!

– Keep reading Mama Natural book: It’s fun because it goes week-by-week and it’s so easy to read!! So of course, we will continue to read it! :) 

– Keep reading Pregnancy Nutrition book: Still learning SO much about pregnancy nutrition and implementing new things every week, so I want to complete this book!

– Watch the My Essential Birth course: I was gifted this course and am SO excited about it, because I actually have been wanting to take it since the beginning of my pregnancy!! I’m excited to dive in, and want to take Mama Natural’s online course as well!

– Sign up for childbirth education classes locally: I love learning via reading and watching videos, but Michael thrives inside of an in person environment!! So we would love to find and sign up for some local childbirth education classes to help him prepare too!

Thank you for all of the love and support! I’m SO thankful for each of you and can’t wait to keep sharing as my pregnancy progresses!!