Hello, 

if you stumbled on my article you’re probably looking for how to manage to survive these first three months of your pregnancy. 

I will quickly tell you something about the beginning of my first three months and then I will share with you everything that helped me get through it.

If you wish to see the video where I talk about the first trimester symptoms and what I did to find the relief you will found it here:

I found out I was pregnant right after the first week of my period being late, I’m 37, and I’ve been trying to have a child for years, but in the last couple of years, I was quite resolute that I would never be able to get pregnant. I’ve never given up totally, and i kept wishing inside me to get pregnant , but I wasn’t expecting it anymore, so when it did finally happen I was in a mix of happiness and shock at the same time. I wasn’t prepared, my life was going linear, I was starting to be at peace with the fact that I would never be able to become a mother.

All of this probably did influence my first three months, summing the fact that I was living in a place that was not prepared for having a quiet and relaxed pregnancy; my mood was unstable because I felt the pressure to think fast on how to prepare my life for a safe and relaxing pregnancy, so the mood, with the big hormonal changes, did not really help on keeping the first-trimester symptoms balanced.

The first change I had was in my meals, I usually eat a lot of different foods until I’m satisfied, but nausea made me not want to eat at all, I was having food aversion with most of the foods I use to love (so basically everything).

I’ve always managed to keep down everything I ate all the time, but I wasn’t eating a lot and I wasn’t eating what I’ve always thought I would have eaten during pregnancy, like nourishing foods. In order to manage to eat, I had to follow my body and eat whatever I was able to swallow. There was always this weird taste in my mouth, I’ve called it the nausea taste. 

Besides that, and the aversion to smells, I haven’t had other bad symptoms, probably because my biggest frustration at that moment was having to live with not being able to love food like always.

To manage nausea I used to just sit and relax and to breathe, and accept that as a part of the change. 

The worst thing was the after taste of foods, there was nothing that could make it disappear and it kept me focusing on nausea. I’ve found out that I was craving sour foods, so I’ve tried pickles, and it worked amazingly most of the time. Even just tasting apple cider vinegar during the nausea taste helped a lot to ease the symptoms. 

I discovered that also raw sour fruits were a good option to fight nausea, I was always craving fruit salads with oranges, lemons, apples, passion fruit, tamarillos… same as salads with oil and vinegar and tomatoes.

The movement did not help me a lot the first three months, I kept having nice walks, but besides that, I couldn’t do much. Forcing myself on being active during that period only lead to dizziness and more nausea. I simply tried to relax as much as possible and to stay in a comfortable position where was easy to breathe. Deep breathing helped me a lot. At the same time, I kept doing walks to help my body to accept the new hormones flowing around, but I’ve never pushed on any sport, even most of the yoga positions I usually enjoyed did not help me to ease nausea, only stretching was helpful.

Soooo, summing up what helped me the most for the first three months were:

-Relax as much as possible.

-Deep breathing, especially during the worst moments.

-Sleeping and sitting always with more pillows helped not to feel dizzy and to have less nausea.

-Watching old romantic movies, nothing suspenseful like my usuals,  reading books, and drawing.

-Having the person I love beside me was really helpful, I just wanted to stay close together, I felt more connected and feeling that beautiful strange, and new thing that was happening to us helped me a lot on not focusing only on the symptoms.

-Eating what I was craving and not what I thought I should’ve eaten for a healthy pregnancy helped me to eat and to keep every food in my body. I saw no point in forcing myself to eat, and then not being able to digest. The best thing I found useful was eating the amount and the foods I could manage to, even if they weren’t the most nutritious ones.

-Sour foods helped me to get rid of that weird taste in my mouth. Sometimes just licking a lemon or eating a pickle was enough to ease that taste for few hours.

-Having faith that this was going to pass soon. They are just normal hormonal changes, they are going to pass sooner or later, and probably for most women, the worst symptoms are the first three months.

-Thinking that these symptoms were caused by a wonderful little creature that was growing inside me and was counting on me to be strong.

-I’ve tried also the pressure points wrist bands, at least they’ve helped me to relax and feel cuddled.

-I did use bland chewable antacids at times, usually half dose. If you find that ginger helps you is perfect, but unfortunately it was not my case, even though I use ginger in foods and herbal beverages outside the pregnancy, during the first three months it was part of my food aversions.

-Smelling peppermint essential oil and eucalyptus essential oil was helpful to fight the smells all around me. The smell of many foods, soaps, and perfumes, in general, made me worsen nausea. I did create a little balm with one of this oil to rub on my wrists and to have this smell close to me for help. If you wish to make this balm you can find my video recipe here: 

And the link of the Diy healing balm blog post where you can find more information here: https://www.naturalmermaid.net/2021/01/10/diy-healing-balm-to-help-with-nausea/

These were some simple things I did to manage symptoms of the first three months. I hope you will find some help, and especially I wish for you not to feel alone, we’re in this together, and I promise, even if it feels hard it will pass sooner than you think, and you will soon be able to enjoy the rest of your pregnancy.

If you want to ask me anything, just write to me in the comments, I will be happy to answer you.

xoxo

Claudia