It might have looked something like this one day.

 Donuts.

 Cinnamon Sugar Donuts. And maybe one Vanilla Dip. Vanilla dip with sprinkles? Do they even have that? I’ll take one of each. Oh and I guess I should pick up two for Jeff in case he wants a donut…

 I’ve never been a sweet tooth kind of person. I don’t really crave candy or dessert, I don’t love chocolate or a certain type of cake. For two years I worked on creating a clean body house. A house that was stock piled on dark leafy greens, organic veggies and fruit, free range organic meats and chicken and almond flour blueberry pancakes. I liked what I ate and I loved the food I was able to cook and create. 

 Around six weeks I just woke up and felt different. Steel cut oats and sliced up apple with hemp hearts, dates and ground seeds sounded like the worst thing in the entire world. Scrambled eggs and toast, a bagel and cream cheese, crackers and cheese, hot chocolate? Yes please.

 It was one of the hardest month long periods (or was it longer?) I’ve experienced in a long time. When you create a relationship with food based on trust and taste and knowledge it’s a bit of a shock to your mind when all of sudden you can’t stand the thought of anything you normally craved. You feel confused and frustrated and for me, really angry. I felt angry at myself and angry that I knew what my body needed (or so I thought) but that I couldn’t stomach any of these things. I felt guilty eating a bagel and cream cheese because I know what’s in it.

 Knowledge is power and in this case to a fault for me. I ate the things I craved but I also made myself feel bad about it. How had this magical thing finally happened to me and I couldn’t carry on in the same routine I had been working on for two years? I couldn’t process it for a long time. 

 Looking back, probably the funniest moment was that I was just about to start the second round of the 21 Day Holistic Eating and Living Journey. Something I loved doing the first time around and couldn’t wait to start again! Boom! Nausea takes over. That was by far the hardest 21 days I’ve had in a long time. Not only because I couldn’t ( and wasn’t really eating ) a lot of the things I said I was, or wanted to, but also because I had to fib about what I was eating. It felt impossible most days.

 Don’t worry, I let it go.

 I had to let it go. What good is it going to do me getting angry at myself for wanting to eat things that my body is craving. Sure they weren’t normal for me, but none of it was – the hormones surging, the reality that it was finally happening, the fact that I was growing a tiny human inside of me. It blew my mind pretty much every day for the first two months. ( Let’s be honest, it still does). 

 Some very close friends of mine had absolutely no symptoms in their first trimester. No nausea, no breast pain, no tiredness. Part of them say they wish they had some symptoms so they had some clue that things were real and that the baby was actually growing and developing. Then I’m sure there are a handful of other woman who would wish to have felt nothing at all to save them from feeling sick all the time. I’m not sure which I would prefer. I obviously really didn’t like feeling sick and tired all the time, but in a way, it was reassuring to know that things were happening. Especially for me -it was like someone in the universe really wanted me to instinctually know that this was real.

 Either way, I wanted to write about my experience here because I want any woman going through their first trimester to know that whatever experience you have, is okay. It’s okay to eat whatever your body is craving if that’s the only thing you feel like eating. My husband jokes that he loved the first trimester because he never had to think of what we should eat for dinner. He would call me before I would be leaving work and ask me what, in that one moment, I thought I could stomach. I would say it, and it would be ready for me when I got home. Some nights it was toast with a slice of swiss cheese and an apple cut up, others it was pasta with meat sauce. One night I swore I wanted miso soup, sushi and a seaweed salad and when he came home with it, I just had to look away and go get something else for dinner.

 The point is, you don’t know how you’re going to feel. You don’t know what you’re going to want or not want. You’ve never done this before. Give yourself a break. The first trimester is the time to be the nicest you’ve ever been to yourself. Sleep when you want to sleep. Nap when you want to nap. Eat what you feel you can stomach eating. Your baby will take what it needs from you and leave you all the left over stuff to use for energy. If you can, get a great prenatal vitamin so you’re covered on the supplement side (I am taking Mega Food Baby  + Me and have actually been taking it for about a year now). Try to get a veggie juice or a smoothie in if you can stomach it, but if you can’t, don’t beat yourself up about it. You’ve come this far, and those tiny babies are a lot stronger and more resilient than we give them credit for.

 And I promise. You will wake up one day with less nausea. Steel cut oats, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, beets and kale will all look good to you again soon. And that donut you ate will still feel like the best idea you had in a long time, because come on, who doesn’t smile at the thought of a fresh warm donut covered in cinnamon sugar?

 

[ I will be writing about the first trimester and how I felt mentally and physically a little later this week so stay tuned!]