I caught a glimpse of myself in a car window yesterday, and – at 16 weeks – I finally saw a pregnant person. A little fat controller staring back at me. But after so many weeks of feeling pregnant but not looking it, it was honestly a welcome revelation.

The truth is,  for the first three months – often longer – your pregnancy is invisible.

And the time it takes for your stomach to visibly catch up with the strange phenomenon that’s happening inside, just so happens to coincide with the period of time when your brain and insides are literally running amok.

It doesn’t matter whether the pregnancy was planned or not, when you find out there’s a tiny life growing inside you, it’s a completely normal first reaction to freak the fuck out. In that moment you realise that, from this second right now, things are going to change.

You swerve the coffee and forego the wine – all the while secretly mourning your old life. I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true – and it doesn’t mean that you don’t love or want your unborn child, it’s just a huge change that you have to wrack your head around really fast.  

Then, there’s the intense vulnerability of the whole thing. Generally, we’re told not to tell anyone you’re pregnant until you’re 12 weeks – that way, if you miscarry or find out it has a terrible disease and decide to have an abortion, you won’t have to explain yourself. You can deal with your own immeasurable despair in peace, because god forbid you burden anyone else with it.

The dark shadow of miscarriage that hangs over the first 12 weeks of your pregnancy is a humbling reminder that your body is now a lawless machine that you can’t control. You can follow the rules by the book and avoid all the caffeine, soft cheese, runny eggs and swordfish in the world, but it still might not stop your body from deciding, “nah, not this time.”

Finally there’s the Morning Sickness. The exhausting, unrelenting sickness.

I’ve already said my bit on why I think people don’t talk about morning sickness so I won’t go into that again – but what I will say is that I remember crouching on the bathroom floor around 9 weeks, when my morning sickness was at its worst and just broke down in tears.

I didn’t even know why I was upset, but I sat there for half an hour and sobbed like a baby.

Maybe I was crying because I was sick of feeling nauseous for 15 of the 16 waking hours of the day. Maybe it was the fear that this new future I was only just starting to accept could be taken away from me in the blink of an eye. You know what? Maybe it was just because I could of really fucking done with a glass of wine that day.

Anyway, even though I knew about all these things long before I experienced them myself, I’d never actually come across any true accounts of what the first Trimester really feels like.

For me, it was shit. So, I guess my point here is that if it’s shit for you too, don’t worry. You’re not the only one.   

Until next time… x

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