All the pregnant ladies: Part 1

As time passes, nature is supposed to slowly blur and fade any negative memories of pregnancy, and amplify and exaggerate all of those glorious glowy moments. The hormonal Men In Black mind eraser squad seems to have been dispatched to the wrong portion of my brain, however, as it is not the negative memories that are fading. Instead I am slowly losing all recollection of the daily minutia and milestones that I once obsessed over. When is your baby the size of an English cucumber again and what is that anyways? When do you start going to the OB every two weeks? When is the gestational diabetes test? I have no idea. Since the only clear memory I have of the 1st trimester is lying in bed exhausted, I'll start there before they all fade to black.

A glimpse into my brain's filing cabinet for the 1st trimester

Here are a few pregnancy survival kit items for myself for next time (gag me). These will hopefully also serve as a handy reference for when friends get pregnant and want me to tell them something about pregnancy besides, "I hate it".

For nausea:
I didn't have bad morning sickness at all so I'm probably not authorized to speak on this topic but the things I found helpful were Tostitos and not driving with my husband. G's driving is always erratic but it was especially rough on me in the early pukey months so I had to pack food, even if we were driving to dinner. Strangely I found the best way to cure nausea was to eat in general, but specifically Tostitos. Keep these on your nightstand, ladies, and you can combat the pukies before you even get up in the morning.

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For discreteness:
We waited until 12 weeks along to tell most people about the fetus so I was quite interested in ways to disguise my condition. In my experience people either don't care at all or really care a lot. For those that don't care, baggy shirts, leggings, and club soda with lime will do the trick. For those that are hellbent on sniffing you out, there is really nothing you can do. Even if you are not pregnant they will find evidence that you are. All you can really do there is deny and deflect, or just tell them the truth so they stop asking about it and piquing everyone else's interest.

For the bloat bump:
When my fat jeans were too small but the maternity pants I excitedly purchased were too big, I despaired. I actually hated the belly bands since I just felt ridiculous walking around with my pants unbuttoned. Therefore, my go-to choice during this stage was leggings. More specifically I wore Zella leggings since they have a nice thick waistband to hold in the fetal muffin top. Not only can you keep them in your wardrobe post-pregnancy due to stretchiness, but they can also double as running tights when it's all over. Probably the best way to tackle this fashion stage in the future is to just get pregnant in the summer and wear dresses.

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For sympathy:
Especially since we didn't spill the pregnancy beans for a while, I found that sympathy from my husband was of the utmost importance. Since there are very few physical changes early on and any good husband will lie to you and tell you there are no physical changes, it's hard for them to remember how sorry they are supposed to feel for you. I really wanted to wake up every day and say, "Acknowledge that I am pregnant please and continue to do so throughout the day by discussing how tired I must be and rubbing my back!!" There is no way to do this without sounding whiney really, but I found that if the subtle reminders of my pregnancy came from an external source then I seemed less annoying and more worthy of a back rub. For this reason, I highly recommend subscribing to a daily email service or downloading a smartphone app. Both What To Expect and Baby Center offer great options here. There is nothing about pregnancy that warrants a daily update but you can feign excitement as you read them aloud to your husband and in so doing accomplish your goal of reminding him how much your life sucks.

Either husbands are being forced to download this app or advertisers need to do better research to understand their audience

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