I've always loved the idea of being pregnant and having a baby of my own has always been my dream and my idea of perfect. I've been surrounding by babies and pregnant ladies throughout my whole life and from the outside have only ever really witnessed the wonderful things: the pregnancy glow, the babies cute milestones and realistically, what appeared to be pretty straight forward pregnancies and so when I found out I was expecting back in November, I don't think I nor my body was very prepared when what I experienced for the first few weeks was far from the tears of joy that I had always imagined I would experience when the test appeared positive.
Within the few seconds that the first of the three pregnancy tests changed to positive, my life as I knew it had changed forever and although I was excited beyond belief and was finally going to live my dream of having my own family, I couldn't help but have an overwhelming crushing feeling of worry and from then suffered what was a hellish few weeks of anxiety, feeling completely out of control and tearful blues in bed. This is an emotion that now, I realise is a common part of pregnancy that a fair few women go through and although it's not spoken about as much as symptoms such as morning sickness or post-natal blues are, it's completely normal and down to your hormones and not much else- there's nothing to feel bad at yourself about. I felt so much upset towards myself because to others, I appeared to be so unhappy and like I said before, being a mum is all I have ever wanted to be. To appear to be sad about something you've always looked forward to and something you're genuinely so happy about, but having your own body not allow you to express the joy you're also feeling and focus predominantly on the low parts is a scary feeling and even with the hugest support system that comes in the form of my boyfriend, family and friends, I had never felt so alone.
I'm no professional, but from my personal experience, talking helped so much. Speaking to those close to me and confessing all of my, again very common, baby worries and everything surrounding it, my worries and nerves were settled an enormous amount by just the slightest bit of reassurance and a hug being there when I needed it.
I'm now, I hope, through the worst of it and although I had dreaded experiencing morning sickness and the like, would have swapped in a heartbeat.
My first trimester didn't have too much affect on me physically; I had moments that smells of anything would get the better of me and trigger me to be sick, but honestly, in the grand scheme of things that was very rare and in that sense I was lucky. I experienced the "normal" hormonal breakouts, extreme fatigue and exhaustion as well as a rather enjoyable hunger for Cheese at all hours but overall, nothing hit me as much as anxiety and so mentally, it had an overwhelming and hard going affect on me.
I'm now into my second trimester and now having seen my tiny baby dancing around in scans, I'm beginning to get back to my old self. I have days of feeling low and so try not to allow myself to focus on anything that I know will cause me stress, but now, nothing is quite exciting as baby shopping and planning what pram we're going to buy, choosing baby names and imagining what he/she is going to look like.
Thank you all so much for your support so far, your comments and emails in response to my vlog have given me such a lot of extra happiness and strength. We're the happiest parents-to-be in the world right now and can't wait to see our bump grow and I know that personally, I'm really excited to share my journey with you all.
Here's to a happy Second Trimester!
Here's to a happy Second Trimester!
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