First trimester – Steph Stephenson from Leeds

I want to share my pregnancy journey with other women in Leeds, and when I came across the Leeds Maternity Voices Partnership website I thought this would be the perfect way to do this. Also, sometimes you may worry that something isn’t normal, so it’s great to hear that other people have been through the same.

I am nearing the end of my first trimester. I’ve had morning sickness from the moment that I did my pregnancy test and I had my head over the loo! I’m sure no one ever told me the sickness would be so bad.  I went to see my GP first when I was sick, she prescribed me some anti sickness (anti histamine) tablets which took the edge off. Even though they made me really drowsy in the mornings it meant being able to go into work. I’ve also been managing my sickness through getting plenty of rest and eating lots of food as being hungry can make it worse. I know some women can have it much worse than me and some not at all, but either way it’s really not nice!

I met my midwife at my local GP practice for the first time at eight weeks and she was really friendly. I was given a maternity folder and she went through mine and my partner’s health history. She was also really reassuring that my morning sickness tablets wouldn’t harm my baby, which I was worried about. Finally, she took some blood and explained some of the tests that I could either choose to do or not like testing for Down’s Syndrome. She referred me to the hospital for my 12 week scan.

At 11 weeks I had something unexpected come up but I rang up the early pregnancy unit at St James’ Hospital and they booked an earlier scan in for me. I was so relieved a few days later to find out everything was okay and that I had a viable pregnancy. I felt a bit stupid for worrying and wasting their time but the nurses were really understanding. It was a real amazing experience to see the baby moving around and with a heartbeat. Both my husband and I felt very emotional!

There’s been so many other changes this trimester that it’s almost hard to go into it all – from feeling out of breath and being extremely tired, breast changes, putting on lots of weight (already), feeling very emotional, needing to pee all the time (how embarrassing), and wanting eat all the chocolate in the world.

There’s a lot to plan and prepare for and I’m starting to think about all the things the baby will need, and all the options I have around my birth plan (thinking about how much it’s going to hurt!). I’m also thinking about how much things will change once the baby is born and I won’t have time for anymore once the baby is born too.