I remember sitting on the floor in the shower unable to move, as I was so exhausted, like nothing I had experienced before. And looking back at my stories on IG now I think I was actually depressed, totally unprepared for what pregnancy and first months of motherhood is. Wishing you all the best in your journey, it’s a challenging one but like no other 🤍🤍
Halfway through my first pregnancy, too, and this all checks out.
This sounds terribly dramatic, but it’s true: months 2 & 3 were the worst 2 consecutive months of my life. Apart from the nausea/exhaustion, I also became bitterly depressed, suicidally depressed. I fantasized about ending the pregnancy (terrible to say but again also true, and I feel better knowing that at least two women I know felt the same at the lowest point), or ending myself — I was hopeless.
Even when I started feeling better in month 3-4, I found the first tri so traumatic that I was skeptical of any sense of feeling good.
Not to mention any of the body image related issues I’ve had with putting on so much weight so quickly. Also very taboo to talk about.
I’m so glad you’re feeling better. I read endless accounts of people feeling so desperately unhappy, a lot of it due to how unexpected it all was. Therapy at times felt like the only thinking keeping me only moderately sane.
Congratulations, Tasnim!!! I am so thrilled to read of your pregnancy 😭🥲. I had two particularly brutal pregnancies, especially the first trimesters. Thinking of you and baby and wishing you a healthy pregnancy!
I am radiating with happiness for you that IVF worked and that you’re on your way to an even more beautiful chapter of life!
The first trimester is so so brutal and I’m really sorry you had that experience. There’s so much information that I feel the world has hidden from women until they’re already in the trenches. I’ve had multiple miscarriages over the past year and they’ve destroyed me in ways I can’t explain, and I wish I better knew what was coming my way. And one huge piece of the pain is knowing that I’ll have to relive another first trimester—with possibly no reward for it again.
Wishing you a much, much easier remainder of your pregnancy! Thank you for sharing these words with us. Congratulations again! ❤️
There is something about your capacity to express exactly what you are processing that is absolutely unique and wonderful. I feel like I’m sitting next to your incredible brain when I read your words. It’s a voice that always draws me near to the human experience you describe, I love it, and you. Xoxo
Many many congratulations. I also had a difficult first trimester but I would do it all over again because the joy that comes after is so worth it. Anyways I had tears reading this one. Hope you can enjoy the rest of your pregnancy as much as one can x
I so relate. I found pregnancy sickness to be unrelenting in its tender misery. The first trimesters of my pregnancies felt completely brutal, compounded by the guilt for feeling that way. Someone said to me, which was helpful: you are allowed to be happy to be pregnant and yet hate the physical experience of pregnancy. Or as another friend said when I found out I was pregnant: you’re not going to like this part. Sending strength and love! This reader that doesn’t know you is so happy for you, and yes it’s all the wildest ride. The sisterhood of other women and mothers have been my joy and support through the hard days.
Congratulations!! I got so teary-eyed reading this, I’m so happy for you!
It’s so true that we don’t talk enough about how awful that first trimester is. And how lonely. Because you feel so awful but you’re not supposed to tell everybody about the pregnancy because anything can happen in those first 12 weeks and you don’t want to update people with bad news. So you just brace through it mostly in silence.
I waited until 17 weeks until I told people because I had a bad NIPT result and wanted to see if it would be confirmed by an amnio before telling people (fortunately it wasn’t and I have a healthy baby girl). It felt so heavy carrying this life inside me mostly in silence for basically half of the pregnancy. I remember pinching myself to not fall asleep during meetings and carrying bags everywhere with me in case I needed to puke and sitting through work lunches having to smell others’ food while barely eating anything myself.
Fortunately physically it should get better until it gets worse again lol. But mentally I was plagued by the “what ifs” until I had my baby girl in my arms.
I read somewhere that it was called morning sickness because the men would only see it in the morning on their way to work and never think of it again. I’m so glad you’re out of the miserable first trimester and I hope you get to enjoy some of it! I had a brief window between being sick and exhausted where I felt beautiful and radiant and then just so tired. I’m so glad you’re talking about it, all of it, I feel so seen in your mentioning of it. If anything motherhood has shown me how deeply ungentle I am to myself and it has been a hard and bumping relearning that if I can’t give care to me there is no way in hell I can give that care or allow the space for her to be. So beyond happy for you. I’ve been reading about your journey from the beginning ❤️
yay i have been waiting for this letter, so thrilled for you. also i apologize, bc there's so much stuff that is lied about and downplayed about this part and all the parts after, but the cool thing is that you get this great community to commiserate with and support each other through, so you're never alone ❤️
Congratulations!!! It is no doubt hard but I hope you can allow the joy to penetrate so it can all balance out. You got this. I'm soooooo happy for you!
Oh Tasnim, I'm so thrilled for you, and so sorry your first trimester was so rough. I was very briefly nauseated the other night and it sent me back to my pregnancy with my second child and reminded me of how absolutely unbearable it was — I still don't know how I survived. But yes, thus is motherhood. Wishing you brighter skies ahead.
I remember sitting on the floor in the shower unable to move, as I was so exhausted, like nothing I had experienced before. And looking back at my stories on IG now I think I was actually depressed, totally unprepared for what pregnancy and first months of motherhood is. Wishing you all the best in your journey, it’s a challenging one but like no other 🤍🤍
Halfway through my first pregnancy, too, and this all checks out.
This sounds terribly dramatic, but it’s true: months 2 & 3 were the worst 2 consecutive months of my life. Apart from the nausea/exhaustion, I also became bitterly depressed, suicidally depressed. I fantasized about ending the pregnancy (terrible to say but again also true, and I feel better knowing that at least two women I know felt the same at the lowest point), or ending myself — I was hopeless.
Even when I started feeling better in month 3-4, I found the first tri so traumatic that I was skeptical of any sense of feeling good.
Not to mention any of the body image related issues I’ve had with putting on so much weight so quickly. Also very taboo to talk about.
I’m so glad you’re feeling better. I read endless accounts of people feeling so desperately unhappy, a lot of it due to how unexpected it all was. Therapy at times felt like the only thinking keeping me only moderately sane.
Congratulations, Tasnim!!! I am so thrilled to read of your pregnancy 😭🥲. I had two particularly brutal pregnancies, especially the first trimesters. Thinking of you and baby and wishing you a healthy pregnancy!
Thank you so much Irene!!
I am radiating with happiness for you that IVF worked and that you’re on your way to an even more beautiful chapter of life!
The first trimester is so so brutal and I’m really sorry you had that experience. There’s so much information that I feel the world has hidden from women until they’re already in the trenches. I’ve had multiple miscarriages over the past year and they’ve destroyed me in ways I can’t explain, and I wish I better knew what was coming my way. And one huge piece of the pain is knowing that I’ll have to relive another first trimester—with possibly no reward for it again.
Wishing you a much, much easier remainder of your pregnancy! Thank you for sharing these words with us. Congratulations again! ❤️
There is something about your capacity to express exactly what you are processing that is absolutely unique and wonderful. I feel like I’m sitting next to your incredible brain when I read your words. It’s a voice that always draws me near to the human experience you describe, I love it, and you. Xoxo
Congratulations! May you get through insha'Allah
Many many congratulations. I also had a difficult first trimester but I would do it all over again because the joy that comes after is so worth it. Anyways I had tears reading this one. Hope you can enjoy the rest of your pregnancy as much as one can x
I so relate. I found pregnancy sickness to be unrelenting in its tender misery. The first trimesters of my pregnancies felt completely brutal, compounded by the guilt for feeling that way. Someone said to me, which was helpful: you are allowed to be happy to be pregnant and yet hate the physical experience of pregnancy. Or as another friend said when I found out I was pregnant: you’re not going to like this part. Sending strength and love! This reader that doesn’t know you is so happy for you, and yes it’s all the wildest ride. The sisterhood of other women and mothers have been my joy and support through the hard days.
Congratulations!! I got so teary-eyed reading this, I’m so happy for you!
It’s so true that we don’t talk enough about how awful that first trimester is. And how lonely. Because you feel so awful but you’re not supposed to tell everybody about the pregnancy because anything can happen in those first 12 weeks and you don’t want to update people with bad news. So you just brace through it mostly in silence.
I waited until 17 weeks until I told people because I had a bad NIPT result and wanted to see if it would be confirmed by an amnio before telling people (fortunately it wasn’t and I have a healthy baby girl). It felt so heavy carrying this life inside me mostly in silence for basically half of the pregnancy. I remember pinching myself to not fall asleep during meetings and carrying bags everywhere with me in case I needed to puke and sitting through work lunches having to smell others’ food while barely eating anything myself.
Fortunately physically it should get better until it gets worse again lol. But mentally I was plagued by the “what ifs” until I had my baby girl in my arms.
I read somewhere that it was called morning sickness because the men would only see it in the morning on their way to work and never think of it again. I’m so glad you’re out of the miserable first trimester and I hope you get to enjoy some of it! I had a brief window between being sick and exhausted where I felt beautiful and radiant and then just so tired. I’m so glad you’re talking about it, all of it, I feel so seen in your mentioning of it. If anything motherhood has shown me how deeply ungentle I am to myself and it has been a hard and bumping relearning that if I can’t give care to me there is no way in hell I can give that care or allow the space for her to be. So beyond happy for you. I’ve been reading about your journey from the beginning ❤️
RELATABLE!!! congratulations❤️🎈
Thanks love!!
yay i have been waiting for this letter, so thrilled for you. also i apologize, bc there's so much stuff that is lied about and downplayed about this part and all the parts after, but the cool thing is that you get this great community to commiserate with and support each other through, so you're never alone ❤️
I have days where my one ear will randomly get boiling hot and have to just be like, yup, that’s pregnancy!
Congratulations!!! It is no doubt hard but I hope you can allow the joy to penetrate so it can all balance out. You got this. I'm soooooo happy for you!
Thank you so much lovely! Getting there!
Oh Tasnim, I'm so thrilled for you, and so sorry your first trimester was so rough. I was very briefly nauseated the other night and it sent me back to my pregnancy with my second child and reminded me of how absolutely unbearable it was — I still don't know how I survived. But yes, thus is motherhood. Wishing you brighter skies ahead.
Thank you so much Anna! This child is a health food nut so the only thing I’m sad about now is my former ability to have sweet treats!
Haha! A wellness icon!