I started writing this when I was 8 weeks pregnant and where I was convinced that if I socialised with anyone out with our immediate family I’d give the game away that I was preggers. It’s not that we had any reason to hide the pregnancy per say, we just wanted to enjoy it ourselves for a while before everyone and their maw chimed in with an opinion or horror story. So while we told the immediate family early, we didn’t broadcast it out to wider family and close friends until after the 12 week mark. So to everyone whom I fobbed off with my “gastroenteritis” story during those 3 months I’m sincerely sorry for the deception. But in all fairness, it wasn’t that far from the truth.
Morning sickness All fucking day sickness hit me hard from weeks 6-10 of my pregnancy and during this time I could have easily been cast as a walk-on part on Dawn of the Dead with no special effects needed. Cause if I wasn’t being violently sick up to 10 times a day, which caused tears in my esophagus (yeah, who knew that was a thing?), I was comatose from a mixture of the exhaustion of being sick and the weakness of not being able to keep down any food. I lost 6kgs in weight, which is just under a stone, and I really truly looked like crap. Oh and I also had a full time job and a new house to contend with.
So perhaps you can now understand why there was self-imposed hibernation, cessation of all food blogging activities, and general patching of people during this time. Oh and to all you women out there who never shared just how abysmal this period is: shame.
So when I talk about food aversions I’m underplaying it. Really what I mean is “get that food the HELL outta my house before I kill you” but, food aversions is catchier. While most food and drink during this time was wholly unappealing, these are my standout Trimester 1 food aversions.
Hot Drinks
Turns out I didn’t even need a pregnancy test cause if I’d just waited a few more days I’d have known something was amiss when I took immediate aversion to coffee and tea. Pre-pregnancy, I was a hot drink fiend and I’d typically knock back maybe 3-4 cups of strong filter coffee each day plus at least 2 cups of green, herbal, or black tea on top. Not anymore.
This baby didn’t want me anywhere near a hot drink, in fact he/she didn’t even want me thinking about or seeing a hot drink. It got so bad that even rinsing R’s mugs of coffee after he’d used them or seeing someone on telly pouring a cup of tea would have me heaving.
Meat, Fish, Dairy, and Vegetables
For the first 10 weeks of my pregnancy I was growing a vegan baby who also didn’t want me eating vegetables. I’m not exaggerating when I say that all fish, meat, dairy, and veg were firmly off the menu for me for at least 6 weeks. Which really does restrict your diet.
Thank god for prenatal vitamins so at least some nutrients and vitamins were getting to the baby and I. .
The stuff we don’t mention anymore
Thanks to sickness, the following items are off the menu for the foreseeable future:
- Tropicana
- Chips
- Knorr chicken noodle soup
- Tangerines
I shan’t elaborate further.
Water
In those early weeks of pregnancy I felt dehydrated all the time and nothing could really quench my thirst. Pre-pregnancy, water has always been my day-to-day drink of choice, cause I don’t like diluting or soft drinks, but in that first trimester I found water vile. I tried tap water, bottled water, sparkling, soda, tonic, shop-bought flavoured water, home-made flavoured water and none of it was appetising or would take the thirst away.
I started to worry that I was either carrying twins or had gestational diabetes (cause extreme thirst is a symptom of both). Thankfully it turned out to be a normal side effect of pregnancy and a craving for sugar which I would imagine was my body’s cry for energy.
Tortilla Wraps
This was an odd one. Until this point I’d never given tortilla wraps or their smell any thought. I had always plonked tortilla wraps firmly into that “inoffensive” group of foodstuffs. Well lemme tell you right now, as a pregnant woman these were VILE to me. The smell was also 10 times worse when microwaved which just so happens to be precisely how R likes his wraps. So the combined smell of his cheesy wraps nuked warm in the microwave would be enough to send me into the deepest darkest recesses of our house to evade it.
Eggs
I’ve left the worst till last. Eggs *Shudder*
Pre-pregnancy I used to eat a fair amount of eggs each week for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Initially it was the idea of eggs but after I caught a whiff of our neighbour cooking eggs I banned them from our house. I’m currently 24 weeks pregnant and I’ve not eaten an egg on its own yet and I just know deep down in my bones it would be a bad idea.
I’m pretty certain that anyone who has ever experienced extreme morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum will agree with me when I say: If one more person suggested a bloody ginger biscuit or ginger tea or a flipping salty cracker, I wouldn’t have been responsible for my actions towards them.
If you’ve got weird pregnancy aversions, please do please share in the comments below. Thanks for reading!