The first trimester, honestly
“As I’ve learned with most things in pregnancy, you just have to do what works best for you.”
In her column, Baby Steps, Alexis Benveniste shares joyful—and honest!—reflections on each trimester.
Getting pregnant was a journey for me.
Three rounds of IUI, a lot of hoping, and more quiet breath-holding than I’d like to admit. So when it finally happened, I spent the first few months of my pregnancy doing everything I could not to get too excited. Crossing my fingers. Taking deep breaths. Trying to hold the joy and the anxiety at the same time without letting either one win. Somehow, being pregnant still feels like less of an emotional rollercoaster than trying to get pregnant, which tells you everything you need to know about what that process was like.
I went back and forth on when I wanted to tell people I was pregnant, wondering if there was a perfect answer or the right way to do things. I went down a Reddit rabbit hole, which felt like a rite of passage, and still didn’t have a conclusion. When I was about six weeks pregnant, my husband and I decided to tell our parents and siblings. We were so excited to share the news, and it felt hard to hide it when I was completely exhausted and grossed out by every single food. My cards would reveal themselves eventually, and if anything bad happened, I’d want to share it with them, too. It took a bit of a leap and a lot of vulnerability to do it this early, but it worked for us. As I’ve learned with most things in pregnancy, you just have to do what works best for you.
After we got our NIPT results (a nerve-wracking wait, to say the least), we started to tell our friends. The joy I felt from telling the people we love was indescribable, and thinking about not being able to share it with the people I had lost—I had three grandparents pass away in two years—was definitely weighing on me, but in a way that felt meaningful and beautiful. My Papa died six months before I got pregnant, and he would have been thrilled to find out that we were having a baby, especially because he was looped into how much of a journey it was for us.
I also found a lot of unexpected joy in sharing the pregnancy news with complete strangers. I told someone I met at a workout class. At a dinner at RHONY cast member Erin Lichy’s house, I was seven weeks pregnant, and I decided to tell a handful of people, including Jenna Lyons and Lisa Barlow. I figured I’d never see them again, and it felt good to share the news with others. (It was that dinner that inspired me to watch The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which became my primary coping mechanism for first trimester nausea—proof that you’ll find sanity wherever you can get it.)
When I shared the news with them, I didn’t even feel—or look—pregnant yet, but it made everything feel real. I couldn’t believe it was finally happening. During my fertility journey, there were days where it felt like getting pregnant was maybe just something that would never happen for me. I’d never wanted anything more, so I started taking prenatal vitamins, toned down the intensity of my exercises (this isn’t necessarily recommended, but I was nervous), and hoped for the best.
The first big hurdle was “graduating” from my fertility doctor, who I absolutely adored and have recommended to several friends. He made the whole process leading up to getting pregnant as wonderful and smooth as it could possibly be, considering the circumstances. Even the nurses who drew my blood at the office were top-tier and totally changed my relationship with getting my blood taken. I teared up—okay, fine, maybe I fully cried—during my last appointment with him, and I’m not going to blame it on the hormones.
Every time I went to a doctor’s appointment, I felt anxious. It’s hard to sleep the night before, but it’s also exciting because you know you’ll get a chance to see the baby. I took note of her heartbeat at eight weeks—162, which sounded insanely high to me, but was apparently “normal,” quickly putting a note in my phone so I could go crazy on Google when I got home.
I quickly learned that there are no rules, and the right way to do things is doing things in a way that feels organic to you at that time. You don’t need to do a gender reveal or record yourself every time you share the news with someone (unless you want to, of course, because there’s nothing wrong with that). But when you relieve yourself from some of those social pressures you might be feeling, you free up room for joy and fun.
There also aren’t dumb questions or cravings, and things change very quickly. For proof, here’s a look at some of my wild cravings that I had on Halloween, just weeks after finding out I was pregnant:
All of this to say, there’s no such thing as being irrational, especially when you’re just trying to survive your first trimester. After everything it took to get pregnant, I thought I’d feel more certain about how to do it “right.” But the first trimester taught me, quickly and repeatedly, that there is no right. There’s just what works for you, on that day, in that moment—even if that means drinking Mexican Coca-Cola and lemonade at nine in the morning, like I have on more than one occasion!
I spent so long hoping to be in this position, and now I’m finally here. I’m excited about embracing it, and I’m constantly reminding myself that whatever gets me through is more than enough.
“As I’ve learned with most things in pregnancy, you just have to do what works best for you.”
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More joy this way… 🩵
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