My Morning Sickness Tips- The First Trimester.

I am fully aware that this post may not help you in the slightest, I had so many people telling me what to eat and drink when I was suffering from morning sickness. The truth is that you will figure out what is best for you in time, but the sooner you get there, the easier it is.

First of all, we all know that 'morning sickness' is not something that only occurs in the morning, why it's called that we do not know. So my advice would be to figure out when you suffer the most and how to ease that, personally I suffered all day until around 5/6pm and only then would I start to feel normal. I used to dread going to sleep because I knew that I eventually would have to wake up and feel horrendous again! After around a month of constant nausea and occasionally throwing my guts up I figured out a few tricks that actually eased my symptoms slightly- although not completely.

1. Go easy on the milk.

I am quintessentially British, I like tea. I like tea at any time of the day but I have to have my tea in the morning otherwise I am a zombie all day. When I started to get my MS symptoms I realised that tea was becoming my enemy (NNNOOOOOO!!!) So instead of my morning tea I switched to apple juice which was so much better. Now that I am in my second trimester I am back on the tea and once again the world makes sense. 

2. Ginger.

We've all been told this one, drink ginger ale, have ginger and hot lemon, chew on ginger... Bluergh!! I found that ginger nuts settled my stomach. I kept a packet of ginger nuts by my bed and before even getting out of bed in the morning, I had one or two biscuits and some water and that really made me feel better when I started to move around and begin my day.

3. Salt is your friend.

This one still seems a bit odd to me as I bloody hate salt. I've never added it to my chips, or barely even cooked with it, but when in my first trimester, I couldn't get enough. Anything salty, or stodgy, or both made me feel a million times better. 2 months ago I had my first KFC in about 2/3 years, I lived off ready salted crisps and mini cheddars, and became fully obsessed with chips. This all subsided at around 12 weeks, but my midwife told me its ok to eat crap for a few weeks if thats all you can stomach. I am now back to craving vegetables and normal food thank god!

4. If something makes you feel worse, don't take it!

I found after a few weeks that the omega 3 tablet in my prenatal vitamin pack was leaving a funny taste in my mouth and making me feel sick all day. So I called my midwife who told me to stop taking it and just eat a small amount of fish instead. We all know we're not allowed shellfish or sushi but she said a bit of tuna every once in a while or 100% cod fish fingers would make perfect substitutes for my disgusting fishy tablet. And as long I don't overdo it on the oily fish then all is well.

5. Water water water water water!!

Finally, Water! Apparently lots of pregnant women say they can't stomach water when suffering from MS, I was the complete opposite. The apple juice I had come to rely on was beginning to also make me feel awful so I started sipping water all day every day and it literally became my best friend. I carried a 2 litre bottle of water in my bag and made sure I always had a full glass next to me when I was at home. Not only is it so important to keep hydrated when pregnant but it makes us feel human again.

Then there are some general things that may help, avoid strong smelling perfumes, strong tastes like onion and garlic that will linger, and make sure you're eating, even if it is just a little bit.


Like I said before, this may not help you at all but I really hope I can help at least one person!! And remember- it is temporary, it won't last forever even if it feels like that right now!!

xxx

Hormones and Nausea and Acne, Oh My!! - The First Trimester.

From the title of this post you may deduce that I am in fact pregnant. Something that Dan and I are completely over the moon about however, the first few months of pregnancy are no walk in the park; at least they were not for me.

Some women (I'm looking at you Kourtney Kardashian) carry pregnancy like a dream, they look amazing, don't swell up, talk about how amazing they are for creating this miracle... blah blah blah. I am not a Kourtney.

I'm all boobs and hips and swollen ankles... I am most definitely a Kim, and she said it, pregnancy is tough.

Actually I'm worse than Kim- she's still Kim Kardashian and is pretty fucking hot. Don't get me wrong I'm so grateful that I get to experience pregnancy, so many women are unable to do so; but my first trimester sucked balls.

When I found out I was pregnant we had just got back from a 2 week holiday to Greece, I was completely shocked because my partner suffers with Crohn's disease which apparently diminishes sperm count to basically nothing. I came off my pill in July and Dan started taking vitamins at the beginning of August and half way through September we were pregnant, WHAAAAT?!

After the initial shock we had our first scan which was very early (7 weeks) and found out that I'm carrying twins! This made a lot of sense because there are a lot of twins in my family. This was the week that my nausea really hit. I was very lucky in the sense that I didn't actually throw up a whole lot, maybe once a week, but I did feel sick all day long, I couldn't eat anything, I couldn't drink anything apart from sip water and I think I actually lost weight rather than gained. Some days I literally just laid in bed.

Then came the spots, not just on my face, my whole body was covered in acne. I have never suffered with acne, even when I was a teenager so I had no idea how to deal with it. I tried face masks, face creams, scrubs, cleansers, antiseptics, nothing seemed to work. The acne finally calmed down at around 12 weeks but I still have a few spots on my chin that show no signs of wanting to leave me just yet.

All of this may have caused the horrific mood swings that I got, or maybe it was the crazy hormones coursing through my body. Either way, it is a very accurate statement to say that I am an awful pregnant woman! I feel so sorry for Dan, my sisters, and my parents for having to deal with me all day because I'm actually a crazy person right now. They have calmed down slightly but I still go mental over little things.

When we were 9 weeks we had a bit of a scare, I had 3 different days where I had very slight bleeding and cramps, then on the Friday morning I woke up in quite a lot of pain and had enough bleeding to really scare us. Dan drove me straight to A&E where we waited for another scan for about 6 hours (there were some emergency C-sections that were scheduled before us- obvs). In the scan room I really thought the pregnancy was over, but our lovely little bubs were absolutely fine and we got told that the bleeding could have been a number of things, nobody could say for sure though. The staff at Wexham Park hospital were so amazing to us, from the nurses, doctors and HCAs in A&E to the doctors in the Early Pregnancy Unit, we were really well taken care of.

I am now in my second trimester which I will write about in a few weeks and I feel a lot better. When you are in the middle of the first trimester you really think it will never end- but it does!! Ladies if you are suffering just remember it is only temporary and the time does pass quicker than you think it will, just stay strong!!

The mood swings don't quite disappear though...

Decking and Dolphins, Lefkada

When we arrived at our hotel on our first day we were told about another hotel called Ionian Blue just down the road which visitors could use free of charge.

We were so busy and had so much we could do that we completely forgot about Ionian Blue until 2 days before we came home and our lovely friends Lucy and Chris reminded us that it was there, we latched onto them and decided to go the next day.

It is on the same road as the secret beach and took us about 10 minutes to walk to from our hotel. We liked walking down the hill from our hotel for this reason…

The German Shepherd was nicknamed Barky Dog because he liked to let visitors know he was watching however, there were too many kitties for us to name! And these were only a few of the four legged friends we made while we were away, shout out to Fluffy Back, Ginger Puss, Short Tail Big Balls, and Scruffy Dog.

Just before you reach Ionian Blue there is a side path leading down to the sea, walk all the way down that path (even when you think you’re going the wrong way!) And you will be greeted by this.

As much as I love the beach, it was so refreshing to be on some lovely clean decking. Ionian Blue allow you to use the decking area and a sunbed with no charge as long as you buy a drink or 2 from their beach bar. Bargain!

 Can I just take a moment to talk about my amazing Batoko swimming costume? Batoko were recommended to me by my sisters and it is honestly one of my favourite things I’ve ever worn (just remember to buy a lined costume, unlined ones are completely see-through). When I first saw it online I remember Dan persuaded me not to buy it because I ‘would look like a 5 year old’… well jokes on you pal because everyone loved it!

He even admitted that he was coming around to it.

Once we had settled down on our loungers, mine in the shade and Dan’s in the sun, we decided that the water was too inviting to resist anymore.

The water was the perfect temperature and crystal clear, just as we had become accustomed (Bournemouth is just not going to cut it anymore). The fish here were absolutely huge! Which brings us to our next activity of the day…

SNORKELLING!

We pottered around for quite a while in the warm waters and saw so much life! Big fish, little fish (no cardboard boxes) eels, crabs, and starfish. But the best creatures we saw that day were not through our goggles.

As we were laying back on our sunbeds after our snorkelling Dan suddenly announced he saw some dolphins, to which everyone replied that they didn’t believe him, although we all opened our eyes just in case. Lo and behold around 30 yards out to sea were a school of 6 dark grey dolphins all cutting through the water in pairs. Up we all scrambled to get a better view and maybe even snap a picture or 2 (which we did not manage) and stood for around 10 minutes in silence watching the peaceful beauties go about their day, amazing.

All this excitement made us hungry so we clambered up to the beach bar for club sandwiches and berrgers.

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading, tanning (not me obvs) and drinking delicious Mythos. Although we didn’t do much it was one of the best days on our holidays just because we got to completely relax with absolutely nobody else around us and enjoy the sea for a whole day without impaling ourselves on sharp little pebbles.

If you ever go to Lefkada I thoroughly recommend this lovely hotel for a day. It completely recharged us to return home.

Second Path To The Right and Straight On 'Til Paradise, Lefkada

Dan and I recently went to a little Greek island called Lefkada. It was exactly what we both needed and turned out to be quite a bit more adventurous than either of us had originally thought. I will write 3 or 4 posts on this wonderful little island, but the first one is dedicated to the beach that we found on our second day. When we first saw the beach we dubbed it ‘The Secret Beach’, but after some rather amusing incidents we changed the name to ‘Octopus Beach’.


I obviously decided to climb the tree that hung over the rocks... Ever so gracefully.

The walk to the beach takes you through archways of wild acorn trees, climbing trees that grow out towards the sea and cliff edges that sound like a symphony when the waves crash against them.

To get to the beach you need to stay on the main road that runs from Lefkada to Nydri. When you get to this point you will see some steps leading down to a beach... but what you may not see is the tiny path that leads through the bushes and around the cliff edge to this.

What a beautiful sight!

And the walk there wasn’t too shabby either.

We spent our morning playing like happy otters in the clearest waters either of us had ever seen, and as we had the beach to ourselves we even decided to  wriggle out of our swimsuits and tick skinny dipping off our bucket list (no pictures, nobody wants to see that!)

This beach is only in the sunshine until around 1pm, so at around noon we emerged from the emerald water and laid out on the rocks to dry like lizards, with nothing but the sound of the waves as they dragged pebbles to their depths. Dan decided to tell me he was getting bored by seeing how far he could throw stones (boys, Eurgh!)

 It was at this point we discovered we were ravenously hungry, so with salty skin and smiles on our faces we left in search of food.


xx