First Trimester Diaries

Notes I made when I was in my first trimester

Food is gross. I can’t even look at food. Why are eggs suddenly repulsive? All I want is off-white colored food.

My daughter is a toddler now, and I can say this too shall pass. That being said, first trimester (and even the full pregnancy) can be rough for many. You’re not alone.

Nobody tells you that pregnancy doesn’t just change your body. It changes your relationship with food in ways that feel deeply personal and completely irrational.

I used to think pregnancy cravings would arrive immediately. Pickles. Ice cream. Watermelon at midnight (which came during my third trimester). Instead, I got… food aversion.

Not specific foods. Just… food.

The thought of opening the fridge felt like opening a portal to a haunted house. Everything in there was either too wet, too smelly, too colorful, too food-like. I could barely look at it without negotiating with my stomach.

And eggs? Eggs had betrayed me.

One day they were breakfast. The next they became tiny sulfur bombs masquerading as protein. Even the idea of them made me recoil. I don’t know what happened, but whatever treaty existed between me and eggs had officially been terminated.

All I wanted were foods that existed in the comforting spectrum of off-white: plain toast, crackers, rice, buttered toast, Trader Joe’s frozen falafels, bagels.

It was strangely humbling. You spend years learning about balanced meals, colorful plates, vegetables of every shade, and then your body says, “Actually, today we’re only accepting beige.”

And then one day I stopped arguing.

Surviving the first trimester for me was less about optimization and more about surrender. Fed is fed. Calories are calories. If my prenatal vitamin is carrying the nutritional team while a plain bagel does the emotional labor, then that’s the arrangement for now.

That season taught me that pregnancy is full of contradictions. You’re growing a human while simultaneously feeling like the sight of a cucumber could ruin your entire afternoon.

So here’s to the beige buffet. To the crackers in every purse. To foods with almost no smell, almost no color, and almost no personality.