The first trimester is usually not a pregnant ladies favorite. For me the first trimester is not fun because I feel stressed about the higher chance of miscarriage, keeping the pregnancy private and feeling like I am hungover most of the time. Now that I am in my third trimester I though I would list a few things that helped me get through the first trimester.

1. Starbucks Tumbler – While pregnant you need to drink more water than normal. For some reason I find it so much easier to drink more water from a bottle that has a straw. While I had mild morning sickness during the first trimester I found that ice water would often make me feel better. I tried to always have my tumbler with me.
2. Hi-Rise Wunder Unders – While you don’t really start showing during the first trimester, the bloat due to hormones makes me feel like I am. I love my Lululemon high wasted wunder unders because the gave me support and kept everything in place while working out or just running errands. I happily wore them until about 29 weeks when they started to roll down because of my big bump.
3. Nature Made Vitamins – Getting in a pre-natal vitamin with DHA is really important, especially during the first trimester while the baby is developing all of their important systems and organs. Vitamins can sometimes make me nauseous, something that I don’t need extra of at this time in pregnancy. Nature Made vitamins have never made me ill so they are a great choice.
4. GAP Lace Bralette – One of the first things to start to change when I get pregnant is my boobs. Underwires are almost instantly out. I really love these GAP Bralettes are soft and comfortable while still offering coverage.
5. Peppermint Altoids – Many women like ginger candies to help settle their stomachs but they just seemed to make me feel worse. Peppermint Altoids actually helped settle down nausea for me, with the bonus of fresh breath.
6. Garmin Fenix 5 – I actually have the Fenix 3 watch but the Fenix 5 is the current model. I have tried my best to stay active this pregnancy while also keeping an eye on my heart rate. I raced a pretty difficult trail 10k during my first trimester. I was concerned about my heart rate being too high for too long, so I used my Fenix with the Garmin Run heart rate monitor to watch my effort. There is some debate about what really is safe and maybe it is ok to workout at higher efforts but my doctor said to keep my heart rate below about 140-150 BPM. For me a race or workout is not worth risking any damage to my tiny little baby.

Everyone in our house is loving Coconut oil. The kind people at Skinny & Co sent me a sample pack of their products when they heard how much I am loving coconut oil. I have been using it on my hair, which is so nice since Colorado has been so dry and I have long crazy hair. But the best uses have been for me and my baby. Coconut oil is really helped with some breast feeding issues we were having, and we use it as moisturizer for Cannon. We checked with our pediatrician and she said Coconut oil was a great all natural nipple cream and lotion for a baby.  There are so many other uses as well, and it smells amazing!!!

Lindsey Hine’s podcast I’ll Have Another is super fun and a must listen for anyone, but especially women runners. I love listening to it while running, commuting or just cleaning my house. I have been catching up on old episodes, I will be sad when I catch up and have to wait a week for new ones!

I am loving these tiny Saucony shoes. They are super tiny and cute, I think Cannon’s feet have never been small enough to fit in them (the boy has giant boat feet). We gave these shoes to my parents back in October 2015 with a tag that read “Grandma and Grandpa est. June 2016” it was such a fun way to tell them that we were expecting and they would be grandparents. Such happy memories!

I am super loving this homemade Cherry Balsamic Dressing it’s super easy to make and a fun change up.

What are you loving this week?