First trimester symptoms with twins…

As with yesterday’s first trimester fashion post (“fashion” – hah!) I want to revisit the first trimester again today to talk all things early pregnancy symptoms. I feel like I need to get this post out of the way and then I can get on to the how I’m feeling NOW stuff because, thankfully, the second trimester has so far been much easier.

I loved reading about early pregnancy symptoms when I first found out we were expecting, especially posts specific to twins as it was these posts – way before our first scan – which convinced my husband there were two little bubs in there.

Having never had a singleton pregnancy, I can’t really compare my experience to anything else. Of course all pregnancies are different, even pregnancy to pregnancy for the same woman, but from speaking to girlfriends I’d say the general consensus is that twin symptoms are similar to singleton symptoms except everything starts that bit earlier due to the extra hormones.

As always, this is just my personal experience and by no means a substitute for medical advice! But here are the specific symptoms I enjoyed during the first three months…

Breathlessness…

This was my very first symptom, before even getting to test day. I was very alarmed by how breathless I was and needed to rest regularly to catch my breath if I was walking anywhere, often having to sit down at bus stops whilst out and about before trying to tackle the next twenty metres. Even talking could get me out of breath. My pace had to slow down dramatically and I did see a doctor about this, but by the time I’d seen the doctor I knew I was pregnant and the worst of the breathlessness had calmed down. I do have asthma and pregnancy can exacerbate asthma in some people, but my doctor didn’t think it was asthma related and was just my body getting used to the pregnancy. The worst of it went away within a few weeks and I generally just took it easy.

Strong pregnancy test result…

Not a symptom as such, but having done dozens of pregnancy tests during TTC and always drawing a blank, it was staggering to see just how quickly those two lines appeared on test day. There was no need to worry about “line eyes”, there were two dark and distinct lines within seconds of testing. A digital test with a weeks predictor then said I was further along than I knew I could be. Anecdotally people say this can be a twin symptom as you have more HCG in your body, but I never had HCG blood tests or anything like that so I don’t really know if my HCG levels were overly high that early.

Extreme tiredness…

I’ve had real flu three times and my tiredness in the early days was akin to that, just without the feeling of possibly dying at any minute. If someone had stood at the end of my bed with a £50 note, most days I couldn’t have got up to nab it off them. I felt extremely blissed out though (no doubt in part because I was beyond thrilled to be pregnant) and I quite liked just drifting in and out of sleep and not moving for days at a time. It was a surreal kind of tiredness, like every cell in my body was working on growing and sustaining the babies and there was no energy left for me. Sitting down felt genuinely exhausting, I needed to lie down as much as possible.

Faintness…

I guess this is similar to extreme fatigue, but I mean specific faintness and head rushes when standing and so on. I’d often see stars or nearly black out if I did anything as crazy as “stand up” but my blood pressure and iron levels have so far been normal at every test. Again, I just learnt to take things slow.

Breast pain…

I’d seen specialists pre-pregnancy because of my cyclical breast pain, but pregnancy breast pain was a whole new kettle of (very mean) fish. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t stand under the shower, I couldn’t touch them…they just felt like big ol’ bags of poison and it was horrendous. I still can’t be braless at night, but the worst of the pain subsided by the end of the first trimester and I can now hug people without yelping.

Aversions…

The tea aversion began a few days before the positive pregnancy test and that was just one of many things I could no longer stomach. It wasn’t just about eating and drinking either, there were things I couldn’t look at and got very squeamish about too. I couldn’t look/touch/be near rubbish or discarded food without wanting to be sick. Seeing a half eaten sandwich on the pavement on the way to hospital once caused a minor meltdown. I go into aversions in full detail here as I had loads of them.

Nausea…

Obviously the most famous pregnancy symptom and obviously whoever named it “morning sickness” not “24/7 sickness” should be given a very stern telling off, if not a full on beating. Again, mine started before the positive pregnancy test and was an all-day every-day friend of mine til around 12 weeks when it eased off. I can still get very nauseous now but it’s definitely not daily and there’s no rhyme nor reason to when or why. I was so glad to see the back of this symptom and my heart genuinely goes out to any woman who has to put up with HG. You are heroes.

Intolerance to smells…

My heightened sense of smell made me wonder if I should offer my services to border patrol at Heathrow; I could live with the spaniels and be fed treats for finding bags of heroin and illegally imported ham. For weeks my intolerance was so bad that I couldn’t go in my kitchen because of a wooden chopping board at the back of a cupboard which I was adamant smelled too strongly “of wood”. Ya know because obviously wood is such a famously offensive smell.

Great hair…

For the first time in my life my hair doesn’t fall out when I brush it. I HAVE THICK HAIR. And I love it. (Yes I know it will fall out postpartum, shhhhh).

Thirst…

This was a later symptom in the first trimester as when my nausea was at its worst I didn’t want to really drink anything, but before I got my appetite back I got my thirst back and I could (and still can) drink litres of water and still want more.

Needing to wee constantly…

BUT not actually going for very long when I did. That was a fun symptom and I enjoyed getting up three times a night for what seemed like very little output.

Burping constantly…

Another sexy symptom. If I got through a sentence without burping at you then I was doing very well indeed.

Dry skin…

No it’s not snowing, I just took my jumper off and you were standing too close to me and my flaky gorgeousness.

BEING VERY HOT…

Honestly you could cook your dinner on me.

Vivid dreams…

These were fun, no complaints here.

Early bump…

People do say not to obsess over bump size and that every woman is different, but my bump definitely came well before 12 weeks despite having lost weight overall. I’d read countless times from mummy bloggers how frustrating it is to be asked “is it twins?” by strangers whilst pointing at a large bump, well let me tell you that when it IS twins that question just morphs into “are you sure it’s not triplets?” so basically: people are rude. That’s just another fun thing we have to contend with.

Painful bump/painful back/painful legs/painful bum…

My body has not enjoyed making room for two new humans, no matter how excited I may have been personally. My back went on strike very early on but thankfully it has gotten used to the growing bump a lot more now and the nerve pain I was suffering from in the first trimester has subsided. I do have a useless back anyway though so I’m not surprised I’ve had issues. I suffered from round ligament pain quite early too and was staggered by how uncomfortable this made me, but again – I guess it takes a lot of space to accommodate two new babies where there’s normally nothing.

EMOTIONS…

I have now cried at 98% of adverts on British television.

Headaches…

I’ve left this til near the end as the really bad headaches (and accompanying neck pain) didn’t start til around nine weeks pregnant. I still get them, I am currently typing this now whilst trying not to have a little cry over the fact my head feels like it’s in a vice, but generally I’d say this was more of a second trimester issue which I just started on early because WHY THE HELL NOT? None of my tests have come back with anything alarming so I’ve been told it’s just something I have to put up with. (Although I haven’t signed anything which says I can’t moan about it).

Extreme contentment…

I know that all the above is very very moany. Pregnancy, twins or not, is HARD for some women. But I do feel very lucky that the overriding emotion has been one of sheer joy. I am so happy to be making these babies and playing host to them and – headaches/smells/burps or not – I could not be more excited to meet them later this year.

A pic at exactly 12 weeks pregnant. I’ve taken a pic in this dress every week since 12 weeks so I’m excited to see what this looks like by the end! (I suspect it will have ripped open).

So I don’t *think* I’ve missed anything off my symptoms list, but I’ll update it if I remember anything else. And, just to reiterate again, every pregnancy is different and if you have any concerns you should always ask your midwife. What turns out to be ‘normal’ for one woman might not be for another, ya de ya da 😀

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