15. First Trimester Checklist Essentials: From Choosing A Provider to Managing Morning Sickness

In this episode, I'm walking you through everything you need to know for a confident, faith-filled first trimester—from the moment you see that positive test to building the foundation for your entire pregnancy journey.

Whether you're holding a pregnancy test with shaking hands, feeling overwhelmed by all the decisions ahead, or wanting to honor God through this long awaited season, this episode will equip you with both practical wisdom and spiritual encouragement for the weeks ahead.

This isn't just another pregnancy to-do list. It's a grace-filled guide that helps you navigate early pregnancy without fear, make provider decisions with confidence, and find rest in God's perfect plan for you and your baby—even when morning sickness has you feeling anything but peaceful.

In this episode, I share:

🙏 How to celebrate and pray over your pregnancy as an act of worship (whether this pregnancy was planned or not)

👥 Wise guidelines for deciding who to tell and when—protecting your heart in the process 

🏥 How to choose the right provider and birth setting that aligns with your values 

🍎 Nutrition foundations and prenatal vitamin recommendations that actually make a difference 

😴 Gentle, grace-filled strategies for managing morning sickness and soul-crushing fatigue 

💪 How to build a support system and ask for help without feeling like you're failing 

✝️ Biblical encouragement for surrendering control and trusting God's sovereignty over your pregnancy

Scripture Shared: 

"Behold, I am doing a new thing. I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." – Isaiah 43:19 (ESV)

Mentioned in this episode: 

✨ Christian Mama Birth Prep Library - Your go-to collection of faith-based birth prep tools, including "Top 10 Questions to Ask a Prospective Provider" handout.

📚 Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols - The ultimate evidence-based nutrition guide.

📖 The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin - A comprehensive guide for your support person (partner, mom, or friend) with practical tips for emotional and physical support.

🎧 Listen to Episode 13 - I have a deep dive on the pros and cons of each birth setting.

📊 Birth Setting Quiz - Not sure if hospital, birth center, or home birth is right for you? Take this simple quiz.

 💊 FullWell Fertility Prenatal Multivitamin - The prenatal that actually meets your nutritional needs during pregnancy.

📱 "Not By My Strength" 30-day devotional - A faith-focused devotional designed specifically for pregnancy.

🫖 B6 and magnesium supplements for morning sickness - Take 50mg or less of B6 1-2 times a day, and suggests this magnesium supplement.

💛 Work with Me 1:1 - Personalized pregnancy and birth support that integrates faith and evidence-based care, including virtual coaching, doula support, and comprehensive childbirth education. 

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a mama who needs to hear this message.

Let's choose faith over fear in every season of motherhood. Go here for the full blog post, show n

Transcript

Natalie Portman: 0:45

Hey there, mama. Whether you just saw that positive pregnancy test or you're already a few months in and wondering if you're on the right track, this episode is for you. Today we'll cover everything from choosing the right provider and picking a prenatal vitamin to nourishing your body, finding spiritual rest, and building a support system that honors your values. And if you've been dealing with things like nausea, exhaustion, and even overwhelm. I'm also sharing some gentle grace-filled tips for managing morning sickness and first trimester fatigue that can carry you through the weeks ahead. So again, whether you're brand new to this journey or just circling back for some peace and clarity, I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in. The first thing I'll want to go over in our first trimester checklist is first celebrating and just praying over this precious baby that the Lord has given you. I know for many women, it's a huge feat just to see that positive pregnancy test, and if that's you, if it was a long journey to get to that point, give praise and thanks to the Lord first and foremost, and then start praying over this baby, asking the Lord to bless this baby as he or she is growing in your womb, that you would have the wisdom to know how best to love and serve them and see it as worship to the Lord, not as something that you need to walk in with fear and like you need to be perfect at this. That is not what the Lord's asking you to do. If he wanted perfect parents, he wouldn't have blessed any of us with these beautiful babies. So you don't have to be a perfect parent, the more you learn, the more you can care for this precious baby. And then next you might want to consider who to tell and when to start telling people that you're pregnant. I remember when we first found out we were pregnant with Ellie, I felt like I had to hold that in for a long time. I wanted my family to know right away. That was my natural inclination, was wanting to tell them. But for some reason I felt like I needed to keep it hidden. I wanted to do the big surprise and have our family all together and we could tell them at the same time. And that's totally fine if you wanna go that way. That is perfectly fine. And then with Daniel, we didn't wait quite as long this second time, and it's one of those things where I don't think there is a hard line wait until the end of the first trimester or wait until this certain perfect timeframe. If you are just itching to tell somebody that you are pregnant. My kind of rule of thumb for if I'm gonna tell somebody is, and this sounds a little bit morbid, so I'm sorry if this is morbid, but if I'm willing to tell them I'm pregnant, am I also willing to share if we have a miscarriage? And that's just a way to kind of protect your own heart. Say baby for some reason, doesn't make it past that first trimester. Do you want to have to post on social media again that you lost your baby, or are you okay with sharing that? Are you open to sharing what the Lord is doing positive and negative in your life? Again, that there's no hard and fast rules here. It's just. I think a good rule of thumb, whoever you're willing to share with this news early on, especially make sure that it's people that if you do share the news, these are also the same people that you would invite to pray with you to just console you if there is a loss. During this pregnancy and that's nothing to be ashamed of. If there is a loss, there are so many women that lose babies in that first trimester especially, and not to scare you because again, we are not operating in fear here, but that's just a reality of nurturing a life so early on, and the Lord is truly sovereign over all that happens that he alone can give and take away life. And he is perfectly in his power and we don't ever need an explanation for why he does the things that he does, but we can truly trust in him that he is working all things, including miscarriage for our good and his glory. And so that's kind of my only thing that I suggest when you're deciding who to tell and when to tell is. Feel free to tell whoever you want however far along you are in your pregnancy, but just know that there is a chance that you could also be sharing some sad news and just being wise with who all you're sharing, and basically it just comes down to you knowing yourself the best. Next up is choosing the right provider. This is huge. Honestly, this is one of the biggest decisions you will make in this first trimester. If you listen to podcast, episode 13, I go over the different types of birth settings, hospital, birth center, and home birth, and giving, you know, deep dive into the pros and cons of each of those birth settings as well as a birth setting quiz that you can take to kind of help you start thinking through what option might be best for you based on your values. So this is the trimester where you really want to start locking that in, although you can always change at any point. I share in episode 13 how I have had a handful of clients who decided at the literal last second, like two weeks before they gave birth, that they were going to switch from a hospital provider to a home birth provider. So if. Just know that it's never too late to switch, but it's much easier to establish the care earlier on in your pregnancy. Especially if there's high demand for certain providers. There's a really great OBGYN here in Jacksonville, and they are pretty hard to get in with. And so if you want to go with them as the hospital provider, you want to know very early on that's who you wanna go with and start getting in with that practice. And then same with birth centers and home birth providers. Their schedules, depending on how popular they are they might fill up quickly and not have the space for your due time. Start thinking through those options now and just know it can always change and that's okay. My biggest piece of advice with this decision is to seek the Lord's wisdom in it. Another thing you can do is if you go into the Christian Mama birth prep library, if you sign up for access to that, which I'll include the link in the show notes, you can also download a handout called. The"top 10 questions to ask a prospective provider". And this just can give you some insights into kind of how to vet a provider and say you're already with a practice and you're like I like them so far. Say it's an OBGYN, you can bring these 10 questions and you don't have to. All of the questions, but you can look through these 10 questions and pick out the ones that are most important to you to ask to kind of see if you're aligned with that provider and use that as a guide to get a sense of, am I getting some red flags here? Am I getting some yellow flags here? What's going on with this provider? Do I feel like we're aligned? Do I feel like this is where the Lord is calling us? So check out those two things. Podcast episode 13 to deep dive into the birth setting options, and then download that top 10 questions to ask a prospective provider inside the Christian Mama birth prep library. The next really important thing I would love to emphasize is getting grounded in your nutrition. This is huge, especially in this first trimester. Obviously, if you are dealing with major food aversions or even something as serious as having hyperemesis where you literally can't keep anything down. You, everything you eat comes back up. You're unable to tolerate basically anything, and you're possibly even needing IV fluids to keep you hydrated. But if you are able to keep food down. I highly recommend you checking out the book, real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols. It's a phenomenal book where she goes over all of the nutritional needs that you have during pregnancy, and even debunks some of the common things we're supposed to avoid, like raw fish and kombucha, like just random things. She goes into some of that and I have found it so helpful throughout my pregnancies to just know how to nourish my body the best. She also goes into detail about. Choosing a prenatal vitamin. I remember with both of my pregnancies, I really was kind of taken a stab in the dark. Like I just would go to CVS and just look at the labels and be like this looks good. I don't know. And I would highly encourage you to heed the advice that Lily Nichols lays out in her book, and rather than boring you with all of the nutrients that she mentions in the book and kind of that target range that she recommends for pregnancy, I will include all of that in the episode show notes. And then she recommends a prenatal vitamin called FullWell fertility. And it is actually the one that I took as well, and it's fantastic. The only thing I don't like about it is that it's eight capsules. I know that sounds a little overwhelming, but yes, it's eight capsules that you take. You can space those out like four in the morning, four in the evening. I have always found that it was helpful. After eating breakfast and I would drink decaf coffee'cause I love my coffee, even if it's decaf. And I would take the eight capsules with the, with coffee. And that seemed to be fine for me. I think you can even. Take the capsules like and break them open and pour them into something and then you can just consume it that way. So that prenatal, I will link also in the show notes if you're interested in checking out that. And I think on Amazon you can even subscribe to it, so it will send automatically to you and you get a little bit of a discount when you subscribe. But yeah that prenatal is phenomenal, really covers all of the bases of what she lays out in her book, and it really is astounding how lacking the prenatal vitamins are that are available for the most part. And really, if you're taking a one capsule, vitamin prenatal every day, you're likely not meeting anywhere close to the nutrients that your body is needing. And especially if you did not get the opportunity to take a prenatal ahead of actually becoming pregnant, like a lot of providers will say, start a prenatal three months before you plan to conceive, so you didn't even get that timeframe. This is a great way to kind of what she calls like insurance. Like it's Nutritional insurance for your baby and you so that you're not depleting yourself of the nutrient stores that your body needs to create this baby. And to do it without harming yourself. So yeah, check out that FullWell fertility, prenatal vitamin. And like I said, if you're curious to compare the prenatal vitamin that you're currently taking you can look on the show notes to look through, like each of the nutrients she recommends and the range, and then see how your prenatal vitamin compares. And then one thing that I would highly suggest on a more spiritual note. Is start journaling. I definitely did a little bit more of that with Ellie than I have been able to do, you know, since having a child, because obviously you're much busier once you have kids. But if especially this is your first baby or you know, that is a way that the Lord really speaks to you. Going to the Lord in prayer and journaling and putting on some worship music and just like sitting in his presence. I also created a 30 day devotional called Not By My Strength, and that's a great devotional to also start in this first trimester. And you can even,, do the devotional over and over again. It's a PDF, so you can, work through it through the first trimester and then do it again in the second and just grounds you again and again into God's word and just going to him in prayer. There are prayers and question prompts in that devotional to just help you process all that's happening during this beautiful, and like I say, challenging season. And then you can even start preparing for the birth itself. I know it seems a little bit premature, but I think that reading the Real Food for Pregnancy Book, and there's another book that I recommend called The Birth Partner, and this is by Penny Simkin and it really helps like dads, or you are, it's gonna be your mom that's gonna be your birth partner or your best friend. This is a great way for your partner and you to prepare for this upcoming birth. She goes over just some of the emotional signposts of what the different stages of labor are, but even just practical ways ahead of time for how to prepare and support somebody through this pregnancy journey. So check out that book that is also gonna be linked in the show notes. And I really just like to emphasize early education. I don't want you to realize later in the game oh man, if I had known that, I probably would've done this a little bit differently. And so not that you should feel like you need to have all of the answers and everything figured out now, but the more you can educate yourself on the front end, you're gonna make decisions that align more with where you're headed and where you feel like the Lord is leading you. So definitely check out that book. That's a really good one. I think it's. Even available as an audiobook, which I am a huge audiobook person, I don't really have time to sit and read. And so audio books and podcasts are like one of my favorite ways to, or two of my favorite ways to consume information and start to just meditate on that and absorb that wisdom and knowledge. Another thing I would love to point out for this first trimester checklist is start really listening to your body and rest often. I know that's really hard, especially if you already have children and it is much harder to rest when you're chasing around your kids and have schedules and maybe you're still working and just all the things. But I want you to give yourself permission to rest during this time. If it means having to cancel dates with friends and going to bed really early, I remember that was a huge thing in the first trimester both times was. I would go to bed sometimes at seven o'clock, like I, literally couldn't make it past seven o'clock. And so that's okay. If you are going to bed really early, that is totally fine. Listen to your body and if you're dealing with some really intense morning sickness, which is totally a misnomer. It is not always in the morning. I kind of relate it to feeling like I'm hungover for six weeks, which don't ask me how I know that. So it can be totally different for how you're experiencing that kind of icky, nauseous like drained feeling. But I wanted to give you some practical tips on how to kind of manage that morning sickness and the pregnancy fatigue. So Lily Nichols again, love, her book and what all she lays out. But she has a whole section on how to manage morning sickness and these are some of the things that she lays out. So first you want to eat very regularly when you are not feeling super great in this first trimester. If you can eat every two to three hours, that's really gonna help your blood sugar so that you're not having big blood sugar swings, which can absolutely make nausea more noticeable. She says, never eat a naked carb. And what she means by that is just a carb without any protein. So say you're eating some fruit, like a banana or an apple, eat that with some nut butter, peanut butter, almond butter, cashew nut butter, something like that to where it's pairing a carb with a protein, and again, balancing your blood sugar. Same with if you're just eating a piece of toast or some crackers, if you can pair that with a protein. So if it's crackers or toast, put some nut butter on there. Or an egg on top of a piece of toast. Something where you are introducing protein, and carbs, not just carbohydrates by itself'cause again, that will really swing the blood sugar out of regulation and make you feel possibly worse. The other thing is she tries to emphasize giving herself a ton of grace during this time, especially if you are having a really hard time wanting to eat anything other than carbs or you can't keep anything down. Our bodies are super resilient. The Lord obviously knew what he was doing when he created our bodies and. Although it's not ideal, if you're not able to keep anything down, our body is able to sustain itself if that's the case. And so give yourself heaping amounts of grace if you are not eating as healthy as you want to or that your body is used to. Eat what you're able to tolerate and if you are able to eat things and you're not having a ton of aversions, continue eating as healthy as you can. And not really giving into a ton of those like, oh, well, I'm. Craving ice cream and pickles. So I'm just gonna eat a ton of that. You don't wanna fall to either side of the pendulum too far. And then the other thing that she recommends is trying B6 and magnesium, and so B6, I think it's if you're taking 50 milligrams or less over several times a day, if you're taking any more, if you're taking a hundred milligram B6 vitamin that probably is gonna be too much. So try and pair that down. You can even split tabs, but I'll put a link in the show notes for a B6 supplement. That's 50 milligrams so that you can take it at a lesser dose that's more appropriate for morning sickness. And then magnesium, she also recommends a certain type of magnesium. I'll put that in episode show notes as well, the type of magnesium that she recommends for morning sickness. And then I kind of mentioned this earlier, if you are having an issue, keeping things down but it's important to keep taking your prenatal. If that looks like you end up taking it at night when maybe you're a little bit less nauseous or just taking it at a time of day where you're less nauseous that can be really helpful. Or splitting up the doses that FullWell fertility prenatal that I mentioned is fantastic. Only downside is that you have to take eight capsules to get the full dosage. And so if that looks like you taking four in the morning, four in the evening, or splitting open the capsules, pouring it into something like a smoothie so that you can stomach it literally absolutely do that. Yeah. And then when it comes to fatigue, like the soul sucking, pregnancy fatigue, like that's what I had with both my pregnancies as well, is try napping for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. Like little power naps. It helps you not get such deep sleep that when you wake up you feel so much more groggy. If you're working, go get in your car, and make it comfortable and just take a little power nap. If your kids are still napping, see if you can grab a nap while they're napping. Don't feel guilty though if you do need a longer nap. If you are finding yourself. Absolutely wiped out still. Even with the little power nap, and you have the ability to sleep for longer, go for it. Just listen to your body and rest with intention. If you know you're not able to truly actually fall asleep, then just take that time to throw in some worship music, pray journal, just do something where you can wind down and rest, even if it doesn't mean actually sleeping. I love to also point out that even Jesus, had to take times to nap, like the story of Jesus in the storm and he there he was like napping in the middle of a crazy storm. And maybe that's what it feels like for you right now if, especially if you have older kids and you're like. Yeah, I feel like if I were to fall asleep, it would be like me falling asleep in a storm and sometimes that is what's needed. I remember feeling so guilty when I was pregnant with Daniel, when I would have to put on like a movie or something for Ellie just to sit there for a little bit so I could nap. Mama, do what you need to do. Obviously, everything can come in a season and if it looks like for a season. You're eating out more because you can only stomach certain things you can't even cook anymore. If that looks like your child watching more TV as you rest, give yourself that, that grace that you are not failing, if that's what it's taking for you to actually survive throughout the day. And then that kind of leads me into building a support system. So if you have family nearby, if you have friends that could come and help, this is a great opportunity to ask for help. I love to point out the verse where it talks about you have not because you ask not. And that really has struck a chord with me because I feel like I get myself all bent out of shape when I feel like I'm overwhelmed by all the things I have to do, but I'm like, wait, did I even ask anybody to help me? Or am I just heaping all of this responsibility on myself and then throwing myself a pity party that I have all these things to do. So if you, not to say you're throwing yourself a pity party, but if there is help available to you. Get the help, and don't see it as failure. See it as a way to honor this season that you're in and that other people can be invited into this space to love and serve you. And same goes with my services. I love supporting families in this season of pregnancy. Hence why I became a doula and just seeing the Lord, just grow this ministry is kind of how I see it. Ministry and business as a birth doula and just as a fellow mama myself going through this. So I have virtual birth coaching, and virtual birth doula support. So if you're interested in that, I would love to connect with you. I have a free 15 minute call a discovery call if you're interested in that option. I would love to see if we would be a good fit for each other. And I also offer online Christian childbirth education. This is a take it your own pace. Own it for life. So say this is your first child, or maybe it's not, and you just want a refresher, and you can take that course again and again and just get all of the wisdom and information you need to navigate this pregnancy and birth experience in a way that, honors the Lord. And then I mention it many times, but the Christian Mama birth prep library, there are a ton of free resources in there that would be helpful to you during this season. So sign up for that. And I would love to see you just using those resources to gain the knowledge, to make the right choices choices that are just honoring to the Lord. And then wanna close out this first trimester checklist with just encouraging you to trust the Lord in this season. You're gonna hear me say it. It's gonna go in one ear out the other. Let me say it again. I want you to trust the Lord in this season. He is not at all surprised by this baby, by anything that you're feeling or experiencing. He knows exactly what is going to happen. This baby's birth plan and this pregnancy and everything has already been written. He knows exactly what's gonna happen, and I think fear starts to arise in us when we feel like we need to have everything figured out. And that is such a lie, and it's veiled as wisdom or it's veiled as concern and care and wanting to do the right thing. But if you really look under the hood, I know for me, I'll speak for me. I know that whenever I start getting really anxious about the plans and all those things, it's really coming from a place that I don't trust the Lord, that I don't really think that he has the best for me and. I want you to root that out. I want you to go to him and say, Lord, I'm really scared about these things. I am dreading this thing. I hate that i'm feeling so nauseous. I don't like that. I'm so tired all the time. He can take all of that. And so go to him and just ask him, Lord, help me surrender this to you. I have all these concerns and these concerns are valid, but ultimately, if I'm not laying this at your feet, I'm not honoring you in this season. I am saying that I honor you with my lips, but my heart and my mind and the decisions I'm making and the reason why I'm making these decisions, I want them to truly honor you. So just seek the Lord in that and just really trust that he the maker of everything with a word of his mouth. He spoke everything into existence and with the breath of life that only he can give, he breathed life into your womb. That is so miraculous. Who do we think we are that we can make life happen and that we can sustain this child and know when exactly, certain body parts to form for our baby or all these things, like who do we think we are? Absolutely not. It is so humbling when we realize that the Lord is using us to grow life, to nurture life and to bring life into this world. So I pray that that's an encouragement to you, but I also want you to really look deeply into your heart behind your motives and why you're doing the things that you're doing. Because I really want you to come to a place of true surrender and rest in the Lord so that you can just enjoy this season, not because you feel like you're doing everything perfectly, because you will not do all of this perfectly, but that he is perfect and he is worthy of our worship, and he is so good even when things don't go the way that we want them to. So that's my encouragement there. I would love to also point out this scripture from Isaiah. It's Isaiah 43:19 and it says,"Behold, I am doing a new thing. I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." So this pregnancy, this baby, it's all a part of a new thing that God is doing in your life. And even when the path feels unclear, he is making a way. So again, it's not saying, behold, you are doing a new thing, and so you need to figure out a way to make all this work, and you need to find all the ways to support yourself in this season. That's not at all what the verse says. It says God is doing a new thing. He is making a way. He is making rivers in a desert. And so again, take that pressure off of yourself, sister, do not feel like this is all on you to make all of these things work. So now I would just love to pray over you as we're closing out today's episode. Lord Jesus, I lift this precious mama listening right now. I lift her up to you, and I just thank you so much for the life that you're forming in her for this miraculous new thing that you're doing in her womb and in her heart and soul. I thank you so much that before she ever even saw a positive pregnancy test. You already saw this child and you have a plan for this baby. Lord, I just pray that you would help her recognize and embrace this new thing that you're doing in her life, even in the midst of nausea and exhaustion and anxiety and uncertainty. I pray that she would experience your presence and that you would help her see that you are making a way even when her path seems uncertain. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would surround her with the right people, with providers that are encouraging her and providing her with wisdom and an uplifting community. I pray that you would speak truth in the moments of quiet or the moments that she's hearing lies from the enemy. And I pray that you would just help her find joy in the small and beautiful things happening in her life right now. I pray, Lord Jesus, that you would just continue to knit this baby perfectly in her womb and that she would just prepare for this journey ahead, not just with information cognitively, but just also a spiritual transformation that you wanna draw her closer to you. Lord Jesus. I ask this in your holy name. Amen. So that's it, mama. I would love for you to check out all of the resources I mentioned in the episode show notes, and sign up for that Christian mama birth prep library, where there's gonna be those questions to ask the provider and so many other resources for just preparing for this season. And. Again, I want you to just be reminded that you are not alone in this. If you feel like the Lord is calling you to get extra support I would love to walk alongside you in that. So check out my website if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, and just praying for you as you are walking faithfully in this beautiful new season.