How do you handle first trimester of pregnancy? I am so nauseous and tired that I can barely work. Last week I didn’t even hit 20 billable hours. I’m currently 8 weeks, so believe there is a few more weeks of this until hopefully some relief in the second trimester.

Force yourself to eat as much protein as you possibly can especially in the morning. Snack on crackers and protein things throughout the day. Peanut butter sandwiches on high quality bread + a glass of milk were the one thing I could always eat so I did that for breakfast plus whatever else my stomach could handle that day.

If at all possible, take a quick nap during the day. Like, shut your door and lie down on the floor with pillows you stash under your desk. My schedule worked out to where I could grab a 30 minute nap around 11am and it was a lifesaver.

Do all your laundry and supper meal prep on the weekends (or use a meal service) so you can come home, eat, and sleep.

Give yourself lots of grace. You're making a whole beautiful precious baby ❤️

Hold onto hope. For me, it got lots better at about 12 weeks.

It’s brutal but it almost certainly will get better. Sleep when you need to and ask for coverage from your teams. We cannot get through this alone.

Give yourself grace. If you can just survive the day that’s enough—don’t worry about weekly billables. I struggled in December for the same reasons and also got some bad feedback on an assignment bc my brain capacity was zero. Now I’m back to normal billing plus some and things are much better substantively

Currently 26 weeks and 8 weeks was the lowest point in my pregnancy so far (peak nausea and exhaustion). It’ll get better as the placenta starts to takeover in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I found getting 9-10 hours of sleep helped and I told my supervisor early so she understood and there was a record of it. We agreed not to share the news widely unless an issue came up. She was super understanding and encouraged me to WFH and take short naps as needed.

I took intermittent medical leave to cover IVF and pregnancy related time. I still ended up pretty short on hours (pregnancy was rough, I sold my house and moved, and was off my add meds through pregnancy, plus I had used a lot of the hours on IVF). I was very candid with people I worked with and also—crucially—was very clear in my written self-eval and in talking to the person who was responsible for representing me through the eval process that my hours were short because of pregnancy. I know there’s fear in disclosing a pregnancy at some firms, but I think doing so protected me when my hours were low, and I’d do it again. Whether because I notified them in writing, because it was clearly out of step with performance in other years, or because the firm was actually genuinely supportive, my firm did right by me that year and made sure I knew not to worry about any negative consequences for not hitting hours that year.

Unpopular opinion, but I recommend telling a trusted partner if you have one. The key word there is "TRUSTED." Partners that have your back are super helpful in providing coverage and noting why your workload may go down for a period of time. When I was a senior associate, I had a few losses, which was hard. I finally let the partner I worked most for (and trusted) know what was going on. He made sure I got the uninterrupted time off I needed to properly grieve. The next time I got pregnant with my first kid, he was the one who had my back when I was too nauseous to take calls or needed a nap in the mother's room, and made sure there was coverage. Not having to explain why there was a dip for a few weeks in my hours was also a welcome respite psychologically.

Solidarity! First tri was sooo hard. I’m on mat leave now and I honestly am not sure how I made it through… at the time each day felt impossibly long. At the end of the week I’d feel simultaneously proud that I even survived and upset that I hadn’t billed more (silly, I know) Now, I hardly remember it. The body is amazing at playing tricks on you!! I didn’t want to tell work people until after first tri. looking back, part of me wishes I had told them earlier and talked through a temporary reduced hour schedule for first tri (not sure if that would have been an option, but I should have at least asked). There were some really hard days/late nights. Maybe adrenaline carried me through?My office is hybrid and has a low hour requirement (I’m not in big law) and those 2 things really helped. The days I worked from home I slept in until 850 and logged on at 9. I slept as much as possible on the weekends (weekend rest was key for me). I remember drinking a lot of ginger tea and eating a lot of pretzels throughout the day.

I’m mid-level so I tried to delegate as much as I could, but I was the most junior person on most cases, so that didn’t work the best for me, but could help you.

The first week of second tri my nausea went away and I didn’t need 12+ hours of sleep to function, so I worked really hard during second tri to make up for first tri. I wouldn’t recommend that. I wish I had just accepted early on I wouldn’t meet my hours last year and that was ok. I still got a bonus and raise.

You might consider asking your doctor about preg safe nausea medicine. People recommend unisom + b12 for non-prescription, but unisom knocks you out, so I only took that combo after 7 PM.

Weeks 7-9 were the worst of first tri for me. 10-13 were still bad but better than 7-9. Like I said above, second tri was a lot better. I still had food aversions to some things, but could eat way more and didn’t have the all day long nausea.

All of that to say, I don’t have the best advice except for finding small things to best curb some of your symptoms and just make it through to second tri.

You’re doing great!! Give yourself a lotttt of grace when it comes to hours. Your health is so much more important. Working in the legal field and being pregnant is not for the weak 😅

This was me too. I got some relief from making myself eat more little snacks like blueberries starting when I woke up (bizarrely, the food actually helped curb my nausea a bit, and also helped with energy) and staying really hydrated and taking vitamin B6 (and at night, unisom), but even then, I felt pretty not great and was not billing as much as I used to. You may have to try to just hang on and give yourself some grace — your body’s literally making a baby!

One thing that really helped the nausea for me was making sure I had something in my stomach at all times. I kept pretzels and Goldfish crackers in my purse, in my desk, in my bedside drawer, everywhere, and I just constantly munched on those. Sour hard candies also help - I got some from a company in Amazon called “Preggie Pops” and those helped a lot too.

Are you me? First pregnancy and already got bitched out by a partner — I don’t think they understand how difficult day to day is or that you can’t even predict what the next day is going to look like. I’m doing my best but I want to die every day — constant nausea, insomnia, and the only medication that helps puts me to sleep, so not helpful…

Find somewhere to lay down for a little bit

Thank you all for the support ❤️

Crackers, saltines etc

I took unisom and b6 for nausea for 2 pregnancies and it allowed me to at least get to work each day, but hours will surely drop to some extent! I always felt so much better at the end of week 12.