Your Pregnancy In Tasty Week Form
(no, I am not pregnant. This was something I created for Band Back Together’s Resource Pages. See, Mom! Those nursing textbooks you bought me ARE useful for things other than doorstops!)
Week One HA! Fooled you. It’s your period. The last one you (should) have for forty weeks. Enjoy it.
Week Two: Thank GOD that period bloat is gone.
Week Three: Sperm, meet egg! Hopefully it was preceded by a very nice, extremely expensive candle-lit dinner. If it wasn’t, WELCOME TO THE CLUB.
Week Four: Your baby is now a BLASTOCYST. It sounds like something you’d say when you sneeze, but I assure you this is where the magic happens (also: when you eat Twizzlers. They’re magical). That ball of rapidly dividing cells will implant itself into your warm cozy womb.
Week Five: CONGRATS, MAMA! Yer knocked up! But…your baby looks like a brine shrimp. It’s a very CUTE one, but it’s a brine shrimp. It does have wee arm and leg buds (I don’t think shrimpies have those, but I’m allergic, so you know). Even more exciting, all of it’s organ systems – including the heart and lungs – are beginning to form. You know, so it can scream it’s head off to you when you don’t buy it Justin Beaver tickets.
Week Six: You’re probably feeling like dogshit. It’s okay, have a saltine and some nice Gatorade. Y’know, stuff you can puke up more easily. If you’re like me, you probably look six months pregnant already, even though your blastocyst is the a little bigger than a poppyseed.
Week Seven: Your baby is getting it’s kidneys ready to properly whiz all over your face, your carpet, your couch, it’s bed, and anywhere else it can possibly pee. Babies are good that way. It’s approximately the size of a blueberry, which should make you a) starving or b) vomit to read. Sorry about the fruit thing.
Week Eight: Well, okay, good, your baby looks like a baby and less like a shrimp. PHEW. It’s got fingers and toes (they are webbed, but you know, think of it like a duck and NOT like a Carny.) Even better? IT’S TAIL IS ALMOST GONE. Yep. I said tail. I meant it, too. Plus, it’s brain is forming. So it can outwit you. Trust me, it will.
Week Nine: Your less shrimpy baby’s weight can now be measured in ounces. Like vodka. Even better? NO TAIL. Although, I might like a prehensile tail sometime.
Week Ten: Those creepy arm buds are limbs that can move now, which means that your baby could very well be flicking you off RIGHT NOW. You should put the naughty baby in Time Out and give Aunt Becky his toys.
Week Eleven: Did you know I had to look up how to spell “eleven?” Because I did. Your baby and his developing brain is much smarter than me, even if his muscles are gearing up to kick your ass from the inside.
Week Twelve: Okay, so your baby has a big head. Like HUGE. A melon of a head. Well, in proportion to the rest of it. Your bobble-headed baby is getting nails, too, which is fancy. If you’re lucky, you should be able to hear the galloping heartbeat via Fetal Doppler, too. Always exciting.
Week Thirteen: Did you know that fingerprints are thought to be created by fetal movement in the womb? I thought that was kinda neat. Anyway. Your baby’s three inch long body is catching up to it’s gigantor head.
Week Fourteen: Welcome to the second trimester. If you call it “the golden trimester” in my presence, I will cut you. So, your baby can now do all of these fancy things with it’s face, like grimace, suck it’s thumb, squint and frown. That’s all gearing up for the terrible two’s and the teenage years. Enjoy the expressions when you can’t see them in front of you telling you how LAME you are.
Week Fifteen: Your baby weighs as much as a shot of vodka. Or the ones Aunt Becky pours, which are two and a half ounces. Plus, it’s starting to look like a REAL BABY and not a freaky shrimp creature.
Week Sixteen: Your baby’s head is still ginormous. Luckily, it’s getting hair on that beast, so if it should decide to comb it’s hair in the womb, it so could. Your baby is also getting big enough to dance the night away, probably on the bladder, thereby interrupting your sleep in a series of nights that, trust me, you’ll be up with the baby. (you should put your baby in Time Out for that)
Week Seventeen: I’d tell you your baby was the size of a turnip but I have no clue what a turnip looks like so it’s useless. Your baby is getting sweat glands this week which means LOTS of stinky socks in your future.
Week Eighteen: Hopefully by now you’ve gotten to feel your baby tap-tappity-tap-tap you. Because he’s dancing up a freaking storm in there. And those small movements (called quickening) are what makes pregnancy worth it. No, seriously. SHUT UP, I’M ALLOWED TO HAVE FEELINGS.
Week Nineteen: Your baby can hear you sing. So knock off the crappy Britney impersonations (that was my note to self).
Week Twenty: So your baby is learning to breathe. Talk about awesome. No seriously, those lungs are important and it should practice breathing so it can scare the shit out of you with shrieks someday soon. I told you the good stuff first. Now? I need to warn you. Your baby is also covered with cheesy vernix caeseosa. And hair. Everywhere. See? I told you it was scary.
Week Twenty-One: You’ve probably figured out if your gestating a boy or girl. So get ready to pick out paint colors for the nursery and then make someone else paint it. Milk that pregnancy for all it’s worth, girl.
Week Twenty-Two: Your baby weighs almost a pound and is getting fatter by the minute. Don’t think you need to put him on Baby Atkins yet. Baby fat = good.
Week Twenty-Three: From the outside, your baby looks like the alien in Alien, what with the squirming and twisting and trying to exit through your belly button. Stupid baby; we all know that the belly button is NOT the place a baby comes from. It’s your vagina.
Week Twenty-Four: Now your baby can hear. So you can TOTALLY put it in time-out for making you retain so much freaking WATER.
Week Twenty-Five: If you have an ultrasound now, you can probably see some of baby’s hair swirling around. Unless you have a cue-ball baby. Then, not so much.
Week Twenty-Six: If you’re having a boy crotch parasite, his testicles are descending to the scrotum. Just what you wanted to think about.
Week Twenty-Seven: You’ll know if baby gets the hiccups now because your belly will jump around all freaky-style. Luckily, baby isn’t big enough to HURT YOU yet when it does that.
Week Twenty-Eight: Your baby weighs over two pounds, but still, it’s pretty skinny. On the upside, it’s less wrinkled and red than it’s been before. Even cooler, it can open it’s lash-rimmed eyes. Bummer it can’t tell you what it sees because I bet it’s rad. Also: 96% of babies born at 28 weeks gestation survive. Win!
Week Twenty-Nine: You should probably sign up for those Lamaze classes so you can answer me a question that has haunted me for years: why do the ladies in the birthing videos deliver naked?
Week Thirty: Now, baby is getting ready to be expelled from your body. It’s assumed the “head down” position, if it’s a good baby, and it’s getting fatter! See, unlike adult fat, baby fat is full of the awesome, for their health AND adorability. Also: your baby is aware of the sounds outside of the womb. Maybe it’s time to turn down the porn.
Week Thirty-One: Your mean baby is probably keeping you up all night kicking your spleen. I’ll lie and say “it gets better once they’re born,” but it’s not true. I mean, it IS true. You’ll have the miracle baby that sleeps through the night from birth. (P.S. ground that baby now and give me his presents)
Week Thirty-Two: Your baby is less wrinkled now, which is good. Who wants to give birth to a baby that looks like a old man wearing a onsie?
Week Thirty-Three: Baby is now pretty tightly fit in your uterus, which means you’ll feel it a hell of a lot more when baby kicks the shit out of your bladder. It’s okay if you pee a little when you sneeze. We all do. Well, except for me. Because I am a miracle.
Week Thirty-Four: You’re probably wearing underwear that could double as the mast from a sailboat. But damn, that shit is COMFORTABLE.
Week Thirty-Five: Even if your hospital bag is packed, color coded, and organized alphabetically, I promise you that you’ll forget the one thing you really need and make someone else go buy it for you. Or, you’ll never use the suitcase of stuff you brought because you’re bleeding everywhere and just want more of those damn ice packs for your crotch. Perhaps it’s just me.
Week Thirty-Six: All that hair that I talked about before that made your baby look like Sasquatch? Well, thankfully, it’s disappearing now. Because a baby with a hairy back is creepy. Your baby’s body is getting nice and fat, which is good, because it helps it regulate body temperature once it’s outside of the womb. Speaking of that, hope you have your nursery ready, because D-Day is almost here.
Week Thirty-Seven: Welcome to full-term. Your baby is cooked. NOW you can start obsessing over the signs of labor and assume you’re in labor every time you have heartburn (right, like you haven’t been doing that since Week Eight.) Trust me when I say this: labor feels like labor, not heartburn.
Week Thirty-Eight: Baby’s getting fatter, but every minute seems like an hour and every hour seems like an eternity as you wait to pop out your baby. Disconnect yourself from social media lest you go on a mad Twitter rampage about how unhappy you are. There ARE people without legs, after all.
Week Thirty-Nine: Sorry you’re still pregnant. I’m sure you’re miserable, especially since people stare at you with mouths agape when you go out in public. Apparently, the general public has never seen a pregnant woman before. You should kick them if they stare. I’ll get your bail money.
Week Forty: That cheesy vernix caeseosa is almost gone now, which is good, because it makes your baby look like a statue. Your baby is also fat, pink and happy. Well, okay, I lied. Most babies are decidedly UN-happy. But hey, you didn’t hear it from me. It’s time to push a baby out of your vagina (or have it removed from above) and wear those awesomely gigantic mesh panties they give you at the hospital. Screw Victoria’s Secret; THOSE is where the party is.
Week Forty-One: Are you STILL fucking pregnant? That’s bullshit. Get some really obnoxious music (think C and C Music Factory) and play it to your belly, all Branch Davidians-Style. You should probably take your phone off the hook so you don’t get a zillion “are you STILL pregnant?” questions. Because trust me. If you’re still pregnant, you don’t need to make nifty smalltalk.
Week Forty-Two: Okay, I feel sorry enough for you by now to actually help this along myself. Threaten baby with A Visit From Crazy Aunt Becky.
Week 19 is why my ex wife should have never had children.
I pity my two boys, and all the singing they had to endure. Luckily she doesn’t do that anymore.
“Loooo-ving yoooooo… is easy, cuz you’re beautiful… doo-n-doo-n-dooo… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”
haha, my mom was pregnant with my brother when that song was really popular -she swears IT made her puke, not the morning sickness!
LOVE IT!!!! – I am 13 weeks Preggo and this is my first crotch parasite. 🙂
Nice! I think I may thoughtfully borrow (steal really) your idea for men. We are much more clueless about this stuff than women… trust me on this.
Go for it! I’d love to see it when you’re done.
Ok, shamelessly stolen. You can view here: http://berserkfather.blogspot.com/2011/06/week-to-week-guide-to-pregnancy-for.html
29 weeks here, and have also been haunted by that question! Also the concept of water birth. Soaking in the tub is not my thing, so maybe I’m incapable of understanding…but water birth sounds like my personal version of hell. By all means, put me stark naked in a tub of rapidly cooling water, on display to a roomful of medical personnel — *that’ll* help me cope with the worst pain I’ve felt in my life. WTF?
I had c-sections, so I don’t know about actually delivering, but the idea of water birth icks me out cause don’t some (most?) women actually *ahem* poop when they push? So you labor and actually deliver the baby in tainted water??
This is WAY better than the ones on all those baby sites… All you need it pictures of each phase, and you’re set! hahaha
Not to quibble, and I’m the first to admit I’ve never been pregnant, but do knocked up ladies really have to wear underwear that resembles… the mast of a sailboat? Because that sounds extremely uncomfortable. Unless it’s like a vadge plug to keep the baby up there. In which case carry on.
32 and 39 are my favorites!
I am actually 38.5 right now and already am getting the freaked out stares. Jerks.
This beats the crap out of “What to Expect.” Where were you 8 years ago when I actually NEEDED this?
And no one had the courtesy to warn me about those horrid mesh panties. It’s like they are straight out of Rocky Horror or something. Totally uncool unless you are drunk and doing the time warp.
Cheers.
VB
The only part you left out was the Braxton-Hicks contractions. I thought the little shit was going to stick an arm out and wave “hi” to me the last three months of my pregnancy.
That sounds like the life cycle of the pizza I ate recently.
Um, where are weeks 41 and 42? I didn’t deliver my daughter until 41 weeks and 5 days. Where is the part about wanting to kill everyone who calls you every single day to ask “so, did you have that baby yet?” They all just think they are SO FUNNY.
You forgot weeks 41 and 42.
41. You want that kid OUT!!!!!!!!!!
42. You want to die….
that all sounds about right to me, well except for the underwear like a mast er sail, I just wore my normal ones and did ok…. LOL
I wonder, if I mixed all the foods you mention in this post, would that make a baby?
Awesome! Did I miss the part where she smacks the husband around screaming, “You did this to me!”?
Wait! You don’t have to deliver the baby naked! 😉
I’m at week 5 with number 2 and damn is this accurate!
My son still has a ridiculously hairy back. And shoulders. It’s been 3.5 years. I’ve kinda given up on it falling out.
My friend did a water birth and she said the water stayed warm (yeah who wants to sit in a tepid bath for hours? nobody.) and that she was able to wear a maternity tanktop in the birthing tub (with built-in bra). She also said it helped with the tremendous back pain associated with labor that many people don’t mention.
My above comment was meant as a reply to Nicole^^ (also, it appears I’m supposed to be home from work by now because I commented 5 hours ago?)
Week 22. Halfway there. More than. Thank god. Or not. I always go back and forth on that part 😛
I’m currently at week 38, and this is so spot-on! I’m nearly to the kicking people stage as they stare in wonder at my waddle… And then finally popping her out so I can glory in my mesh panties – now THAT I am looking forward to 😉
yeah, the mesh panties are sounding pretty good right about now. 39 weeks and it is hot as fuck in WV! oh, and i love the “you look like you’re about to pop!” line. really? that’s the best you can do?
This had me paralyzed with fear. I just had to keep reading.
Okayokay, so I’m scared shitless whenever I think about having to go through all this one day, but awesome post nevertheless. And so incredibly much more interesting than the way my biologybook described it. 😉
Ha! Rule 33 made me do an extra kegel! 🙂
These are hilarious!
Week 42.5: Where you have tried every single cockamamie thing said to you about removal of said child and you start thinking he will live in there forever. You also start threatening him with Pinto’s at 16 and a pager that only you can talk into at random times a day (with helpful things like: Oh hi snookems, mommy needs you to come change her Depends…at 15), if he doesn’t FREAKING BE BORN ALREADY!
You should write a pregnancy book. Week 39 was my favorite.
I added to it. Now listed: 40 and 41.
Because I am an asshole (and I happen to know this stuff), I must correct/clarify #13. Fingerprints are determined mostly genetically, but the variations that separate person to person and finger to finger are caused by movement (and other issues, such as stress, nutrition, competition in the case of twins,) in the womb. That’s part of why no two people (or even no two fingers) have the same fingerprint.
Otherwise…fairly accurate list for the average pregnant woman.
That’s craziness. I love it.
This is SO much better than those horrid ones everyone copies and pastes for each week of pregnancy. If I ever had another kid I would totally use these on my blog each week.
Just great! I love it. Glad you went out to week 42, since that was the week my oldest finally decided to join me on the outside. Stubborn little heifer.
Just great! I love it. Glad you went out to week 42, since that was the week my oldest finally decided to join me on the outside. Stubborn little heifer.
The mast is what sticks up from the deck of a sailboat. The SAIL hangs off the mast and a spinnaker can look like a very large pair of womans unmentionables.
And…
I was eleven and a half pounds when I was born. That’s why I’m the youngest in my family.
I think my mother kept a baseball bat next to her when she slept after that.
This comment is full of win.
I never knew that about the fingerprints. Very cool.
My pregnancy went halfway through week 42. It is clear why I only have one child, right?
1. Golden Trimester is TOTAL bullshit! There were about 5 weeks in the 2nd trimester that didn’t make me want to hurl. And then the 3rd trimester made me all icky again. However, I still managed to gain 70 pounds – go figure!
2. One day I was pulling laundry out of the dryer, and I was all like, “When did The Hubs get so many damn T-shirts?! Oh, wait. Nevermind. Those are my UNDERPANTS!” Yikes.
Week 29/lamaze question/nudity. Because ‘it’s common in the west’ is what I was told when I asked that very same question.
Now I have to go back and read the rest.
And yes, I made it to week 40 friggin 2 with my first and I got the “you’re still pregnant” about eleven thousand times per day, every day since I was about 35 weeks pregnant. I also got “are you having more than one” in such a way people probably thought I was carrying a litter like Octomom. Which was WAY before octomom was around.
I LOL’ed A LOT at this. Thanks.
If you’re interested, last year I put together my own list of “Things They Don’t Tell You Before You Have a Baby”. http://ilikesparklyobjects.blogspot.com/2010/09/things-they-dont-tell-you-before-you.html I considered myself pretty dang well informed (read the books, watched the movies, etc) but these 21 things… I did not see coming.
This is so fucking accurate, it’s amazing.
Geez… Week 11 here and NOONE ever told me about mesh underwear! 😮
I wish I had been reading your blog while I was pregnant… Now you need to do a list for postpartum! There are so many things NO ONE fricking tells you about pregnancy or labor/delivery or postpartum… how gross it is when your water breaks early (it’s not “water”… it’s clumpy and it’s a lot and it keeps leaking for hours. Like, for however long your labor is), how much blood comes out in the first few days and continues for how many weeks (yes I said WEEKS) after the baby is born (which is why I loved that mesh underwear because otherwise every pair of underwear you own will get ruined), how the postpartum nurses will literally grab your boobs and shove them in your kid’s mouth to “help” you with breastfeeding, how your boobs leak for months (4.5 so far…) once the kid is born (and basically how soggy you will be for months, between milk, baby puke, and baby pee…I’m a swamp, I tell you. A swamp). But while pregnancy, labor, delivery, and being in the hospital postpartum really was sucky, the baby is pretty damn cute. I never expected that I would just want to hold and hold and hold him. That helps a lot (and I say this as someone who was not planning to have kids *ever* and got surprise pregnant). Oh, and everyone will tell you to “get lots of sleep now” all through your last trimester and you will want to punch them because you are waking up every HOUR to pee or try to find a comfortable position and you will think that if it is even worse after the baby arrives you will die of sleep deprivation… but actually, I got more sleep once the baby arrived (2+ hour stretches at night) than I did pretty much my whole pregnancy (although I’m told I have a good sleeper and a mellow baby…)
Okay, so I am at roughly 19 weeks. Can you tell me why this parasite only weighs about 8 ounces, but I’ve gained 10 freakin’ pounds? And my wine consumption has DECREASED, obviously. Then again, my Doritos consumption has increased considerably.
xo