The Final Countdown- Celeste O.

Are you pregnant? Well, if you are congratulations! You are growing another human being inside of you, and depending on how far along you are, you may feel different things and as Nishi and Bella say in their blog post, you may not be ready for a variety of factors. But have you ever wondered what is happening inside of you? Well, here I am to tell you everything I know.

Did you know that a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks (9 months)? If you didn’t we need to have a serious talk. Why does it take so, long you might wonder. Well, during your first trimester, your baby’s heart has begun to beat, your baby has a large head with facial characteristics, fingers and toes appear, their face becomes clear, external genitals appear, and the excretory system develops rapidly. All that during your first three months of pregnancy. During your second trimester your baby begins to move, their integumentary system is apparent, their heartbeat is audible, they have rapid brain development, their lungs begin to develop, and  their eyes open. And the final countdown, your final 3 months of pregnancy your baby gets very big and their organ systems have completed their development. All of this just in nine months.

Now that we have talked about your baby let’s talk about you. Your body is going to experience considerable changes. The biggest cause for many of your discomforts will be your growing uterus. Your uterus will grow from about the size of an pear to the size of a watermelon!

This huge growth squishes some of your organs. Your lungs become compressed making it harder to breath, your stomach becomes compressed
making it harder to eat larger meals, and your bladder becomes compressed making you wanting to pee more often. Other symptoms might include hot flashes and morning sickness. Throughout your pregnancy make sure to eat right and get at least 30 minutes of exercise. 

Learning about pregnancy from both the mother’s and the baby’s side, I have gained much respect for the mothers of the world and much curiosity for the babies that live inside of them. I used to think that labor was painful, now I wonder how women get through it. Your bones literally open and your skin stretches so much. Looking back 6-7 months ago when we barely started this unit in our summer reading book I can definitely see growth in the way I think of pregnancy. As you can see in my first blog post  I wright “It was harsh being a woman back then!” Not only do you change physically but your organs also change a lot! I never knew that your lungs get compressed and that when you are pregnant it is hard to breath. 

In this book you will read about how the final countdown just went for women today and thousands of years ago.