Week 4 of Your Pregnancy
Baby’s development
As your Zygote makes it’s way down to your uterus, it’s changing already! From a single egg and a single sperm, it’s becoming a complex mass of more 60- 100 individual cells. Now much more than a fertilized egg, your baby is known as a blastocyst and it contains both an inner cell mass (embryoblast) and an outer mass (trophoblast). The inner mass will eventually become the embryo, leaving the outer area to function as the placenta.
Once it makes its merry way to your uterus, the blastocyst will implant itself immediately into your nutrient rich endometrius by way of chorionic villi ‘fingers’ which anchor it temporarily. Once attached, your baby goes through yet another name change. Now that it’s implanted itself into your uterus walls, your lovable little mass of cells is officially an embryo.
Nestled comfortably, your embryo’s cells begin to divide at a rapid pace. An embryo splits into three different layers, all of which will eventually become your baby’s vital organs, skeleton and musculature. The endoderm will become lungs, intestines, thyroid and pancreas. The mesoderm transforms into your child’s muscles, cartilage and bone and the ectoderm creates the skin, hair, nails and all-important neural tube.
As your embryo is busily becoming a baby, the placenta begins to develop. Until the placenta is completed, a ‘yolk sac’ surrounds your embryo and temporarily supplies it with important nutrients. At this immature stage, a connecting stalk is functioning as the umbilical cord, taking the nutrients it needs from the yolk sac until the placenta is fully formed.
For such an early stage in development, amazing things are happening. Your embryo, no bigger than a single grain of rice, is already developing its nervous system, bones and muscles. Its heart is forming and during this week, will start to separate into different chambers. Your little bean is well on its way to becoming a bouncing baby!
Your body and emotions
This is the week that all couples trying to conceive wait for – the missed period. It can seem like days of waiting where every cramp you feel becomes a reason to be disappointed or a reason to wonder. Many women are confused at this point as the symptoms many women experience when they are getting their period are similar to those that accompany early pregnancy.
Women who have conceived often experience the following symptoms throughout the fourth week and beyond.
- Mood Swings
- Swollen/Tingling Breasts
- Light headache
- Increasing appetite
In order to make matters worse, some women experience implantation bleeding, leading them to believe that their period has started. When your blastocyst implants into your uterus, a small amount of bleeding can occur. So many women drown their sorrows in a bottle of wine at this point and believe they have to keep trying. Implantation bleeding however, is very light and seldom lasts longer than a day or two. When their period still doesn’t start a few days later…they are generally shocked to find they’re expecting.
The only way you can know for sure that you are expecting is by using a pregnancy test. Be sure to buy a two pack because if you get impatient and test too early, you may receive a negative result. It’s best to test at least a few days after your period is due and then again a few days later. You can also decrease your chance of getting a false negative by testing first thing in the morning. The level of pregnancy hormone is higher when you wake and by testing at this time you can avoid the frustration that a single blue line can bring.
As soon as you discover you’re pregnant, make an appointment with your doctor and get ready for some major changes to get underway!
Dad’s Tips
You may be just as nervous and excited as she is as you wait for the results of what may be a series of home pregnancy tests. Waiting for that second blue line to show up that determines whether you’re about to start your life as a father or not can make a man anxious! When the test confirms that the two of you have made a baby, you may feel a multitude of things. Happiness? Excitement? What about fear and even a sense of almost crushing responsibility! All of these feelings are normal. Share them with your partner, as you may be surprised to know she’s feeling the same things. It’s a myth that all women are ‘natural mothers’ and your partner may be more afraid of becoming a parent than you are. Start your journey to parenthood together by having some good talks about what you’re expecting from your pregnancy and how your feel about becoming a mom and dad. |
