Week-by-week Pregnancy Guide: Week 9

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By Lauren Ferranti-Ballem

YOUR BODY

If it feels like your steps are heavy, your mind is foggy and you can’t seem to get enough sleep, pregnancy fatigue has set in. Your body has the magnificently daunting job of building your baby’s life support system: the placenta. This requires that your metabolism and hormone levels surge all at once, causing a corresponding decrease in blood sugar and blood pressure and prompting your heels to drag. And if you’re not consumed with nausea, your appetite is increasing. Smaller, more frequent snacks and meals will help to keep your energy up and dull the queasiness. As your blood supply increases, veins may slowly begin to appear on your legs.

Freaked out? It’s totally expected. The pregnancy hormones swirling in your system are partly to blame for your erratic emotional highs and lows, but it’s also just your way of processing what’s happening right now. Cut yourself some slack: You’re exhausted, your body is changing in strange and beautiful ways, and you have a whole new set of challenges and responsibilities in front of you. Plus it’s likely you’re still keeping that secret largely to yourself. It’s a stressful time, so get through it the best way you know how, and don’t worry about how many soggy tissues it takes.

YOUR BABY


From embryo to fetus, your baby has grown a full inch in the past week and is now the size of a green olive. As she marinates in your belly, her face takes on more human characteristics: Eyelids just about cover her eyes, arms bend at the elbows and wrists and ankles are now apparent. Muscles are developing in her arms and legs as they gear up to move, her reproductive organs are formed (though it’s not yet possible to determine the sex), and urine is produced in the bladder.

FYI


It’s time to think about prenatal screening tests. If you’re over 35 or have a family history of genetic illness, you may want to consider screening for birth defects and abnormalities – tests that are typically carried out between weeks 10 and 12.