So I've just done a double bump update since I missed last weekend (I was working). I have noticed my belly getting bigger, but up until now, I'm fairly certain it was just gas. Yeah - hate to disappoint anyone who has been checking the update with a bit of an "awww" factor. For the most part, what you're looking at is the building up of a great big adorable fart. Not so cute now :) But I do mean for the most part. Because there is also the fact that the reason you can see so much of my distended gaseousness is because the growing uterus behind is pushing it all forward. It is, after all, apparently the size of a grapefruit now. That's got to cause stuff to shift around.
(side note: I was trying to figure out exactly what happens to all your organs anatomically and came across a brilliant metaphor for the intestines. They said to imagine a big bowl of spaghetti. Now shove a giant meatball in. It's all still there and fine, it just shifts about. Good metaphor, but more importantly I'm now dying for a huge bowl of spaghetti and one giant meatball!).
So yeah, there might be a lot of gas there, but there is a certain amount of bump that doesn't go away even when I'm feeling particularly non-bilious.
(side note: I learned a new word. I bought some stuff to take when the constipation/bloat gets too painful and it noted on the back that it was particularly good for "pregnancy biliousness." I had no idea what that meant, so I bought it and looked it up. It's such a good word! One word that covers it ALL: "pertaining to bad digestion, nausea, abdominal discomfort, headache, constipation, and excessive flatulence." Yup, sounds about right!)
So somewhere under it all is the very beginning of a grapefruit bump. It's officially ok to "awww."
Speaking of fruit.
Seemingly it's very common to compare the size of the "baby" to common fruits. (My friend Alex sent me a great link to someone who holds up the various fruits in front of her bump - brilliant!). I call it a "baby" because it's still so small that I can't quite fathom it actually exists. I try - I do deep breathing and try to visualise like the book suggests - but no, I can't really believe there is actually anything in there. That's partly why I'm so looking forward to the first scan - just so I have a way to visualise and connect with an actual being inside me. Without that picture and that process, it's just too hard. So, for at least the time being, it remains a bit of a metaphorical "baby." Which I'm fine with. The real reason for bringing it up is that I take serious issue with this week's fruit!
I am 10 weeks along, so I'm in the 11th week. In the 11th week, the fetus grows to the average size of 1.6 inches. According to the website I've been trusting up until now, that means the baby is now the size of a lime.
A LIME?!
Who in their right mind would imagine that a lime was 1.6 inches long?! Ridiculous. So I did what any normal person would do. I went to the store to measure some limes. They are smaller than you think they are, but they are SO not 1.6 inches - more like 3.
But the issue has at least been semi-resolved. It has been declared that, at least in this household, a fetus in the 11th week grows to the size of a lime wedge.
Cut widthwise.
No comments:
Post a Comment