Week 18: Sweetpotato Relaxation

Week 18...

There are many aspects of pregnancy that I've been really excited about, but so far it's often seemed like a bewildering array of bodily changes.  One change I was particularly concerned about with was losing my ankles and feet, which I am absurdly vain of, and having them morph into 'kankles' with wider and flatter arches.  I set about to see what was responsible.

Relaxin is a hormone that is produced by both men and women.  However, during pregnancy, it is released by the placenta and ovaries in higher levels and loosens your ligaments, tendons, and muscles--especially those of the pelvic girdle and cervix.  Many women's feet increase by a size after pregnancy because as the ligaments and tendons of your feet loosen, your increased weight causes your arch to flatten... ...hence those Prada shoes won't be fitting any more, Cinderella.  As for your favorite jeans, the opening in your pelvis is often just big enough to have a one finger width between your baby's head and the bone, making every little bit of tendon relaxation go a long ways.

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Maybe my jeans and shoes should take a back seat.

As far as the little bambino this week, the most significant event is the process of myelination--the insulation of nerve cells to allow signals to travel more quickly.

http://brainyinfo.com/2013/05/13/how-myelination-works/

At five months of gestation, she will have over 100 billion nerve cells, and will replace these neurons over the course of her life, but never have such rapid proliferation.  Although a fetal brain at 18 weeks may have an incredible abundance of nerves, the brain itself is small, and has yet to make connections and branches.  His little brain also processes information much more slowly than an adult's (sixteen times less efficiently) in great part due to these nerve cells not being insulated.  The insulation is myelin, and week 18 kicks off a great deal of myelination that will continue into young adulthood.

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Finally, one of the parts of pregnancy that I have been really excited about is feeling this little thing inside me move.  And I FELT him or her!  Like butterflies, or a flicker, or a second breath, the knowledge that there is a living, growing creature inside me is one thing... ...the confirmation of it as I felt their first tentative movements?  Absolute Magic.

Until next week,
Cat

Week 17: Turnips and Chimeras

Week 17...

One of my friends gave me an article that blew my mind, and I am going to do my best to explain it to you this week.  I should warn you in advance that although the subject matter feels mythological in content, I am not selling you improbable research.

Chimeras, hybrid animals from Greek mythology, are fiery dragons with the heads of goats and lions, tails of serpents, or any number of other animals fused into one.  They are portentous of disastrous events, and synonymous for anything "wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling" (wikipedia).  When my friend gave me an article that human women were recently discovered to have a condition called Microchimerism, you can understand my brief reticence in believing it.

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Pregnant women do not harbor a little tiny fire breathing lioness in their abdomen, but they do exchange cells with their fetus, and these cells persist in the mother for years to come.  Let me say that again: women exchange cells with their fetus, and the cells of the child stay in the mother sometimes for the rest of her life.  During pregnancy, up to six percent of the 'free floating DNA' in a woman's blood plasma is from the fetus.  The fact these cells reproduce and live within the mother for the rest of her life is what blew my mind.  The cells don't stay put in the uterus either.  They may migrate through the body--and since the non-mother cells from the child are often stem cells, they show up frequently at sites of injury and tissue repair and morph into whatever form is needed at that location.  I told you that this tale would feel mythological.  

The article I first read examined primarily Y chromosomal DNA (as it is easily differentiated as being NOT female, and therefore chimeral) and shows a significant increase in the longevity of women who have Y chromosomal microchimerism.  In fact, Danish women who exhibited another beings' DNA had "substantially improved survival" due to decreased rates of cancer and cardiovascular diseases.  Another study found that women with Alzheimer's disease had fewer chimera cells than women with healthy brain tissue.

In ancient Greece, chimeras heralded disastrous events like storms, shipwrecks, and volcanic eruptions.  Microchimerism in women is not always advantageous, as some autoimmune diseases like scleroderma are linked to higher levels of "non-self" cells.  In other realms though, it is looking like is is really beneficial to have a dazzling array of non-self DNA running through your body.

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The little bambino this week is the size of a turnip, and it is busily beginning to lay aside some fat stores.  When it is born, those fat supplies will take up 2/3 of its weight!  Bulk up, buttercup!  He has sweat glands, and eyelashes, and finally... ...the ears have finished migrating and are in their exact proper place.

Until next week,
Cat

p.s.  Thanks to the lovely Tracy for feeding me this delicious article and making my brain (with a few fetal cells thrown in for good measure) sing.

Week 16: Avocados and Fun with Glucose Tests

Week 16...

Want to be admitted into the cloaked-behind-the-scenes-secret-handshake world of pregnant women?  Like any other worthwhile secret society, there is a ritual, a signature drink, and a little discomfort.    What is this test?  The show of bravery?  The indoctrination to the secret society? The ritual that binds pregnant women together?  Later on down the line, I am sure it will become something more more banal, like comparing the quality of child safety seats, or poop.  (I'm in denial of something called childbirth? Maybe?)  As of week sixteen though?  The great indoctrination is definitively the "Oral Glucose Tolerance Test."  And I get to take it twice, once now, and once at around 28 weeks.

The ritual:  Don't eat for twelve hours.  Wake up early, and drive to the doctor's office, or the hospital, a bit sleep deprived, caffeine-less, and settle in for a three to four hour session.

The signature drink:  Imagine the sweetest, thickest, orange Popsicle from your childhood-- a combination of maybe an Otter-pop with a concentrated shot of Fanta or Crush thrown in for good measure.  Get thirty of them, and melt them down into one glass.  Drink it fast--the entire saccharine solution in thirty seconds (they do give you five minutes to take the drink, but I'm trying to create some dramatic effect here...).  If you puke, you have to start over.

The discomfort: For three hours, roll up your sleeve, get stuck with needles and give blood every hour.

This is the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test, given to every pregnant women.  Some women, like myself, get to take the test more than once to screen them for gestational diabetes.  Doesn't it have all of the trappings of a great coming of age ceremony... or hazing at a frat party?

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After I finished my test, I went out to my car, ate two peaches and two tiger milk bars, and then drove to work.  I got a call about an hour later from the hospital that warned me from any driving, as my sugar levels were so low they thought I might pass out.  Fun times.  I do feel a sense of accomplishment.  No gestational diabetes.  But a major milestone passed.  I am in the secret society.

CNP, 2014

The little bambino this week is just the size of an avocado.  I think the most amazing trait is that at this age (with their ears actually finally in place next week), they can actually hear and recognize music, voices, and even individual songs!  I'm not sure how exactly I want to take advantage of this.  I mean, my grandmother read the New York Times to her children before they were born.  I think I listened to Mozart.  While I like the idea of prepping our son or daughter for a dignified and cultured arrival on the planet, I am considering that they might nap better later if I blast some Metallica to them now...

Until next week,
Cat


A note: due to some recent events, I have a great deal more time on my hands than I did before, as you will discover in week 29.  I hope to accelerate the blog a little to catch you up on recent occurrences, but we will see what I am able to accomplish.  Cliff notes: I am well, bambino is well, but life can throw a curve ball.  I'll leave it at that for now.

Week 15: Navel Oranges and Flossing

Week 15...

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The little bambino is the size of a naval orange this week, and I am having a love affair with flossing and brushing my teeth, but what really has captivated my attention is this central question:
"Why don't fish have ears?"

Let me explain.  Over the last several weeks of grocery aisle illustrations, I've written about the eyes or the ears 'migrating' into place.  I didn't really give it much thought.  I mean, right now the head of our child takes up most of its body size, and let's be honest--it has a lot of improvements to make until it doesn't look like an alien.  For example:

Even though it has fingerprints, its intestines were outside of its body just two weeks ago.  ALL of its intestines.  Swimming lazily in amniotic fluid.  

It has a cute downy coat of hair.  And transparent skin.  These seem rather adorable traits to me, but if my first view of this little bambino is covered in peach fuzz-invisible skin, it'll give me some pause. 

My partner doesn't like me referring to our child as "it."  The bambino, he/she... it does have a sex right now (last week it either started growing a prostrate or ovarian follicles), but we won't know for another five weeks until you can see 'parts' on an ultrasound.  Not knowing the sex (and finding it difficult to juggle he/she pronouns like lots of baby books do) does give the bambino an essence of other worldliness.  (I will TRY the he/she juggling... I swear.)

Just fifteen weeks ago he was a single cell.  Enough said.

As of this week, her bones are beginning to ossify.  This might not sound very glamorous, but up to this point I've been carrying elasti-girl in my womb, and x-rays of her would show no bones at all. 

So, so what if the bambino has ears, but they were on its neck.  It didn't seem like any herculean effort to imagine that they would migrate as well, given all of the other information, right?

Well, here is why I am so captivated.  Ears, it turns out, are modified gill structures.  In early embryonic stages, we have gill slits on our necks that later develop into our Eustachian tubes, middle ear, tonsils, parathyroid, and thymus.  Which means... that fish don't have ears, and they can't get tonsillitis... because they don't have either... they have gills instead.  And our little bambino's ears have been migrating from his neck to (hopefully) the proper place on either side of his head as his body has repurposed some structures (gills) in favor of others.

Humans are so cool.

(Note to self: does this mean that Waterworld is a complete fantasy, as Kevin Costner had ears and gills?  Poo.)

Speaking of movies, one of my favorite movies growing up was Dirty Dancing, and I know an embarrassing number of quotes from it.  There is one scene in which Baby shows up to a late night hotel party, and admits that she was there in attendance only because she "carried a watermelon."

Week 15, and my uterus this week is, tah dah! the size of a small mellon.  Nobody's gonna put baby in the corner, but I can at least get some humor from my growing size.

...and desire to brush my teeth at least five times a day.  I have always been obsessed with a clean mouth, but with the 50% increased red blood cell production, increased vascularization to the gums (think pregnancy glow), and decreased immune system, I do love a good tooth brushing now especially.  I might be a bit overly enthuiastic.

CNP, 2014

Until next week,
Cat

Week 14: Is she? or just too many bananas...

Week 14...

Welcome to the second trimester!  This marks the end of hiding, the end of morning sickness (hopefully), and the beginning of great growth and development.

I was thinking this week about my adjectives for "huge," and I realized that for the most part I don't actually look pregnant... ...as long as I am able to enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning.  Some mornings, coffee tastes terrible, and if I go three or four days without caffeine, I (how do I put this delicately?) look very pregnant as a result.

CNP, 2014

I got a little excited this week as well about the size of the bambino.  For the first time, most pregnancy books weren't using produce aisle metaphors.  It is the size of an iPhone, or half of a banana, and can move its facial muscles, pee and do all sorts of other actions that no doubt I'll find adorable in six to seven months.

But for now?  Still produce aisle, and it still wants me to snack.

CNP, 2014

Until next week,
Cat