Week 6

Mum

Some people wait until the 12-week scan before they share the good news, but if you’ve chosen to tell your family or friends, you’d better prepare yourself for a stream of congratulations, as though you’ve managed to climb Everest or win a Nobel prize. Sometimes you want to snap back that it wasn’t exactly rocket science, but remember that they mean well.
Throughout the whole first trimester expect to be sleepy – not as in yawning, but as in falling asleep at your desk at lunch time and crawling into bed without dinner as soon as you get home from work. You are exhausted the way you’ve probably never been before. The idea of taking a walk on the beach is enough to make your limbs ache. You spend your weekends sleeping.

Dad

Your partner doesn’t seem to be doing much, so you may find it surprising that she’s as tired as though she’s training for the marathon. In a way, she is. It’s a perfectly normal message from her body to slow down. From a scientific perspective, it’s mostly due to hormone changes, especially the dramatic rise in progesterone levels. In addition, her heart is getting used to pumping more blood to supply the developing placenta and baby. Fatigue can also be a symptom of iron-deficiency, which is not uncommon in pregnancy.

Baby

You’re beginning to develop a face, complete with little eyes and nostrils. Your arms and legs are forming and little sprouts develop where the limbs will eventually appear. Incidentally, you’re going in leaps and bounds and are now the size of a lentil. You are also 10,000 times larger than you were at the time of conception.