And This Is Better Than A Prune

Once again, American Baby saves the day!

In the competition for most appetizing baby descriptors, American Baby takes the prize two weeks in a row. Last week, grape beat out olive.

This week, What to Expect put up prune as it's champion. Is it even a competition? They can't even make it interesting. American Baby comes out with strawberry, and boom, it's no contest.

I'll take a strawberry over a prune any day!

What If Your Future Isn't Poopy?

That's right. Constipation is something to expect when you're expecting. Remember all that miracle of life stuff? Yeah, one of the miracles is the miracle of the missing poo:

Here's how: During pregnancy, the hormone progesterone causes the smooth muscles of the large bowel to relax, making them sluggish — and allowing food to hang around longer in the digestive tract. The upside: There's added time for
nutrients to be absorbed into your bloodstream, allowing more of them to reach
your baby. The downside: what amounts to a traffic jam for waste products, with
nothing going anywhere anytime soon.

You're not constipated, the food is just hanging out longer. There's a party in your large bowel, and the last three days' worth of food you've eaten is invited!

How do you end this party and get rid of those annoying guests who don't know how to take the hint and leave? You can take more fiber by eating high fiber foods or taking a supplement. Always make sure you're getting plenty of liquids, at least eight glasses a day of water and/or fruit juices. You've heard it your whole life: prune juice works; it has a laxative effect. Something you might not have heard of? Warm liquids also can help you go. Finally, it's not a sin to check with your doctor. Some vitamins or supplements that help your pregnancy can also contribute to constipation.

Look at it this way, at least you're getting plenty of practice pushing!

Reverse Calculate Your Due Date

New to me, but perhaps not new to you, is the website Babycenter.com. Your register over there, for free, and they send you the occasional update, with all sorts of clever info. One such bit of info, I am now going to share with you.

When you figure your due date, one common method is to take the first day of your last period, count forward 40 weeks, and there you have it, your estimated due date.

As the babycenter email indicated, there is a tricky math alternative. Here's what you do:
-take the first day of your last period
-subtract three months
-then add seven days

It sounds counterintuitive, I know, but Proud Mommy and I both ran the numbers, and sure enough, we both got October 27.

Week Ten, Or, You're So Vein

We've noticed this already, but I guess week ten makes it official:

As your pregnancy progresses, you'll also notice that the veins in your hands and feet seem larger and more prominent, too. During pregnancy, the average woman's blood volume increases by 20 to 40 percent, and the veins have to keep up so they can go with the flow. So consider those blue lines on your body to be a pregnancy badge of honor: wear them with pride, and with the comforting knowledge that they'll disappear for good once your baby's born and you're no longer breastfeeding (if you choose to).

I did not know that about the blood volume. That's pretty impressive. Aside from all the miracle of life whoop de doo, the plain old mechanics of the whole thing is pretty incredible too. And that's not even the half of it. The baby is still getting bigger too. Fortunately, the kid's not an olive anymore. Unfortunately, the kid has become a prune. An inch and a half long prune:

Your baby is nearly an inch and a half long and the size of a prune, but not nearly as shriveled. In fact, your baby is really taking a human shape now. Bones and cartilage are forming, and small indentations on the legs are developing into knees and ankles. Though your baby's arms are taking shape and getting stronger, each one is only about the size of this number 1.

All right baby! We're number one, we're number one!