That may seem like an odd number to celebrate, but it marks the end of the "cautiously optimistic" First Trimester.
Wha? Isn't pregnancy 9 months long? Yes. So how does 13 weeks/3 days = 3 months.
Aha. That is the trick, my friend. That is the trick. As I explained to my incredulous sister earlier tonight, pregnancy math is more complicated than it should be. I believe this was invented most certainly by a wicked man intent on confusing the already muddled pregnant woman's brain. As if we have energy and brain cells to burn!
So here is how it works out: Pregnancy is indeed 9 months, give or take a week or so, because only about 1 in 5 babies come when they're supposed to. But counted in weeks, it's 40 weeks. Now as we all know, 40 weeks = 10 months. So, clearly, something is wrong.
The reason for this discrepancy is that pregnancy is counted as staring from the first day of your last period. That means that the first two weeks of your future pregnancy start before you have even conceived! I guess by this logic, I have been pregnant for two weeks out of every month for the last 20 years. No one said this was a good way to count, but it's the way they do it. And they do have a reason...
For women who chart, it's very easy to pinpoint exactly when you ovulate and thus, when you were likely to have conceived. If you look at my horrible, incomplete chart to the left, you'll see that I most likely got KTFU on Thursday, Dec. 11. No, I have no recollection of this night. I wish I could say it was the most romantic night of my life and we stared lovingly into each others eyes as we made our baby... But it was FWP and it worked. Apparently.
Back to the reason for the messed-up measuring system. Other than those of us who chart, and by which I mean most women, it is very hard to determine on exactly what day conception occurred because it could be as early as Day 11 or as late as Day 21. It is, however, very easy to determine the first day of a woman's last period. Thus, this day was used as the starting point for measuring the age of a pregnancy.
Those already schooled in the cult of the chart know the problem with this counting method, which is that it assumes that every woman ovulates on Day 14, which we now know, thanks to reading TCOYF, is not true.
But no matter, my pregnancy "officially" began on Nov. 26. And that makes tomorrow 13 weeks and 3 days, which is almost exactly 1/3 of the 40 weeks that make up a full-term pregnancy.
Hallelujah! Bring on the Second Trimester...
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