Remember we discussed that in the first phase of pregnancy you, your baby and the woman you are with have slightly divergent paths … or what is happening to them. Your baby has a biological mandate to grow. That growth is incredibly rapid as well as constantly changing.
Your baby is a new person forming. Your baby’s mother grows because she gets pulled along often in unexpected ways. Whether the pregnancy was planned, wanted or not there is no way the woman can determine how she will change and grow. Your baby has a huge impact on the woman. You, on the other hand, either get left behind or choose to grow. But if you don’t know how you need to grow nor given the exact skills then even with all the desire to keep up it’s impossible.
Birthing Better families are changing that. Hopefully, you’ve read the first phase of pregnancy entries even if your partner is more pregnant. Referencing backward helps you come into the present and move into the future as a confident human being, man, partner, and father-to-be.
If you have read the previous posts then you are now more conscious and aware you can look back and see how very true that is.
Your baby
Your baby has moved from being a fertilized egg and ball of cells into looking like a baby. Go to this website http://kidshealth.org/parent/pregnancy_calendar/week1.html. Click on the video on the right called See The Slideshow … Pregnancy Calendar. This will help you understand what your baby has been doing during the first phase and will be doing from 12 weeks-24 weeks.
You can see from the above Slideshow that your baby is certainly not doing the same thing you are doing!
The woman
Look at the below website again just to remind yourself what the woman in your life has been going through. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/symptoms-of-pregnancy/PR00102
Sometime around 12 weeks all the changes going on with the woman in her and your life begins to settle down. What’s the reason for that? Think about how rapidly your baby has grown from a fertilized egg to something that looks like a baby. This rapid change throws off a lot of metabolic waste products through the woman’s system.
Pregnant women are now home to another human being. This means her whole body becomes wrapped up in growing this other person. Just doing that takes a huge toll on her body. Her body has had to make a phenomenal adjustment. Yet at the same time, she does not ‘show’ the pregnancy. Her belly has not yet grown bigger which starts to happen about 12 weeks into pregnancy.
Prior to 12 weeks of pregnancy, most women just feel ‘fat’. The growing uterus remains inside the pelvis for these 3 months. About 12 weeks the top of the uterus can just be felt above her pubic bone.
Between 12 weeks and 24 weeks, her uterus grows until it is at her belly button. This means your baby is growing as well. However, most women do not feel the baby kick until about 20 weeks. And that early ‘kicking’ feels more like a flutter and is often undefined. Between 20 weeks and 24 weeks, these changes and you can begin to feel your baby move inside her body.
That means you are half way through the pregnancy before you can really feel your baby moving.
In traditional societies where there are no ‘pregnancy’ tests often women don’t know they are pregnant for several months even if they have skipped their periods and feel changes in their bodies. Most cultures view pregnancy as starting once a woman is clearly ‘showing’. That means the period of ‘becoming’ is much shorter than in societies where people can determine very early pregnancy.
Next entry we’ll further discuss this different phase.
Your bottom line
The belly gets bigger. Your baby gets bigger and you’re now in the 2nd phase of pregnancy.
Head to Udemy for all the Fathers-to-be Pregnancy Academy courses. Then at 24 weeks of pregnancy, come back here for the online birthing class and start with the birth preparation and birth-coaching skills … all developed by hundreds of dads and moms.
Birthing Better skills are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.