When you are expecting, you will have many doubts regarding the pregnancy and the developments of your baby. When you are two weeks pregnant, you will not actually feel that you are pregnant since you won’t find any drastic changes in your body. However, your body will be producing massive quantities of pregnancy hormones, and your baby is growing faster than it will at any other course of the pregnancy. All of these developments happen just in the second week.
As of this week, you can say that your baby doesn’t exist, but this is the week you begin to ovulate. The ovary will release a ripened egg or otherwise called an ovum, into your fallopian tube. Over there, it will calmly wait for the sperm that has survived the 6- to 8-inch journey through the cervix and uterus. During the beginning of the ‘journey’, around 75 to 900 million sperm will participate, and less than a thousand of the sperms actually make it past the cervix. However, it does not end there. Only one successful swimmer will have the honour of entering the egg at the time of conception.
See how your baby is developing
When an egg leaves the ovary, it will be concealed by a protective layer of cells.
Cilia, which helps in moving the eggs down into the uterus, lines the fallopian tube.
The sperm swims through the cervix and the uterus and then into a fallopian tube. And there, it will meet the egg.
The sperm will secrete an enzyme. This enzyme aids the sperm to penetrate into the egg by eroding the egg’s outer layer.
Now you may be about to release an egg that could develop into a baby if your partner’s sperm fertilises it. So you cannot say that pregnant yet.
Previous week an increase in the amount of progesterone and oestrogen coursing through your bloodstream urged your uterus to create a lush, blood-rich lining of tissue to support a potential fertilised egg. At the same time, the eggs were ripening in fluid-filled sacs, which is called as the follicles, in your ovaries.
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At the starting of this week (mostly around day 14 of a 28-day cycle), you will start ovulating: One of your eggs will break from its follicle, and it will be swept off from your ovary and to the fallopian tube.
During the following 12 to 24 hours, that egg will be fertilised if one of the 250 million sperm (on an average) ejaculated by your partner succeeds to swim all the way from the vagina through the cervix and then up through the uterus to the fallopian tube. This then penetrates into the egg. Only around 400 sperm will survive the laborious 10-hour journey to the egg, and only one can succeed in tunnelling through the outer membrane of the egg.
The nucleus of the sperm will merge with the egg’s as they combine their genetic material. And this occurs over the next ten to thirty hours. If the sperm carries an X chromosome, your baby will be a girl, and if it carries a Y chromosome, then it will be a girl.
The fertilised egg is now called as the Zygote and during the three- to four-day trip from the fallopian tube to the uterus; the fertilised egg will split into 16 identical cells. Once it goes into the uterus, the zygote is then called as a morula. After a day or two, it will start tunnelling into the lining of the uterus, proceeding its incredible growth and transformation.
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A blastocyst is the term referred by the scientists when your developing baby is a little ball of cells. And it is now that it forms. It will have an inner cell mass that will be the embryo itself, a fluid-filled cavity that will be the amniotic sac, and also an outer cell mass that will be the placenta. The placenta is the pancake-shaped organ that delivers life-sustaining oxygen and nutrients to the baby, and it also carries away the waste products.
You should always keep in mind that each baby grows a little differently even in the womb. So, the above mentioned details is just meant to give a general idea about the growth and development process.
How Big is Your Baby This Week?
How do you calculate your due date? It is estimated from the first day of your previous menstrual period. Conception occurs around two weeks from this day, and that’s when you’re actually considered pregnant. In around 40 weeks time your baby will grow from the size of a tiny seed to the size of a watermelon.
A peek inside your womb
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Fallopian tube: A sperm should swim all the way from the vagina and then up through the cervix and uterus and finally reaches the fallopian tube to fertilise the egg.
Ovary: One of the eggs has been broken out of the follicle in the ovary and is then swept into the fallopian tube.
Ovum: Once a sperm tunnels through the outer membrane to enter the ovum, or egg, their genetic material combines to build a new cell that soon begins to divide rapidly.
Sperm: Out of around 250 million sperms (in the normal ejaculation) it takes only one sperm to fertilise the egg.
How your life’s changing
Your last period began around two weeks ago, so you’re likely to be ovulating now or will be soon ovulating. It could be around two weeks or more before you can obtain a positive pregnancy test result if you succeed in conceiving.
Most of the babies are born nearly 38 weeks after the egg has been fertilised, but since it’s quite difficult to point out exactly when the egg and sperm merged, your healthcare provider will calculate your due date by counting 40 weeks from the first day of your previous menstrual period. All of this presumes your cycle length is normal, which is about four weeks. Some women have longer or perhaps shorter cycles and may have their due dates altered after an ultrasound.
For a conception to happen, several things should fall in place. Timing is one such thing. If you want to increase the chances of getting pregnant, then you need to aim to have sex sometime within 48 hours before you ovulate and perhaps again on the day you think you’re ovulating. What you are doing is, trying to accommodate the lifespan of both sperms, which survive for around three days or more, and the egg, which survives not more than 24 hours after the ovulation. So, you should make sure that you and your partner have plenty of time together so as to make love.
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And before you go to the bedroom, though, you may need to do some homework. Just read up on identifying ovulation to aid you to point out your window of chances. And find out how long it generally takes to conceive. Most couples require more than a few tries before they can declare that a baby’s on the way.
Finally, make sure that you see your healthcare provider for a preconception checkup so as to make sure that your body is in the best possible shape for getting pregnant. For example, the doctor will be able to refer you to various services if you need aid to stop drinking, smoking, or even taking drugs. Moreover, if you’re having any prescription or over-the-counter drugs, you may need to ask her if you should continue taking them.
