First Month

Congratulations, you’re getting ready to have a baby!

What happens in the next month after you become pregnant will eventually change your life (and body) forever. Pregnancy can be a wonderful and beautiful time. And it can all be challenging for some as well. Let’s talk about what changes you will experience in that first month of pregnancy. For the next coming months I will be updating you with my own pregnancy (surprise!) as well as explaining a little on what goes on month by month. You can ask questions and post comments about your own experience. Welcome to this amazing journey.

Week 0

When tracking pregnancy, the first day of your last period is where you will start counting weeks, as it’s the start of your menstrual cycle. This is the standard within the medical field because doctors don’t know the exact day you ovulated and conceived (even if you do). My last period was April 25th, so my 40 week due date will be calculated to late January/early February. A dating ultrasound will confirm your due date.

Trying to determine when you will be the most fertile for conceiving? You can use the first day of your last period to predict the days you will be ovulating. Ovulation usually happens about 14 days after the start of your last period in a 28-day cycle. I personally used a combination of my period calendar, basal body temperature (BBT) and cervical fluid.

Week 1

Welcome to the idea of baby. Relax, eat healthy, exercise and enjoy the experience of creating a baby.

Week 2

For a 28-day cycle, this will be ovulation week; since I am writing from my own experience, I will continue to use this schedule. For me it was on May 9th. We most likely conceived on the day of ovulation. At this point the average person won’t know they are pregnant until they miss their period. For some that are very intuned with their body you might have feelings or intuition that egg and sperm have met but it will still take a few days before implantation takes place. Men’s sperm can live about 5 days inside a woman’s body, whereas an egg really only has a window of 24 hours once released. When using an ovulation calendars you will have a window of three days; the day before, the day of ovulation and the day after. Once a sperm has successfully penetrated an egg then a zygote is created. This is when all the fun starts. The zygote will journey through the fallopian tube to the uterus and then implant itself to the uterine wall.

Week 3

Implantation. If properly implanted to the uterine wall your zygote turns into a blastocyst. This little blastocyst will now start to grow and continue to develop and change for the next 37 weeks. Some women will get a little light “bleeding” at this point called implantation bleeding or spotting. In some cases implantation bleeding can look like the beginning of a period. This is my third pregnancy and the first time I have experienced this. For me it was more like a pink-ish coloured vaginal discharge. HCG levels still might be too weak to detect at this point but for some an over-the-counter test can give a positive reading. At most walk-in clinics and family doctor offices you can also get this done free under B.C. medical; with two children it was just easier to get a $1.25 test from Dollarama, which are very similar to the test strips you get in the offices. You do not need to get an expensive test. The first test I took was on May 20th (my 2018 daughter’s birthday), which was negative. I was also tracking my BBT and had a reading of 98.6, so I knew I had a good chance the test was too early to detect anything for me. Many women will experience PMS-like symptoms, such as mood swings or cramping. I have even heard some will get flu or cold-like symptoms. I may have been experiencing these as well, but with two small children already and it being allergy season, I don’t know if my own symptoms were pregnancy-related or not. I took a second pregnancy test on May 22nd and a small line appeared this time.

Week 4

This is the last week of the first month in pregnancy. You may start to feel nausea or “morning sickness” and it can be common to assume you’re just sick. My period was due on May 23rd and did not appear. I took my third and last home pregnancy test on May 24th. A very noticeable line appeared. It was official; we are expecting baby #3 on January 30th, 2020. At this point you’re now in the embryonic stage. The placenta, as well as a brain and spinal cord, will start to form in the coming weeks.