Funny pet tricks the fetus can do this week include the wee beastie's newly acquired swallow reflex, and the start of a sense of smell, which, combined with their maturing taste buds, supplies them with their first experiences of taste and smell in the womb. If that news makes you curious as to what a womb might smell and taste like, we’re going to vote for warm apple pie with a hint of cinnamon. Oh and you might like to know that the fetus now pees into the amniotic sac and then inhales it through their mouth and nose. Not to gross you out or anything. But never fear, their urine is entirely sterile and also completely harmless.
If you're still enduring the pure bliss of pregnancy-induced nausea, it should finally be subsiding by the end of this week. If you've reclaimed your appetite, try not to default to having extra ice cream for dessert with all meals (yes it has calcium, and yes it is delicious, but you're eating for 2, not 20). If the nausea isn't subsiding, you may be one of the lucky 1% (quick, go buy a lotto ticket!) with Hyperemesis Gravidarum - in which case you should count on vomiting, gagging, puking or at least dry heaving every day, forever and ever, amen…or at least until you give birth (sorry).
For those of you who are no longer a greeninsh-grey tinge and pukey, the placenta combined with the fetus' pituitary gland have started in on their own hormone production, leaving your hormone-riddled body to recover slightly. Now you can catch your breath and focus on the fact you're about to enter the second trimester - aka the three months in which you get really big and start walking funny.
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