Heading to work one morning, I checked the app on my phone that’s tracking my pregnancy (and telling me what size fruit the baby currently is) and saw that I hit the 16-week mark. An avocado!
Woohoo! I thought. It seemed like a big milestone. Four whole months!
Then I started thinking that in only two weeks, I’d be four and a half months — or HALFWAY THERE!!
But then I realized something didn’t add up.
Wait a second, in two weeks I’ll be 18 weeks along… Since the whole thing is 40 weeks, I shouldn’t be halfway there until 20 weeks, which is a whole month away. Huh?!!
That meant that I’d be halfway at 5 months. But isn’t pregnancy 9 months long?! Shouldn’t halfway be at four and a half months?
I was so confused. Could it be that I’ve just been assuming all this time that 40 weeks equals 9 months? What is it actually? Well, 40 divided by 4 is 10.
TEN MONTHS?!?! This whole thing is 10 MONTHS long?!?!?! Have I been duped?!?!
In an instant, I just lost a whole month of progress! But still perplexed, I counted it out using my fingers like a kindergartner.
They start the clock at the date of your last period — for me that was end of November — so I added it up: End of December, end of January, end of February, end of March, end of April, end of May, end of June, end of July, end of August — my due date.
I had nine fingers up! That’s nine months then.
What the…..?!?!?!
At this point, I had arrived at work. And my brain hurt, so I let it go.
But I still couldn’t help but wonder, am I missing something here? Is this the “pregnancy brain” everyone keeps referring to or does this really not make sense?!
Sue Drews
8 years ago
Oh my gosh!! I have vague memories of using that same technique: counting on my fingers to figure out that timeless mystery of a baby’s gestation period. And I probably did it for each kid. Anyway my dear, you have now been officially inducted into this ancient time warp (some might say duped…)