6 weeks and short-fused

I’m cranky, I’m tired, and my boobs hurt.

A lot. More than I ever thought boobs could hurt.

Mammogram boob-flattening vices have nothing on pregnancy hormones. I feel like if I could somehow drop one of these future milk makers on a scale they’d deliver a solid weight.

Which reminds me of an old joke: how do you make 5 pounds of fat look good?

Put a nipple on it.

Nipples. I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen there!

Thanks to Google (and Babylist.com) I know that increased blood flow and the beginning of milk gland development are the culprits behind my tender titties.

Soon the milk ducts will expand, thanks to a surge of estrogen, and I may need to buy a bigger bra. Already.

This estrogen can also make nipples and areolas noticeably darker, and more bumpy. Veins may get more visible under the skin, since blood volume is getting a major boost.

Fast forward to month three, when the breasts start producing colostrum, the thick yellowish milk that’ll be baby’s first food (in the first few days, before the real milk comes in). Then I could experience some actual leaking, in which case nursing pads will end up on the shopping list.

Nursing pads before actual nursing?

It might be a good thing there’s no man around right now, cause I could be doing nothing but shooting dirty looks at him and his lack of monumental body transformations.

I mean, seriously. What do men have to put up with?

Every now and then they might get kicked in the balls and double over in pain. Does their pee hole push out a watermelon? Do they bleed? Shoot liquids out their nipples?

So their sac is sensitive and maybe it shrinks or drops or something I’m (thankfully) not aware of when they age. Big deal.

Talk to me when you want a backpack for your boobs and your start leaking thick yellow gunk.

So, back to the cranky. I don’t have an abundance of patience at the best of times, so I’m currently in an even shorter supply. Something about pregnancy mood swings?

My 6-week BabyCenter email included a piece on how to handle them. It also included this, which is apparently what the wee alien looks like at 6 weeks:

Not far off from this:

It’s almost too hard to determine which one is less scary looking.

I’m starting to think the name Sigourney has a nice ring to it… no?

This lentil bean-sized extra-terrestrial measures about half an inch long. Not a fan of lentils? Me neither. The wee martian can also be compared to a JellyBelly jelly bean (hopefully not the barf flavour one), a sweet pea, or one of the pearls from Audrey’s Hepburn’s necklace in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The fetus has an oversized head in proportion to its body. The embryo’s facial features are forming with dark spots where the eyes are, openings where the nostrils will be, and pits to mark the ears.

Protruding buds that will become the arms and legs are even more noticeable now. The embryo’s hands and feet look like paddles. Other developments include the growth of the pituitary gland and muscle fibres. It can’t be heard yet, but the heart (which has divided into the right and left chambers) is beating at about 150 beats a minute – twice the rate of ours.

But little Sigourney isn’t the only thing I’m cooking up right now: the placenta, amniotic sac and umbilical cord are maturing this week to fully take on their responsibilities.

What other responsibilities can I pass on? Anyone interested in cleaning my house? Going to work for me? Walking my dog?

No?

Well, it was worth a shot.