9 Weeks

You are now nine weeks pregnant (or in your tenth week if that's how you prefer to count it).

You may find yourself riding pregnancy's emotional roller coaster, feeling moody one day and joyful the next. Disturbing as this is to some women who pride themselves on being in control, what you're going through is normal and will probably continue throughout your pregnancy. Up-and-down emotions are partly caused by raging hormones.

Physically you're unlikely to look pregnant unless this pregnancy isn't your first, but you may feel very tired and sick - not necessarily in the mornings - so cosset yourself. Pregnancy hormones can also play havoc in other ways. Many women suffer from painful headaches and back problems such as sciatica and, unfortunately, these hormones also help make the perfect environment for vaginal thrush.

At week's end, your fetus measures approximately 0.9 inches / 2.3 centimetres long. In both shape and size, it resembles a peapod and weighs less than a tenth of an ounce / 2 grams. The eyelids are fused and won't open until week 27. The wrists are more developed, ankles have formed, and the fingers and toes are clearly visible. Arms are growing longer and bend at the elbows. By week's end, the inner workings of the ears are complete. Though you can't yet identify the sex of the fetus by ultrasound, its genitals have begun to form. By now the placenta has developed enough to support most of the critical job of producing hormones.

You will soon need to make decisions about antenatal screening, and we have a complete guide to antenatal tests. If you're over 35 or have a family history of genetic illness, you may want to consider a chorionic villus sampling (CVS), an antenatal test usually carried out between ten and 12 weeks that screens for birth defects and abnormalities.