Week 7: How your life's changing

You're in the throes of the first trimester, when many women suffer from common pregnancy woes. Keeping food down may be next to impossible, thanks to morning (noon, and night) sickness, caused in part by the pregnancy hormones coursing through your body. Stash a box of crackers next to your bed, and eat a few to curb the nausea before getting up. You may also need to use the bathroom a lot more often than usual — your blood volume increases dramatically when you get pregnant, which leads to a lot of extra fluid getting processed through your kidneys and ending up in your bladder. The nausea should fade as your pregnancy continues, though you may continue to make frequent trips to the bathroom.

Week 7: How your baby's growing

Your baby still appears to have a small tail (actually, it's an extension of his tailbone), which will disappear in the next few weeks. But that's the only thing getting smaller. Now almost half an inch long — roughly the size of a raspberry — she has elbow joints and distinct, slightly webbed fingers and toes. In his oversized head, both hemispheres of his brain are developing. Her teeth and the inside of her mouth are forming, and her ears continue to develop. Eyelid folds partially cover her tiny peepers, which already have some color, and the tip of that nose you'll be tweaking someday is emerging. Her skin is paper-thin and her veins are clearly visible.

Your little one also has an appendix and a pancreas, which will eventually produce the hormone insulin to aid in digestion. Her liver is busy producing red blood cells, and a loop of your baby's growing intestines is bulging into his umbilical cord, which now has distinct blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to and from her tiny body. You can't feel her gyrations yet, but your baby is like a little jumping bean, moving in fits and starts around his watery home.