Week 3 of Pregnancy (Trimester 1 of Preganancy)

Hooray! Yesterday morning the ovulation stick picked up the LH surge in my urine. Not wanting to waist any time ……..

……and again on Monday night.

So my body is ovulating – and my uterus is busy too. The lining of the womb is becoming engorged with blood to provide nourishment for the potential embryo, and the mucus in the cervix is becoming thinner so that sperm can swim through it more easily. These changes take place every menstrual cycle, and only halt once the unfertilized egg reaches the uterus and passes through the cervix and out the vagina.

Everything is happening on such a microscopic scale – the egg is a single cell about 0.13mm long, and more than 300 million sperm are released in one ejaculation! Only some sperm actually make the long journey through the cervix, then the uterus and on to the fallopian tube. And only one of those gets to pierce the outer coat of the egg and fertilize it (except in the case of twins) – conception!

The now fertilized egg continues its journey along the fallopian tube. What was a single cell is now dividing and multiplying quickly, forming a ball-like shape that looks rather like a microscopic blackberry or mulberry – it is called a morula, after the latin word for mulberry!

By the time this collection of dividing and multiplying cells reaches the uterus, it is called a blastocyst – the cell division has reached a stage where an inner cavity is forming within the collection of cells, indicating that cells are dividing into layers to start the next stage of development.

	Web PregnancyAndBirth.org