Months turn into weeks.

Not that long ago, about 4 months ago in fact, pregnancy to me was something that lasted 9 months, not 40 weeks.

Until then you could have come up to me and told me you were 67 weeks pregnant, and unless you were a guy, I would have responded with a subdued 'wow' in a failed attempt to sound impressed, completely oblivious to the fact you're going to give birth to an elephant one of these days. A pregnancy in weeks was just completely meaningless to me, even though the maths involved to work it out required the mental gymnastics equivalent of playing lawnbowls.

But not anymore! Now I know why people always talk about pregnancy in how many weeks into it they are. It's doctors.

You see, there is just so much going in those 9 months, that rounding up or down at any stage during the pregnancy could have very dire consequences. From the very moment of conception the foetus starts developing at a consistent pace that only pulsars can match. Take our first 'dating scan' for instance. Afterwards, they can tell you you are 6 weeks and 3 days into the pregnancy. And then there's the 'nuchal translucency' scan, which has to be carried out between week 11.5 and 13.5. You can't ask someone to make an appointment between month 2 7/8th and 3 3/8th!

It won't be long before medical science is that advanced we all start talking in terms of how many days you are pregnant.

One thing that was new to me and Vivian as well, was when they start counting those weeks. We thought the moment of conception. Wrong. You start counting on the first day of the last period. That means that if you're in week 6 of the pregnancy, the foetus is about 4 weeks old. By which time it will already have a heart beat, even though the scan reveals nothing recognisable (nothing human anyway, it actually looks a lot like the eye of a storm on Jupiter).

So it's 14 weeks today, I don't even know how many months that is.

I'll leave you with this very interesting clip.

David.