How big is baby?

Growing like crazy, baby is starting to sprout eyes, ears, nose, cheeks and chin. Those little hands and feet- still webbed like paddles- might wiggle by week's end, the heart is beating (almost twice as fast as yours!), and blood is starting to circulate.
A wonderful new sound enters the world this week: your baby's heartbeat. Although still too faint to be picked up by a doctor's stethoscope, it's visible in a sonogram as a tiny, pulsing dot in the middle of your still-transparent embryo's body. From now until birth, it will beat approximately 150 times a minute, twice the average adult heart rate. The rest of the embryo is working hard, too--it will triple in size this week, to about a quarter of an inch long.

There's good news and bad news this week. The good news is that your body is pumping increased amounts of progesterone. This hormone is responsible for inhibiting contractions and building the blood vessels in the uterine wall, creating a safe "nest" where your baby can grow. The bad news is that progesterone slows down the digestive process, causing nausea in as many as two-thirds of pregnant women.

Also known as morning sickness, pregnancy-related nausea can strike at any time of the day or night. When it hits, you may feel slightly queasy, downright miserable, or anywhere in between. Most women find that it lets up by the end of the first trimester, but a few spend their entire pregnancy clutching airsickness bags. If you're starting to feel the pangs, take comfort in the fact that morning sickness has been associated with a lower miscarriage rate.