Its about that time again

[miss_eleana]

ETA: I just realised that this is actually a 37 week photo, not a 36. Man, even *I* cant keep up with how pregnant I am lol

Some online friends have been hassling me for an updated belly photo, so I got one.

This is my 26 weeks photo (L) alongside todays 36 week one (R). There isnt *that* much difference between the two, but I can definitley see

Comments

[shark_girl]

Ooh the little bugger is getting bigger! I kept thinking of you last week at Uni, when we were doing growth and development before birth :D

[miss_eleana]

Oh I saw the coolest show last weekend called In The Womb. Utterly fascinating to watch, and I learnt so much about what goes on in there. Some of it just blew me away, like how the "heart" starts beating around 6 weeks (which I knew), but that its NOT connected to anything O_O. The tiny muscles that become the heart are pre-programed to contract, and thats just what they do, well before the heart itself is attached to and regulated by the brain. Ditto with their legs!

[shark_girl]

Thats those clever little stem cells! It's truly amazing

[miss_eleana]

It is, absolutely. It was a bit of a O_O moment when I learnt that at one stage (4 weeks?) the group of cells caves in on itself, right before it starts to form a more human shape. But when it does roll in on itself, the nervous system and (what will be) the spinal chord are on the outside. I almost died when they said that, I cant believe how truly fragile embryo's can be.

[shark_girl]

Oh yeah thats cool! We actually saw video of that! And learning it all makes you realise how very easily things can go wrong.

[miss_eleana]

Do you learn anything about dna? The show went through some dna statistics and I could not get over how we share 8% or so of our dna with daffodils. I have worked out how that makes sense (we both need water/sun to survive, etc) but its pretty amazing. We share 20% (I think) dna with fruit flies too - but I think I would rather not have known that lol

[shark_girl]

I learn more about DNA than I ever wanted to know, lol. We share 99.4% with chimpanzees. They are our closest relatives. I like to think I share more with a chimp than I do with certain people, lol. We learn how each protein on a DNA strand MUST pair up with its opposite protein, or all hell breaks loose in the body. For example, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anaemia are "simple point mutations" meaning that only one protein had to be wrong on the strand of DNA for the 'malformation' to occur.