Entering 10 weeks

Your baby is no longer an embryo! Though she's barely the size of a kumquat — just an inch or so long, crown to bottom — and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce, she now has completed the most critical portion of her development. This is the beginning of the so-called fetal period, a time when the tissues and organs in her body rapidly grow and mature. Her vital organs — the liver, kidney, intestines, brain, and lungs — are now in place and starting to function (although they'll continue to develop throughout your pregnancy). Her liver continues to make blood cells, and the yolk sac, which previously supplied these cells, is no longer needed and begins to disappear.

It is amazing for me(Tim), who has had classes in developmental biology, to experience some of what I have learned in such a personal way. One of the classical examples that we are taught when learning about apoptosis (programmed cell death) is the removal of "web" cells from in between the fingers to create distinct digits. And that just happened inside Mandy!