So how far along are you?

I found the following information on another blog (http://blog.moniqueandbenoit.com/?m=200705) and found it quite helpful. Little did I know a pregnancy is in 40 weeks or 10 lunar months. It's confusing to track with typical calendar months. Here's why:

This whole baby growing business is seriously confusing. I mean, where is the logic in telling a woman she’s 2 weeks pregnant by the time she conceives? This must be the illogical doing of men. No woman would ever make pregnancy more confusing and for that matter, longer than it has to be! Anyway, it’s starting to get quite confusing to know what month to call this pregnancy when the doctors all use weeks and there aren’t always four weeks in a month so when you count out 9 months you have an extra two weeks of days leftover that you have to fit in somewhere in there. Ugh, nothing a little googling can’t help figure out:

Months
Measured as nine months on the calendar — starting one week after your last known menstrual period.

Trimesters
Three periods of three months each. Months 1 - 3 are the first trimester, months 4 - 6 are the second trimester, and months 7 - 9 are the third trimester.

Lunar Months
Prenatal development is often measured in lunar months. Each lunar month consists of 28 days, organized into four weeks of seven days each. That means a pregnancy is 10 lunar months long!

Weeks
40 weeks from the start of your last known menstrual period. Gestation is 38 weeks from conception to birth.

(taken from http://www.maternitycorner.com/mcmag/calendar/pregnancycalendar/lunarmonths.html)


So, to boil all that down to size, it basically means you have to throw out the months on the calendar because those are just more confusing, and use weeks or lunar months to guide the calculation. This is what results:

First Trimester
Week 1 (but you aren’t pregnant yet)
Week 2 (still not pregnant)
Week 3 (conception finally occurs!)
Week 4 (early response pregnancy tests can work now)
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8 (2 months)
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12 (3 months)

Second Trimester
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
Week 17 (4 months)
Week 18
Week 19
Week 20
Week 21
Week 22 (5 months)
Week 23
Week 24
Week 25
Week 26
Week 27 (6 months)

Third Trimester
Week 28
Week 29
Week 30
Week 31 (7 months)
Week 32
Week 33
Week 34
Week 35 (8 months)
Week 36
Week 37
Week 38
Week 39
Week 40 (9 months)

SEE! It’s confusing! And to top it all off, doctors consider a pregnancy to term between 37 and 42 weeks. So, there is no exact rule about how long this is going to take having a full month of leeway at the end and still being considered “term”, especially since first pregnancies tend to go over 40 weeks.