10 weeks pregnant: what is happening this week

Three centimetres now, which the NHS compares to a small apricot, and a heart running at around 180 beats a minute - roughly three times the adult rate. The eyes are half closed but already react to light. Ears are forming, and the mouth has acquired an upper lip and two nostrils. The uterus has reached about the size of a large orange, which is the first thing on this page you might actually be able to notice from the outside, and it is why waistbands stop working before anything resembling a bump appears. The digestive complaints tend to start here too: burping, wind, heartburn, all of it driven by hormones relaxing muscle that would rather stay tense. There is a genuinely useful thing to do this week, and it is unglamorous. Screening is discussed at or around the booking appointment, and the tests offered are choices rather than a schedule to be carried along by. Reading what each one looks for, what a result means, and what it does not mean is much easier done now, calmly, than in the ten minutes before somebody asks whether you want it.