7 weeks pregnant: what is happening this week

A centimetre, grape-sized, and generating brain cells at a rate the NHS puts at about a hundred a minute. That figure is the kind of thing that sounds like a slogan and turns out to be a plain description. The limb buds from last week are laying down cartilage, the arm buds are lengthening towards where hands will be, eyelids are starting to form over eyes that already exist, and small dimples mark the future nose and ears. Blood volume is climbing on the other side of the equation, which is why thirst can become suddenly and unreasonably urgent this week. It is a good week to talk about work. Nobody has to tell an employer anything yet, and in the UK there is no obligation until well into the second half. But the practical reality of the first trimester - the exhaustion, the sickness, the appointments - is that it is often the hardest stretch to work through and the one people are least willing to explain. Deciding together who, if anyone, gets told early is a decision worth making deliberately rather than by default at the point where hiding it stops being possible.