is pregnancy LONGER than 9 months? đź•—
chapters:
story time
how long ACTUALLY is pregnancy?
make it make sense (*RANT)
why is pregnancy 10 months, not 9?
If you are LIKE ME, then you have been having questions OF ALL SORTS flooding your pregnant brain, ALL to do with the REAL DURATION of pregnancy.
Anything along the sounds of:
is pregnancy longer than 9 months?
how long actually IS pregnancy in MONTHS?
why is pregnancy 9 months, when it’s 40 weeks?
are you pregnant for 9 or 10 months?
I am here to answer it all as well as I’ve understood, attempt to clarify it once-and-for-all, by going through my own personal experience of shock and learning, at 6 months pregnant!
story time
So, I am currently (just-past) 6 months pregnant and had a very recent realisation…that many other pregnant girlies seem to share with me in, SPECIALLY as a first-time mum-to-be.
Which is…
Pregnancy is actually NOT 9 months long?!?!?!?!
So, what about the movie “Nine months” starring Hugh Grant? Or all the talks about the 3 trimesters? I mean simple Maths, right? 3 x 3 months = 9 months?
The math adds up PERFECTLY.
Why do we need to only learn about this CURVE-BALL fact now? Specially, if you’re already pregnant OR well into it, as I am!!
I mean, I had seen Tiktok Influencers before refer to “40 weeks” in their own pregnancy journeys (one Tiktok Influencer I love for positive motherhood//postpartum, whilst keeping it real, is Ames Banks!) but I just thought they were overdue their date to be honest…
It NEVER flagged as anything else, since I had always been TOLD pregnancy = 9 months.
Why would I question it?
Well, now being pregnant gives me EXTRA MOTIVE to do so…
It was really only AFTER my SECOND ultrasound scan, that I compared my GA / Gestational Age (how “old” baby is in our wombs) vs my expected due date…
Imagine this…
start of January 2025: my scan was telling me I was 22 weeks pregnant (about 5 months and a half)
expected due delivery date: I was told would be mid-May 2025… a FULL 4 months later!!!
From this, I quickly spiralled into confusion because if pregnancy is 9 months + I am almost 6 months pregnant, THEN, my EXPECTED due date should be sooner!
My EXPECTED due date should be (EARLIEST) end of April 2025. Right?…
This is the precise moment I realised something wasn’t adding up, and as most other girlies, I waited until my following maternity appointment with my midwife, to ask away at ALL the questions I had (this one question, being the most prominent one).
I could have Googled but I also didn’t want to be misinformed, or have any potentially “scary” information pop-up, if you get what I mean.
My 25 week appointment comes around, and I asked … the answer: my expected due date is correct and nothing needs to be changed.
Okay…but how?
Well, after some digging even online, on Google AFTER the midwife confirming there was nothing wrong, I realised the following…
how long ACTUALLY is pregnancy?
APPARENTLY, pregnancy is NOT measured by months, but IS measured by WEEKS.
Pregnancy is not 9 months EXACT.
In fact, pregnancy IS 40 weeks, in total.
According to online sources:
NHS: it takes 40 weeks (or around 280 days) for baby to grow in totality. Therefore, 10 months, rather than 9!
ACOG: human gestation (baby growth journey) can start BEFORE you are even pregnant, by counting first day of last period. This can add-on 2-weeks to your pregnancy duration, overall!
Flo (women’s health app - love this app for education in an easy-to-understand way!): WHEN you conceive, and this date compared to your period, can make it slightly confusing, but it is STILL 40 weeks for a FULL-TERM pregnancy! (10 months)
THERE WE HAVE IT.
A full pregnancy (on average) is 40 weeks long, and in other words; a FULL pregnancy is 10 MONTHS long!
Going back to my story-time, when I deeped it, at 22 weeks, I was only past-HALF of my pregnancy (22 out of 40 total). Whereas it FELT that I was “nearly there” (if I thought about it in terms of trimester)…
make it make sense (*RANT)
I feel like I have been lied to…
SORRY WHAT NOW.
YOU’RE TELLING ME… I’m about to be pregnant for ONE. WHOLE. MONTH.MORE than I thought I’d be…?
Being pregnant can feel worse for some girlies, depending on their symptoms, but I still am not a fan of it!
You can see I have done multiple blog posts sharing my unplanned pregnancy journey, the symptoms, the body CHANGES, even embracing a holiday pregnant!
So, I know there can be more severe pregnancy symptoms, as well as the opposite: girlies who actually LOVE being pregnant, but I must admit…
I am very much EXCITED to be able to:
sleep on my belly again,
sip on a cute-girly cocktail,
wear my aesthetic outfits COMFORTABLY,
not have to always need a toilet nearby,
and generally, have full freedom and autonomy over my body back again!
Of course, I am also in NO RUSH for baby to be out yet, since I know that will be a whole adjustment period in itself, BUT even the fear of labour and all, can start to creep up on me… So, delaying that date doesn’t help that feeling either.
As you can see, there is A LOT AT-PLAY, when we talk about the reality behind how long pregnancy lasts; emotional, mental AND physical!
However, this is something we have no control over…naturally.
It just brings to the surface one of the many things, us, as WOMEN, should be better informed-on during our upbringing.
It’s quite astonishing how misinformed we all are about things we have been going through since the START OF HUMANITY.
There are many things we do not know in the grand spectrum of the world, but I’d say starting by correcting the narrative of the basic FUNDAMENTALS, of something as the duration behind pregnancy, is already us taking some of our own control back; within the reality of being a woman.
Anyways,… I guess you can see how thrown-off I was about this NEW LESSON in my pregnancy journey! Haha
I’m about to be pregnant for longer than I ever thought was the reality to begin with!
Feels a bit like a SCAM, but it is what it IS, am I right?
However, I CAN SAY, it did feel slightly more reassuring that I wasn’t the ONLY girlie to feel this deceived, and that CONNECTION in relatability that I found present (in the online world) did make me feel a bit more supported in the chaos of it all.
Sane way I write what I write about here, since it’s exactly what I want to foster amongst us girlies; a supportive, nurturing network of like-minded girlies, who don’t need to do as much FIGURING OUT in pregnancy, blogging, and life!
why is pregnancy 10 months, not 9?
This section: exclusively to TRY and “clear the air” for us all (if possible)!
To recap, we have adventured through my own personal experience of coming across this realisation in my pregnancy journey, answering the dilemma of how long pregnancy lasts (is it 9 or 10 months)?
And, NOW, we will lay-out the reasons WHY pregnancy is 10 months-long, and not 9, to try help us understand why this is:
If we pin it down to the KEY and main points across the board, from my online searches: why is pregnancy 10 months, not 9?
Because it is CLOSER to medical calculations
Pregnancy is determined according to first day of last period, which may add some time onto your pregnancy (even if you might NOT YET be pregnant at this point)
And according to gestational age: how long it takes baby to fully develop and mature in womb, is calculated as 40 WEEKS.
There is ALSO always the recurring reason of “this is only an expected date, they will probably come before, or after”.
HOWEVER, that’s not a reason or explanation for me, IF ANYTHING it makes me feel slightly more uneasy that it could be even LONGER than that, as a baseline estimate.
DISCLAIMER: of course, we never know when baby will decide to come, and EVEN IF, pregnancy was 9 months long, baby might still come later. And that is fine, and as long as baby is healthy, I would say that is our #1 PRIORITY always. However, to go INTO pregnancy with one baseline perception of how long pregnancy lasts, and then find out it is ANOTHER is entirely different, and a tiny bit frustrating, to say the least. ONCE AGAIN, not all girlies will relate on this, and that is okay, but for those that do… girl, do you feel me?! Comment on this post, if you do!
Another point I saw being mentioned online is the fact that:
40 weeks roughly adds to 9 months, in most scenarios
Since the number of days and weeks fluctuate within each month, and sort-of evens out
I ALSO did not include this as a key point above, since it still doesn’t account for almost one whole month EXTRA of pregnancy, according to my calculations, but in case anyone was curious; that is something else that is mentioned as a potential answer to “is pregnancy longer than 9 months?”.
IF THERE IS ONE THING I HAVE LEARNT from this experience, and seeing other pregnant girlies, go through the SAME SHARED EXPERIENCE as a collective is: that the way we TALK about pregnancy in society, in schools, in the media, NEEDS TO BE CORRECTED, so women around the world don’t grow-up with false perceptions of lifechanging events that are unique to our womanhood, as pregnancy IS.
♡
I’m not going to lie to you girlies, it still does NOT make any sense to me.
Either my brain is having a hard time accepting it, since we have ALWAYS been told something different, or I just don’t want to believe it, but either way… one thing is CERTAIN… I’ll be pregnant for longer than I anticipated…
…I hope you have found this girl-chat a value-packed and NECESSARY one, for all of us that are pregnant, are planning to be at some point, or simply to JUST KNOW something that is so unique to our nature as women, and to share with those surrounding us.
I tried answering all questions I personally had, in hopes of being as straight forward as possible for any other girlies going through the same dilemma.
Strength to all my fellow pregnant girlies, we’ve got this…
Own your Womanhood. Own your Time.
♡
I’ll be logging updates throughout this whole journey as a mother-to-be, working to be an entrepreneur, but to also still preserve the girlhood within, to try and be her best self, and live her happiest life, so keep-up with me through the blog!
I release a new blog post every Friday at 1pm! (UK-time)
Let me know if you’re in a similar headspace (pregnant or not), being in our 20s is confusing, and taking control of our story is the only way we can take ownership of our happiness and live out our dream life.
I document my unwanted pregnancy journey at 25, taking control of my narrative, figuring out being a girl in my 20s, chasing my dream life, and conquering my boss babe dream of becoming a self-employed, entrepreneur / Blogger!
