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Your pregnancy: 39 weeks

How your baby’s growing:
Your baby’s waiting to greet the world! He continues to build a layer of fat to help control his body temperature after birth, but it’s likely he already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon. (Boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls.) The outer layers of his skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.

Note: Every baby develops a little differently — even in the womb. Our information is designed to give you a general idea of your baby’s development.

How your life’s changing:
At each of your now-weekly visits, your caregiver will do an abdominal exam to check your baby’s growth and position. She might also do an internal exam to see whether your cervix has started ripening: softening, effacing (thinning out), and dilating (opening). But even armed with this information, there’s still no way for your caregiver to predict exactly when your baby is coming. If you go past your due date, your caregiver will schedule you for fetal testing (usually a sonogram) after 40 weeks to ensure that it’s safe to continue the pregnancy. If you don’t go into labor on your own, most practitioners will induce labor when you’re between one and two weeks overdue — or sooner if there’s an indication that the risk of waiting is greater than the risks of delivering your baby without further delay.

While you’re waiting, it’s very important to continue to keep track of your baby’s movements, and let your midwife or doctor know right away if there’s a decrease. Your baby should remain as active as ever right up to delivery, and a decrease in activity could be a sign of a problem — meaning that you need to deliver now rather than later. Also call if you think your water may have broken. Membranes rupture before the beginning of labor in about 8 percent of term pregnancies. Sometimes there’s a big gush of fluid, but sometimes there’s only a small gush or a slow leak. (Don’t try to make the diagnosis yourself. Call even if you only suspect you have a leak.) If you rupture your membranes and don’t start contractions on your own, you’ll be induced.

Surprising Facts: How your body changes after giving birth

Even if your labor and delivery was fast and easy, it will take some time for you to feel like your old self again. It may be hard, but try to remember that it took nine months to get here, so you won’t bounce back — emotionally or physically — overnight.

What to expect from your body:

• You’ll start losing weight right away. While you probably won’t return to your pre-pregnancy weight for some time, most women are about 12 pounds lighter after delivering one 7- to 9-pound baby and losing another pound or two of placenta and another two pounds or so of blood and amniotic fluid. Although it will take a while for your body to regain its pre-pregnancy shape — that pregnant belly may stick around for longer than you’d like — by the end of the first week, you’ll probably have lost about 4 pounds of water weight.

• You’ll have lochia discharge. After your baby is born, the cells that form the lining of your uterus will begin to slough off. This results in a discharge called lochia that lasts for weeks. At first, this discharge is mixed with blood, so it appears bright red and menstrual-like, then it gradually gets lighter in color, finally fading to white or yellow before it stops.

• Your emotions will be in flux. Within the first week or two of giving birth, many new moms experience the “baby blues.” You may find yourself moody and weepy, exhausted, unable to sleep, or feeling trapped or anxious. Your appetite can change, too — you might want to eat more or less. The good news is this emotional upheaval will generally pass within two to three weeks.