God's Incredible Creation

We're fearfully and wonderfully made, Scripture says, each of us a one-of-a-kind creation. Still, we all share a common glory - the divine pattern of life inside the womb. Technology has now made it possible for us to discover just how amazing that pattern is:

At conception: Life begins. All that we are - height, hair and eye color, sex - is included in the single cell called a zygote.

Day 2: The zygote splits into two cells, then splits again and again into a bundle of cells called a blastocyst.

Week 1: As a bundle of cells, we implant ourselves in our mother's uterine wall.

By 3 weeks: The structure of all our basic organs and our fundamental body shape are beginning to be put in place, from brain to simple fingers.

By 4 weeks: We have a discernible heartbeat.

By 6 weeks: Our brain reveals electrical impulses.

By 7 weeks: Our neural cells in the brain begin to connect and we begin to move spontaneously.

By 8 weeks: We're around 1« inches long, and have all our organs. Our hands, feet and limbs are clearly shaped. Even our brain has convoluted folds like that of an adult's. Every minute about 100,000 nerve cells begin to sprout until there are around 1 billion at our birth. At this point we are called a fetus, meaning little one.

By 8 to 9 weeks: Ultrasound can pick up our fingerprints, footprints, even the creases in our palms. By 10 weeks: We become very active - sucking our thumbs, jumping, scratching our head, and playing with our umbilical cord, our lifeline to our mother.

By 11 weeks: We are about three inches long and weigh one ounce. We look and behave like the complete human beings we are. Our hearts arebeating, our brains are active, and all bodily systems are working. We can suck our thumb, make a fist, hiccup, sleep, dream, hear, feel, urinate and have tiny bowel movements. This is the average age of an aborted child.

By 12 weeks: We can grasp with our hands.

By 12-16 weeks: We'll move back if you touch our feet or body.

By 4 months: We can frown, move our lips, turn our head, kick our feet, and grasp with our hands. We even grow a little hair.

By 4 1/2 months: We respond to a touch on our lips by sucking - just like a newborn baby.

By 6 months: Our nervous system is developed enough so that only the part of our body that's been touched will recoil from touch.

By 7 months: We're in high gear. Our eyes can open and we respond to light. We also process and respond to sound - like the rush of blood through Mom's arteries. In essence, our neural circuits are the way they'll be when we're newly born. We can pay attention to speech directed to us through a loudspeaker, and repetitious sounds will bore us - our heartbeat will speed up, as if to drown out the boredom.

By 8 months: Our brains will have the same number of cells as we will have at birth.

By 9 months: Our cerebral cortex, the part of our brain associated with thought and consciousness, is well defined. Our brain waves are similar to those we'll have as newborns sleeping, dreaming, and waking. We're ready to be born. We decide the day of birth by signaling that labor contractions should begin. Watch out world. Here we come!

16 May 1992 AFA JOURNAL