Life by Weeks

The Science

Pregnancy is one of the most biologically complex processes a human being undergoes. Your heart beats faster, your immune system decreases, your joints relax, your sense of smell is heightened. You make and carry more blood, and in it flows a cocktail of hormones. By the time change is visible through the growth of the belly, pregnancy has already been transforming the body beneath the surface in myriad ways, week by week, as life within life takes hold.

Kepley JM, Bates K, Mohiuddin SS. Physiology, Maternal Changes. [Updated 2023 Mar 12]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539766/#

The Medium

This is a digital montage of four portraits of myself taken over the course of 10 weeks of pregnancy from gestation week 8 to week 18.

Artist Bio

Indy Scarletti (she/her) is a PhD researcher in science communication at the Australian National University and lives in Sydney, Australia. Her research explores the role of creative imagination and storytelling as a method to connect science-related policy discussions to the societal elements of sustainable transformation objectives. She draws and occasionally writes at her website indyindigo.com, and you can also find her at that handle on Bluesky.