1. By the end of the second trimester, you figure you've earned your pregnancy chops.
2. You've endured SIX WHOLE MONTHS of nausea, uncertainty, and physical changes, plus you now know lots of exciting new medical terms.
3. You're pretty much a pregnancy expert now, right?
4. Then the third trimester hits.
5. And you realise that...
6. For a start, you barely recognise your own rapidly expanding reflection in the mirror anymore.
7. Your bump grows so alarmingly that you start to worry that it'll get wider than you are tall.
8. This is you negotiating a gap you could fit through perfectly well just yesterday.
9. This is you in your laptop webcam.
10. And these are your legs now.
11. Because this is how you look when you try to bend over and attack them with a razor.
12. But your changing shape is nothing next to all the new aches and discomforts.
13. That weird pain in your side? Oh, just your baby swinging from your ribs like a monkey. The cure? GIVING BIRTH.
14. Restless, hot, itchy legs that keep you awake at night? Just a pregnancy thing. The cure? GIVING BIRTH.
15. Has your face exploded in freckles? Have your sinuses suddenly blocked themselves at will? Oh yeah, those are just some things that happen. The cure? GIVING BIRTH.
16. But you're still in denial about birth, mainly because you haven't got to that chapter in your pregnancy book yet.
17. Plus you're too busy being distracted by LIGHTNING CROTCH, where your baby seems to ninja-punch your vagina from the inside.
18. And the new symptom of sudden, urgent hunger.
19. Which, because your stomach is now the size of a penny and squished against your lungs, causes demonic heartburn and acid reflux.
20. And often vomit. Of course, you're too big to drape yourself over the toilet bowl now, so you just have to sort of stand there and let rip all over yourself.
21. Your boobs can get so leaky that you take to stuffing your bra for the first time since you were 13.
22. Also, you may be overcome by an unstoppable urge to clean everything, but if you can’t bend or lift you'll only be able to reach things that are exactly at arm height. Which gives you, like, three REALLY clean shelves.
23. You may also experience the third trimester night-time phenomenon known as pregsomnia.
24. This is you trying to find a comfortable sleeping position with all your new aches and pains.
25. This is you the second you finally do find a comfortable sleeping position.
26. This is you trying to get up in the morning.
27. And this is you trying to function on 30 minutes' sleep while someone tells you "save up your sleep while you can, because you won't get any when the baby's born!"
28. In fact, people say a lot of stupid things to you this trimester.
29. Which does nothing to quell your random bouts of third trimester hormonal rage.
30. The upside of all this is that, with everything that's going on in your third trimester, giving birth starts to look less like a scene from a gore movie, and more like your salvation.
31. You even start to think you might be able to cope with the episiotomy and all the public pooing.
32. And if people continue to say idiotic shit to you about your pregnancy?
33. Simply expose your belly and give them nightmares for the rest of their lives.
