You Know You are in Your Third Trimester When…

1. You awaken at 6:45 on Saturday morning to eat pupusas, cabbage salad, salsa, refried beans, and rice because you have just had two back-to-back dreams about eating at two different Mexican restaurants. These are the leftovers from the dinner your husband courageously picked up solo from the El Salvadoran place down the street that shuns gringos and is best visited with a Spanish-speaking wife, (and which was all done so you could sit on the couch in your jammies at 7PM on a Friday and watch reruns of Downton Abbey without moving).

2. Your idea of evening exercise after work sometimes includes eating organic peanut butter cups while rocking side to side on the balance ball because eating and moving somehow tie in the priority book.

3. You find yourself singing non-sensical songs and doing strange-looking dances while making dinner after a long day of work because this is the only way you can stop your shoulders and lower back from hurting and is still more comfortable than sitting on the couch. The bonus, you supply your husband with endless entertainment in your adaptation of familiar song lyrics, even if he has yet to catch the Elaine-style dance moves that accompany them.

4. You start counting yourself in the next week of pregnancy at half-way through the prior week, so that even if today is the first day of week 31, you’ve considered yourself 31 weeks pregnant since Wednesday so the number of remaining weeks left at work seems more manageable.

5. You find yourself the center of attention among small children who do not know you but are now brave enough to ask, “Is there a baby in your belly?” You respond, “What do you think?” because you forget that only older children find your smart-ass humor appealing.

6. You allow people you barely know to touch your belly because they seem so happy when you let them. You also endure countless remarks about how small you look for being (insert number) weeks pregnant, even though you do not feel small and are proud of how much your body has managed to adapt.

7. You catch most people, including the children in your classroom, looking at your belly before your face.

8. Your dogs suddenly think you are the messiah and accompany you wherever you move throughout the house. They also sniff, lick, and use your belly as a pillow.

9. You spend at least an hour a day staring at your belly in order to catch a glimpse of the Lock Ness Monster surfacing across your skin, (affectionately named, of course). You also force anyone in your vicinity on the couch to touch your belly and watch with you, (even close friends who typically avoid hugs).

10. The women in your life have finally started to tell you the truth about late pregnancy and those early post-partum days. Thanks ladies. No, really, I mean it. How else would I know that purchasing a supply of adult diapers is not some kind of cruel joke?

11. It is 7:32 AM, you ate 32 minutes ago, but you have been thinking about what to eat next since you ate that last mouthful of pupusas.

12. You have not blogged in months because the effort required to work, socialize, sleep, eat, educate yourself about babies and childbirth, and exercise makes writing random posts seem trivial compared to researching which diaper pail you really ought to buy and debating whether the bulge on the left side of your stomach is the baby’s head or butt. However, you know you’ll return to the world of writing soon enough, that all these experiences are just adding to the texture of what you will share after this huge transformation unfolds.

Happy Saturday, time to eat my second breakfast.