1. The first day you wake up and don’t feel the urge to vomit. There’s no denying it: The first trimester is a real bitch on your appetite. After a few too many trips to the porcelain gods, you eventually learn to subsist on crackers, toast and ginger ale, pathetically nibbling on them like some sad supermodel while your friends and partner nosh on pad thai and pizza (jerks). However, one day you will wake up and feel fine! Actually, you’ll feel more than fine. You’ll feel absolutely, positively, fantastic—and ravenous, like a bear that just woke from hibernation. Instead of beelining to the bathroom, you’ll sprint to the kitchen in a state of pure mania and start inhaling anything, and everything, in sight. Bacon-wrapped pancakes with a side of chocolate-dipped potato chips? Sounds delightful! Dig in, girl. You deserve it.

2. The first time you slip on maternity jeans and have a slight pantgasm due to the sheer comfort and freedom. You’ve been trying to get away with your normal pants for a while. Maybe you’ve even bought some of those belly-band-belt-extender-thingamabobs to squeeze a few more weeks out of your pre-prego pants. However, there eventually comes a day when your desire to actually breathe whittles away your last ounce of pride and you give in to those dreaded two words: maternity pants.

The funny thing is that once you do give in, you realize that maternity pants are the SHIT! I mean they really, truly are. The first time you slip those bad boys on is a magical and wondrous moment. Your belly runneth over, but it doesn’t matter because those elastic panels are more comforting and forgiving than your very own mother. In this euphoric state, you may even feel the urge to kiss your pants (and if you’re still in the privacy of the dressing room, by all means do).

3. The first time you have to walk away from the stench of your own fart. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned—or a pregnant woman who’s just passed gas. Seriously, those things are lethal. They should come with a warning label.

I remember one time my husband and I were babysitting his cousin’s 16-month-old son. At one point, I really had to let one rip, so I did. After releasing my ass bomb, I meandered to the other side of the room to evade my own odor. Within seconds, my husband wrinkled his nose and said, “Oh, man! I think Dylan just took a massive dump in his diaper.” Now, I could have tried to blame it on the baby. It would have been so easy. However, I fessed up to the fart. My husband stared at me with such a horrified look of utter disbelief, followed by (thankfully) an uproarious laugh. He honestly couldn’t believe I, his formerly hot wife, was capable of emitting such a stench—and frankly, neither could I. It was disturbing.

If—wait, let me rephrase that, once—you start having epic pregnancy farts, my best piece of advice is this: have a sense of humor about it. Maybe buy a whoopee cushion and play pranks with your significant other.

4. The first time you step into the shower, grab your razor, and realize—shit—you can’t see your va-jay-jay anymore. This is a slightly terrifying moment, despite the obvious warning signs of its eventuality. Before this pubic milestone hits, you’ve usually been hunching over for weeks, contorting yourself in all sorts of positions to catch a glimpse at your hoo-ha, then feverishly weed-whacking it before you lose a visual contact (or your balance).

So what should you do once your belly blocks your lady bits? Well, if you’d like to take a gamble on your muscle memory, you could say a silent prayer and swing at it blind. Or, you could invest in an anti-fog shower mirror. Lastly, you could go just say screw it and go au naturel. (Maybe just warn your partner ahead of time. Then again, don’t. You can do whatever the hell you want! You’re the one that’s pregnant, after all.)

5. The first time your nipples leak. Yes, in addition to your boobs getting bigger and your areolas taking on a darker color (and possibly more amoebic shape), you may look down one day and notice a wet spot or two on your bra—or worse, your actual shirt. So what the heck is this foreign liquid spilling out of your nipples? It’s called colostrum and is basically nature’s way of testing out the plumbing before Game Day. If you find yourself with two leaky faucets, you might want to invest in some nipple pads. But hey, on the bright side, guess what? Your plumbing works! Congratulations (sort of).

Ain’t pregnancy grand?

Related post: The Six Stages of Pregnancy