The third trimester changes everything.
Not dramatically.
Not with crisis.
But with gravity.
My body slows.
Sleep becomes shallow.
Breathing becomes deliberate.
The world narrows to appointments, checklists, and the small, constant awareness that someone else is growing inside me.
Marcus hovers more than he admits.
“You don’t have to carry that,” I tell him when he tries to take the grocery bags for the third time.
“I like carrying things,” he says.
“You like controlling things.”
He pauses.
“Fair.”
We laugh softly.
But the weight is there.
The baby isn’t abstract anymore.
It’s not a line on a test.
It’s movement.
Pressure.
Life pushing outward.
Zara adjusts in her own way.
She’s nineteen now.
More grounded.
Less volatile.
She moves around the house like she belongs
