How does pregnancy feel? Like the worst hangover of your life, wearing too-tight trousers, permanently haunted by the mouth-ghost of cheese and onion crisps, with PMT and during a heatwave.

How does pregnancy feel? Like your body is an island, the shore lapping against your ribs, your pelvis, your bladder, your belly; a volcano gathering beneath your skin and the unpregnant mainland just a speck on your horizon.

How does pregnancy feel? Like being ushered into a private party, surrounded by the soft, whispering excitement of a backstage knees up, like being a ship in full sail, like being in a timeshare with the blood and bones your mother gave you, like the morning after an all-nighter, like a bloated and fly-blown fish washed up on the shore, like temporary entry into the pantheon of milk and honey, like a rubber band stretched across the flies of your old jeans.

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