Mama at 30 weeks- Henry.

For all of you who care to see what carrying REALLY low looks like, here's mama at 30 weeks. (This picture is almost 2 weeks old, so we'll give you the run down on how 30-32 weeks feels).

Mama is still feeling great. This continues to be her best-feeling pregnancy- probably because of the afternoon naps she's able to take. Her biggest complaint about being pregnant with June and I was that she always had gall bladder pain. We'd spend our days kicking it and it would always swell up and cause her pain. She has a little this time, but is carrying low enough that our baby can't stretch out far enough to kick it regularly.

Mama jokes that the baby must be a boy because it seems entirely composed of sharp edges. (I can't think of any other boy who is all knees and elbows and always manges to head butt mama when she picks him up.) This is her most active baby yet. I mostly slept. June kicked a lot. This baby kicks 24 hours a day and spends a fair amount of time pushing. Mama says that this baby actually can take her breath away with a good kick, and anyone that felt her belly can attest that our baby will spend minutes at a time pushing out, like it's trying to bust a whole in her belly. So mama spends her time trying to push the baby back because she's afraid she's going to start bruising soon.

The weekly baby email says that the baby is about to go through a big growth spurt. This must be true because mama has turned into an eating machine. She doesn't put back much at every sitting, but you can guarantee that if it's been two hours, she's hungry again. No weird craving yet.

The weirdest side effect is that mama seems to have developed pregnancy-induced ezcema. Half of her face is flaking off and she has 5 weird patches on her skin. She says it's because she's not used to that dry northern air. The 100 percent humidity ought to help that out.

The hardest part has been being pregnant in the summer. It's no secret that mama doesn't tolerate heat. She was happy to go north for 3 weeks and proud of herself that 90 degree heat (with low humidity) doesn't bother her much anymore. We'll see how she does for the next 8 weeks now that we're back home.