In case you hadn't noticed...

...I'M HUGE!!!

Bryan took this picture of me right before our baby shower last weekend. When I first got pregnant, I told Bryan that I had a really hard time imagining myself getting really big. Well, the time has come that I no longer have to imagine it. I experience it every day. And I must admit, it's not exactly pleasant. It takes me a long time to go from sitting to standing (or standing to sitting). It is very difficult to be comfortable in any position. Baby Payne has grown enough that he is pushing on my diaphragm. Or sometimes thinks my lungs make a very nice pillow. Which means it's often difficult to breathe, or feel like I can just get a good breath in. And when not sleeping on my lungs, apparently my bladder makes a great punching bag!

Walking (which more appropriately should be called waddling) has become slow and difficult. And walking too much or too fast has started to bring on occasional Braxton-Hicks contractions. I'm still working full time, though it's definitely getting more and more difficult to do. Fortunately, most of my coworkers are very understanding. One of the VPs of my division stops by my office pretty much every day to ask how I'm doing and how things are going...I think she remembers what it was like to work full time during her third trimester. And for the most part, I manage to get some sort of dinner on the table in the evenings, though I'm enlisting Bryan's help more and more often. He's such a good sport, and pitches in with no complaints!

I don't necessarily want it to seem like I'm complaining too much. I realize that, overall, this has been a rather easy, uncomplicated, and smooth pregnancy. I don't really have any complaints outside of the sort of universal third trimester complaints that almost any pregnant woman will have...I'm big, it's hot, it's difficult (and sometimes painful) to move, and it seems like I have to pee every 10 minutes. But given all the changes my body is going through to carry our son, these seem relatively minor.

Of course, I'm still looking forward to being "not pregnant."