Yesterday - uneventful. We went to the grocery store, and the walking around made my back and hip hurt, but not nearly as bad as it was last week, so I think I'll just chalk that up to a freak occurrence or a particularly bad day, and save sending Matt to the store by himself for those last weeks of pregnancy and the first weeks of parenthood.

A guy we know whose wife just had her baby logged in last night for the first time to check in, and proceeded to tell us about her 37 hours of labor. Oh, boy. Matt tried to stop him, but he's so flushed with excitement, I think, that it didn't occur to him that the two pregnant women on-channel would be more dismayed than encouraged that his wife managed to go a whole day before asking for an epidural. (He thought we would find it inspirational, rather than setting yet another standard that we don't want to have to try to live up to.)

So Matt and K.T. both wound up logging out, irritable with him for not taking the hint. Whee. Strangely enough, though I found his story discouraging, it didn't do anything to worsen my concerns about labor. I'm not really that worried about it. I mean, yes, of course I'm nervous. But I'm not terrified or anything. I'm pretty confident that even though it won't be fun, I can handle it, and there's this reward waiting...

My fears are focused a little differently. (I won't get into them. They're private and slightly embarrassing and entirely Too Much Information for a public journal.)

Matt finished reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night. So we all talked about it a little bit. Or more precisely, Matt and Jeff and I talked about it, while K.T. interjected occasional unrelated comments about this drug she was researching after hearing about it in a movie. It made the conversation a bit surreal. I wasn't sure if she was trying to hint that she really didn't want to discuss the book, or if she was really that intrigued by this drug.

The baby got the hiccups for the first time yesterday. My baby books talked about this months ago, and I always wondered how they could know it was just hiccups and not some other movement.

Now I know.

It didn't feel like a kick or a jab or a squirm. It felt like the whole baby was bouncing, in slow rhythm. You know - pretty much like you feel when you've got the hiccups. Hic! ... Hic! ... Hic!

I wasn't entirely certain at first, because she was doing lots of other squirming at the same time, but after a few minutes, she settled down, and I was left with these more-or-less rhythmic thumps. Hic! ... Hic! ... Hic!

I have a doctor's appointment this morning. I must remember to have the doc check the baby's position again. She was almost absurdly squirmy yesterday, and I could have sworn at one point, when I was prodding at my stomach, that it felt like she'd turned sideways on me.

She seems to be more or less vertical again this morning, but I want to make sure it's head down. The idea of delivering a frank or footling breech doesn't really appeal.

--Liz