(Warning: this is a total pregnancy post...so I won't be offended if anyone decides to skip it! :) )

I had my 34-week midwife appointment today. Because I am who I am, of course I'm reading a ton of books and websites about pregnancy, and one of the things I was prepared for today was that the midwife would check on the baby's position inside me. Apparently, midwives often freak out and give dire warnings to parents if the baby isn't head-down yet at 34 weeks. This, according to everything I've read, is nonsense - lots of babies don't turn head-down until 36 or 37 weeks, so there's no reason to worry if that hasn't happened yet...which is a good thing, since I was 90% sure (based on the movements I'd been feeling) that the baby was absolutely NOT head-down.

So, we went into the appointment, I lay down on the examining table, we listened to the baby's heartbeat (nice and strong!), the midwife turned around to set down the heartbeat monitor before checking the position...and there was an enormous *SPIN* inside my belly. The baby had kicked off hard to do a full-body roll, head-to-toe, and it was SO extreme that Patrick actually saw it happen from the other side of the room! Only the midwife didn't see, since her back was turned.

She turned back to me, put her hands on my belly, felt around carefully - then said, "Oh, good. Head-down. Just right."

I swear I could sense the baby snickering inside me.

Needless to say, there's been lots of rolling around in different directions since then, so I'm guessing the baby is no longer anywhere near that perfect head-down position that was assumed just long enough for the test...but as long as s/he is willing to keep turning around whenever the moment calls for it, I'm happy.

In the meantime, I'm starting to understand why so many women with children have told me they barely moved in their last month of pregnancy. Right now, revising Kat by Starlight is taking ALL my energy - after doing that every day I just sort of lapse into a bleeaagh state of general 3rd-trimester discomfort and exhaustion. (I SO wish I could go back to sleeping through the night!) But today I found the perfect distraction (at least for someone like me, who went to college in the early 90s): it turns out that all the seasons of Friends are available to watch on YouTube.

I started watching Friends in my first semester of college, always gathered in a dorm room at night with at least three other women, eating junk food and relaxing and bonding after a stressful day in the music school...so now, re-watching it from the very beginning (they all look so young in that first episode!!!!) gives me a warm, nostalgic glow. I've got my big, comfy chair, I've got 7 seasons of Friends to watch in the next 6 weeks...maybe I can handle the rest of the 3rd trimester after all.