thanks, charlie

i am certain that i jinxed myself last night before going to bed when i joyfully exclaimed "i think i've been sleeping much better since buying this pillow!" (in reference to a pillow the length of my body; able to simultaneously support my head, ever-growing belly and the alignment of my legs and hips by fitting in between them)

it's not even a real maternity pillow, it's just a cheap ($10) thing i got from target for even cheaper ($5) because it was the last one, and it was slightly damaged - i love negotiating prices...

anyway, even erk agreed with me; "you have been sleeping better," he said.
and at first i wasn't sure if he was joking - since he sleeps through the night when i wake up a thousand times, but then i realized his sincerity. even with his eyes still closed he knows when i get up to use the bathroom at 2, 3, 4 in the morning, can feel the labor-intensive, whale-like shift of my body from my right side to my left when, previously, it involved me re-situating two to three pillows to now perform the function of this single $5 one.

or maybe it was the comment to my sister earlier today that jinxed me. she was asking whether it was as hot in philly as it was in new york - yes, hot and humid and gross. i explained that erk was in the process of installing central air into our home, but that it wouldn't be ready for a while because it's kind of an enormous job; and not only is he one man working alone, but he's never done it before - something i admire tremendously about him; he is fearless in his home-improvement endeavors, and either knows everything, or is incredible quick to learn it.

"in the meantime," i told my sister, "we use the ceiling fans, which are enough". we only really need the air for those three days out of the year that are suffocatingly hot. you know the days you feel like you can't breathe or move? oh, you might not know what i am talking about because you have air conditioning...but i never have, and every year for the past several there are three or four days that the air is so thick and heavy it feels as though it literally slows down the movement of your limbs - like walking through a room full of honey...

either way, i felt jinxed, because two and a half hours after falling asleep i woke up to the discomfort of the heat beneath me. you know that expression, "a bun in the oven"? referring to a baby in a woman's womb? it's because her body is like an oven, working overtime, it heats up to "cook" this little life-form into being.  and indeed that heat was also cooking the bed beneath me, making it incredibly uncomfortable to fall back asleep, but i managed.

an hour and a half after that i was up again, but this time jolted awake with my own exclamation of pain. i have had leg cramps during this pregnancy before, but always minor, ones that went away by shifting the position of my leg, perhaps flexing my foot...i have even had awful leg cramps before pregnancy, where i needed to physically grab my foot to force a flexed position to allow the cramp to stretch itself out. but this cramp felt very different. not only was the force of this muscle contraction acute and STRONG, but when i instinctively tried reaching for my foot to stretch it out of me, i couldn't grab it. being pregnant has limited some of my movement, being able to reach my feet from any position is one of those ways...

not only did erk wake up enough to understand my incoherent explanation of the noise i was producing, but even the dog came running into our room concerned by the disruption of quiet in the house.  after about 30 seconds of erk stretching and massaging my leg, it passed. the cramp and the pain were gone. but i was unable to fall back asleep, so i found myself here - writing.

i can't help but think this is all meant to be helpful preparation. the sleepless nights to prepare for the patterns of a newborn baby; the new kind of leg cramp a hint into an early labor contraction. not necessarily the same physical sensation - but just the idea of a new kind of pain/experience of my body doing things it has never done before - and most definitely my needing erk more than i ever have and in ways i cannot yet imagine. or maybe it was just hot and i got a charlie-horse.