Tropical Heat Wave

As expected, the third trimester of pregnancy in the hottest part of a New York City summer leaves a little something to be desired. Really, other than the shingles and all, I think I've been incredibly lucky so far with the whole pregnancy thing. I'm big, but not big enough that my back hurts from carrying the weight in the front. My feet generally haven't swollen all that badly, etc. I know all these things remain in my future over the next couple of months, but so far, lucky. However, pregnancy definitely has interfered with my ability to regulate body temperature. I am warmer than normal pretty much all the time.

During the day, this isn't too bad. I sit in my nice air conditioned office, where the temperature is regulated by someone other than me, and I don't need a sweater as I have in past years. Sometimes I'm even a little warm, but never really uncomfortably so. At night, however, it's a bit of a dilemma. I'm a restless sleeper anyway, and heat makes it worse. John swears that it is cold in our bedroom at night. He wraps himself tightly in the sheet and quilt. A couple of nights, he wore a hooded sweatshirt and socks because he said he was getting sick from having the fan blow on him at night. Frankly, I think he's making it all up. The decades-old a/c in our bedroom, while it does generally blow cold air, doesn't blow that much of it (thus the need for the fan blowing directly on me in addition to the a/c on high) and doesn't cool the room as well as the window units we were using in the old apartment.

Last night, it was particularly bad. Several days of temps in the low 90s have left the city a mucky mess. I took a freezing shower before bed and was still boiling all night. John had the blanket on as usual. This morning, when I woke up, I checked the a/c, and it wasn't even blowing cold. Just room temperature air. I complained about this off and on while John was getting dressed. He insisted I was making it up, that the bedroom was a comfortable temperature and the pregnancy hormones were making me crazy. Finally, I took his hand and walked him over to the pitiful stream of not-even-cold air coming out of the unit. Even he had to agree that it was not blowing cold. We called the doorman, and sure enough, the a/c was out in our building last night (and still is, as I sit here working sporadically from home while washing a load of whites because I realized I had nothing to wear to work this morning). I'm sure it was well over 80 degrees in the bedroom. And yet, John was still sleeping with a blanket, wrapped tightly around him no less, insisting that last night was no hotter than normal and that we should get an indoor thermometer so he could prove it was a comfortable temperature. So, who's the crazy one now?