The only thing worse than an early June heat wave is being very pregnant during an early June heat wave.

The unseasonable heat and soupiness have made my elephantine legs swell to ever more unbelievable proportions, and I have spent the better part of the last week and a half lying on the couch next to the air-conditioner, feet elevated on a pile of pillows. I felt not unlike a character in a 19th-century novel who takes to her bed with vapors. Why is it those novels never mentioned anything about stir-craziness? Could it be a postmodern condition?

Postmodern or not, by the end of the week, I had it bad.

“Just take it easy,” my husband said as I complained about my weather-mandated bed rest one morning. “Once the baby is here, you’ll have no time to sit around with your feet up. Why not enjoy it while you can?”

“Easy for you to say,” I told him. “For you, a quick walk around the block is still an option.”

“Give yourself a treat,” he said, leaning down to give me a kiss before leaving for work. “Maybe do some online shopping.”

“Mm,” I said, kissing him back and waving goodbye. Little did he know I was already sucked in to about 10 eBay auctions. He was right about one thing, however: The Internet was indeed my saving grace – specifically, the Citybaby message board. Thanks to it, despite being homebound all week, I could still discuss everything important: Brad Pitt’s interview with Diane Sawyer, Katie Holmes’s conversion to Scientology, and Barbara Walters’s breast-feeding brouhaha.

Apparently, Ms. Walters said something on “The View” about being uncomfortable when a woman seated near her on an airplane began breastfeeding her baby. Almost immediately, there were calls to arms. “‘The View’ is a women’s show,” one read, “anyone anti-bf-ing” – bf-ing is Citybaby code for breast feeding – “is anti-woman.” Not surprisingly, this brought about a wave of debate: Was BW (as she soon became) simply old-fashioned, like many Citybaby mothers and MILs (mothers-in-law), or were the bf-ers (sometimes disparagingly referred to as uberboobers) needlessly touchy? As it turned out, it didn’t much matter. A protest was arranged in front of ABC studios, with breast-feeding mothers nursing their babies en masse. There was much discussion on the Citybaby board about the merits of this course of action, for which, I learned, there is an actual, non-Citybaby name: lactivism.

The protest, and the idea behind it, gave me pause. Given the known health benefits, I was planning on breast-feeding my baby. But the closest I’d come to thinking it through was debating which goofily named breastfeeding pillow to buy (the ladies of Citybaby had weighed heavily in favor of the My Breast Friend). I couldn’t imagine myself getting worked up enough about a television talking head’s comments to actually protest them, but who knew? In a few short weeks, I, too, would be breast-feeding, and, if I’d learned one thing from my heat and pregnancy-induced captivity, I certainly planned to leave the house. Which I guess meant at least some public breast-feeding. All of which lead to a chilling question: Would motherhood turn me into an uberboober?

Before this line of thought could lead me down its most obvious and least productive path – namely, the “will I be a totally different person after I have this baby?” one I’ve tried so hard to avoid – I decided it best to get off the couch and out of the apartment. Heat be damned, it was better not to be alone with my message board-provoked thoughts.

Outside my building, the air was thick and moist. Despite the extreme heat and humidity, the usual cadre of old men sat in front of the pizza parlor across the street.

“Be careful you don’t fall,” one called as I waddled down my brownstone stairs.

“I’m trying to be,” I called out, my grip tight around the handrail.

Once on the street, I realized that, between the heat, my bloated thighs, and the weight of my belly, I would not be walking very far. Not ready to return to the apartment, I slowly made my way to the adorable sandwich and smoothie shop.

“Wow,” the cute counter girl said as I entered. “You really don’t look comfortable.”

“I’m not,” I said, ordering a lemonade.

Drink in hand, I shuffled my way to a table. As I scoped out the room, I noticed not one, not two, but three tables of mothers with babies. Taking a seat next to a parked stroller, I realized that one of the women at the table next to me was nursing and talking to her friend. She must have noticed me looking, because she turned her head. I smiled, hoping she’d interpret my gaze as the wistful look of the very pregnant. When she smiled back, I assumed she did.

And though I sat reading the New Yorker, a few well-timed surreptitious glances showed me that nearly every mother in the smoothie shop was at one point or another nursing her baby. All were very discreet. Which made me wonder what the big deal was anyway.

“Excuse me,” I said, leaning in to the mothers sitting next to me. “I was just wondering, does it feel strange, breast-feeding in public?”

“Not in this neighborhood,” one said. “It’s almost more strange to see a baby with a bottle,” added the other.

Suddenly, I felt much better. And I knew I had to tell Citybaby. So, after braving the heat on the way home, I went to my laptop and posted my missive, re: the lactivist debate: “Maybe BW needs to spend more time in Brooklyn.” To which someone responded, “You said it, sister.” I wondered if she was an uberboober.

The Brooklyn Chronicles, a work of fiction, appears each Friday. Previous installments are available at www.nysun.com/archive_chronicles.php. The author can be reached at kschwartz@nysun.com.