Pacing the Cage

Pregnancy doesn't seem to really start until the very end. I am 34 and a half weeks pregnant. It's four in the morning. I am up, not by choice, no noise but the intermittent clink of the ice machine. I'm restless. A kind of restless I've never been before. I must look like a dog during a thunderstorm. My body tells me to pace, so I do. My bare feet come down on the vinyl of the kitchen floor, I rub my hands over my taut belly, feeling small contractions like little earthquakes. The overhead light glows so differently this late at night. 
I need to find something to do. I make a whole wheat English Muffin. I fill a mason jar with ice water. 
I go back upstairs. Amanda is sleeping. She has taken Ambien, and slumbers on like she's comatose, or a mummy. I love it. I love her. I kiss her lips as hard as I want, because I know she won't stir. 
I watch infomercials as I eat my toast. 
I turn off the tv and read under the dim hue of a book light. 
Our son kicks the shit out of me from inside. He gets hiccups, and he startles me every time he jumps. I feel like he's trying to tear out of me. And I still have 5 1/2 weeks to go. I can't get comfortable, I can't sleep. I roll to my side trying to console him. He floats down to the right section of my abdomen. He pounds at the mattress like it's a bass drum. He kicks against Amanda's back. He is trying to break free. 
It's not a sensation I could get used to. I wish there was something I could do. His need for freedom is so contagious, it is the only thing I can focus on. My legs kick out involuntarily. I am sweaty. I pull the fan closer to me, and it doesn't help. Amanda is ice cold under our down comforter. I put my hands all over her, trying to leech some cold from her skin. 
Everything is about to change. Everything has changed already. I am so tired. This keeps happening night after night. The restlessness, the hunger, the pacing, the ache at my breasts. 
I am awake and alone, at an hour which has become singularly mine. No mother to call and inform me of these things.
I've read every book I can get my hands on about pregnancy. But this fire, this lost, overly-itchy-sweater-in-July feeling, seems to have been omitted by everything and everyone. 
Still, there's something so primal in finding these things out on my own.