Warning: May expand at high altitudes

The camping trip was, for the most part, a huge success. I certainly enjoyed myself very much. I just thought I'd put that out there before I continue.

Unfortunately, it wasn't all picture-perfect. I became a big fat pregnant lady during the trip. Poof! Instantly! It was like the altitude made my body decide that it no longer needed to just LOOK pregnant, but it also needed to FEEL pregnant.

Pregnant women and tents do not go well together. Every time I laid down on the mattress, I wondered if I would ever be able to get up again. When I would attempt, it was like I had to rally every muscle and give a pep talk to every cell in my body. "OK, people (in this case cells and muscles)... here's the plan. On the count of three, we are all going to move in THAT direction. We can do it! Together we can move this body, but we must work as a team! Go Team Niffer! Ready? One... Two... Three!" The result was that my body would lurch forward an inch or two. "Oh, come on, team! Where is the passion? We are obviously going to require more grunting to get our goal accomplished."

I swear I took up half of the tent, and I had no idea that camping required so much squatting, bending over and ducking. All of which are not conducive to being pregnant. Every activity from sleeping in the tent to roasting marshmallows reminded me that my tummy was in the way.

On top of that, I recall being prone to leg cramps towards the end of my first pregnancy, and that seemed to hit me all at once this time while camping. I must have gotten 2-3 muscle cramps and could feel a few more threatening to take place. These are the kinds of cramps that leave you in so much pain you can't move but you need to move in order to get rid of the pain, and even when it all goes away, you're stuck with a nice big knot in your muscle.

Then there was the nice case of the runs I got. For those of you who don't want to read about gross pregnant-related stuff, feel free to skip the next paragraph. I debated whether or not to write about it, but I didn't hold back on my first pregnancy, so why hold back on this one, right? The nutshell of it is that a bad case of the runs is the last thing that a pregnant woman stuck in the back of a tent needs.

For more details... here's the longer nutshell version: I got the runs both Saturday and Sunday morning. I was miserable and had to go to the smelly outhouse multiple times in a short period. It wasn't until Monday (luckily, after returning home), though, that things got really bad. I couldn't stay off the toilet and finally resorted to taking some Imodium AD as soon as I found out it was safe for pregnancy, but RIGHT before I found out that it wasn't diarrhea I was experiencing. Instead, I was suffering from constipation. Oh my god! Undo! Undo! CTRL-Z! Following that, came puking on the toilet, a trip to the doctors, followed by progressively more blood in what was supposed to be my stool, then a trip to the ER to be told that even though it was tons more blood than I've ever seen coming from that direction, it wasn't much to be concerned about and to go home, take some stool softener and give it 3-4 days to work itself through my system. 3-4 DAYS! Are you kidding me? Can't I just get an epidural or an an enenema (sp?) instead? Whatever would get rid of the pain? As it turned out, after 48-72 hours of a gestational period, followed by 48 hours of laboring, I finally gave birth to a beautiful little one-inch turd. Despite Daddy finding me on the bathroom floor, half naked, in a sweaty sprawl, trying desperately to cool myself down, I declared VICTORY!!! Let's not go through that again. Strangely enough, it was after 21 hours of struggling that I resorted to going to the ER. It just so happens that it was 21 hours of struggling with my labor with Ellie before I resorted to getting the epidural. I wonder if that means I have a 21 hour pain-tolerance. Anyway, enough of that.

Moving on with the camping... Inspired by some of the pictures that Spleeness has taken of flowers (look here and here), I attempted to take some photos of the flowers we saw. I quickly learned that my ability to take fantastic pictures was severely limited by the size of my stomach. Or at least, that's the excuse I'm using.









Despite it all, though, I had a wonderful camping trip. It gave me an excuse to wear my cute over-alls (as you saw in the first picture) so how bad could it have been? I'm guessing I will not be spending any more time in a tent in the near future, though, but I am hoping to figure out a way to work around that so we can go again.