Primitive Camping While Pregnant..

This weekend Adam had a long weekend and I knew I wanted to go to the beach. We only live 2-3 hours from the beach and pretty soon we will be having a BIG change of scenery so I want to enjoy the beach life as much as possible. So I had to decide WHICH beach. We have so many beaches to choose from. I knew I didn't want to go to Myrtle, nothing against myrtle beaches BUT we have already been to Myrtle 4 times and I wanted to experience a different beach. So I ended up picking the Wilmington area. A lot of people recommended some places to stay and one of them was a camp ground. Now I know what your thinking. I was thinking the same thing. Camping at 32 1/2 weeks pregnant....... ARE YOU CRAZY? Ummm... Maybe.. Just a little. BUT I kept looking for hotels just in case I found one for a decent price. Every day I kept going back to the camp grounds and looking more into camping. Brett has been begging to go camping so I thought it'd be perfect to do camping and the beach at the same time. So I brought it up to Adam and we decided to do the camping and beach. And we planned our weekend at Fort Fisher camping grounds and Kure Beach.

I did LOTS of research and I mean LOTS!! What to eat while camping because if we were going camping we were doing it right. What to take to cook and drink. Fun camping activities. And things to do in the area so that away Monday on our way home we could stop at a few places and enjoy more of the area. I also called my dad to get his camping advice. He gave me lots of good tips and advice about primitive camping. My MAIN issue with the whole camping thing was no electricity and the toilets being far away.. When I say far away what I mean is it's not 5 steps from my bed. I'm 8 months pregnant I get up NUMEROUS times a night to pee.. And I am not an outdoors person that can just "pop-a-squat" when I need to pee. Even if I was how in the world do you do that at 8 months pregnant???? I'd probably end up falling over and landing in my pee or peeing on myself and waking everyone up. Can you imagine looking out your tent to this really pregnant woman, shorts to ankle, rolling back and fourth, scream and crying, in her pee!! Yea that's what I imagine when I think about popping a squat pregnant or not pregnant.

Thursday we went and bought the camping items we needed that we didn't have. Friday we(I) spent cleaning and getting all our stuff together while Adam went fishing with a friend. Friday evening Adam packed up the van while I ran to the store and grabbed some last minute items. Saturday morning Adam did the color run with some of the guys he works with and by noon we were off.. We were all so excited and I was a bit nervous. All I kept thinking about was no electricity.... No close toilets.. Oh what joy. BUT I found out some friends of ours were also going to the same camping area as us and was excited about that. The reason I was bummed about the no electricity was because I needed a plug to blow up our air mattress.. I was NOT sleeping on the ground with just a few blankets. I am a stomach sleeper. Yes at 8 months pregnant I STILL sleep on my stomach. It is the only way I can sleep. I don't sleep completely on my stomach. It's a weird sideways stomach position. No it doesn't hurt me or the baby. It is the only way I can sleep. BUT I cannot sleep that way on hard ground because it's extremely painful. I also can't sleep on my back because I feel like I'm being suffocated from the inside when I do, and sleeping on my side hurts my back.


Saturday when we got there we set up camp and got everything organized as best as possible. Then I was on a mission to find an outlet to blow up my air mattress. I found one in the locker rooms but was trying to see if I could find one closer. Surprisingly right next to my tent was this metal box that looked like it could be for an outlet so I asked Adam to open it and check. Sure enough IT WAS! I have never been so happy to find a plug before :) After we got everything set up the adults played corn hole while the kids played soccer. For dinner that night Adam made some delicious burgers. Then we waited for the sun to go down and headed to the beach to look for crabs.  I think we were to the point of giving up and they finally found some..

Sunday morning I woke up around 4:30am... It may have been earlier it may have been a bit later but I know it was before 5am and I know it was before the sun came up. The reason I woke up was because I had to pee.. I tried anything and everything to fall back asleep because I was NOT walking to the restroom by myself and getting attacked by a deer or kidnapped! I even had a moment of weakness and considered popping a squat but just couldn't bring myself to even try.. So I laid in the bed with my eyes closed and NOTHING! I honestly have no idea how I didn't pee myself. When the sun finally came up I got out of my tent and walked to the restroom to pee.. Little did I know I actually was about to have the runs. AWESOME!! Camping at 8 months pregnant, no close restrooms, a weak bladder, and NOW I HAVE THE RUNS!! Last time I went camping was EXACTLY 3 years prior and guess what, I had the runs then too.. BUT I pretty much OD'ed on pepto on the way to our campsite and it helped a lot. BUT guess what you cannot take while pregnant?? PEPTO! Thankfully it wasn't too bad but that morning I ended up clogging the toilet!! SERIOUSLY! I am in this disgusting restroom just laughing at myself wondering WHY DID I THINK CAMPING WAS A GOOD IDEA??? And then a knock on the door!! I just clogged 1 of 2 toilets for the tent camping area we were in. AND whoever was knocking on the door would see my face and know I CLOGGED THE TOILET!! NOOOO!!!! Then I saw the plunger. I tried everything possible to unclog that toilet and it did not work. I am the worst when it comes to plunging a toilet. I have no idea what I'd do if the kids flooded the toilet while Adam was gone. Thankfully though everything went down except for a few pieces of toilet paper. I walk out and its the lady camping next to us with her 2 little boys. Hopefully since she has kids of her own she understands you cant always control it. Before this pregnancy I NEVER went number 2 in public but this pregnancy has done things to me that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy haha.

I head back to our tent and everyone slowly starts to wake up and I decided to start on breakfast. I made eggs mixed with sausage on the grill :) The group of people we knew that we were camping by were heading back home today but we were spending the day at the beach and spending the night one more night. So they packed up and we all had to wait until 9am whenever reception opened. Once reception opened they headed home and we headed to the beach.

We get to the beach and find a perfect spot. Close enough to the beach but not too close. Or so we thought. Everyone puts sunscreen on and the kids go running to the water. We have been to the beach 4 times and they love playing in the water. They know not to go too far but to still enjoy it. This beach was NOTHING like what they have experienced before. The waves were rough and the current was strong. They were slamming people down and taking

them under. Brynna was SITTING on the sand. The water came up and flipped her over. I brought both kids up and explained that they could play in the water BUT they did not need to go in too deep. Or they'd have to sit out because the water was a little more dangerous this time. Did they listen. Nope. So we decided to just sit and watch and sure enough they learned quick. Brynna gave us a little scare and I took off running!! She didn't realize that even though she wasn't that deep the waves were high and it pushed her down, she did some turns and flips under water and I grabbed her out of the water. After that I made her play in the sand right beside us. While at the beach both kids had to pee.. What do you do when you need to pee at the beach?? YOU PEE IN THE OCEAN! All the animals do it so why can't we? Neither kid understood that EVERYONE pees in the ocean. Brynna kept trying to but the waves would push her over before she could get it to come out. I thought the kids were going to let their bladders burst instead of peeing in the ocean. But FINALLY they both peed in the ocean and turns out so did the little boy next to us and the little girl that Brett and Brynna were playing in the sand with. Yea she peed in the ocean too. And they ALL announced it to the world. Finally we decided to head back to the camp site take showers, do some fishing, and start dinner.

 

My main complaint about the whole camp site out of everything was the lack of showers and lack of restrooms. They had a community shower by our camping area and it had 2 shower heads but only 1 worked.. Thankfully we got their first and didn't have to wait but by the time we got out their were 2 people waiting and by the time we left the locker room their were 6 people waiting. After showers we headed to the fishing pier and Adam did some fishing. The kids and I headed back before Adam and we started to get all the dinner stuff ready. We had chili dogs with baked beans for dinner and it was so good! After dinner we started to pack up so that in the morning we wouldn't have too much to pack. Then we made s'mores and headed off to bed. For the first time in a LONG time I didn't get up in the middle of the night to pee!! It was amazing!

 

Monday morning we had muffins and donuts while we finished packing up the car and then headed off.. We decided to skip the beach that day and took the kids to a Children's Museum and they had a BLAST! I think they liked the museum better than the beach.. It really was such a fun and cute place. We spent about 2 hours at the museum and then stopped at Nick's Diner in Wilmington for lunch. After lunch we walked down the street a couple blocks and got ice cream at Kilwin's. The line at Kilwin's was long but it went fast and was worth the wait.





My left ankle isn't too swollen here but
my right one was swollen

After that it was time to head home. Within 10 minutes both kids were out and stayed asleep for about 75% of the drive. On the drive home my feet felt a little weird. I take a look down and they were HUGE! I could not believe how swollen my ankles/cankles were. With my previous 2 pregnancies I never had cankles BUT I also wasn't due mid summer. Apparently heat=swelling. So YAY! I get to enjoy the cankles this pregnancy. The swelling has gone down a lot and I have a little shape but they aren't my NORMAL ankles! Finally we got back to Fayetteville and had to run a few errands before we could go home for good. But once we got home we unpacked, showered, and called it a night! We were exhausted! I don't know how I woke up this morning and I have no idea how I didn't take a nap today but we had a GREAT weekend and honestly I really enjoyed camping. We will probably go back before we move. Which means I will be camping again while pregnant. But hopefully we figured out my stomach issues and this time I will just have to deal with the late night peeing :)