How did you end up pregnant and living in a tent (you fools)?

The former happened the usual way. I’ll spare you the details.

As for the latter, we ended up in the tent through a combination of poor judgment on our part, someone else’s delusions, a Volkswagen lemon, and a some good, old-fashioned bad luck.

We had relocated from Victoria to New South Wales a year prior to moving into the tent. We’d packed everything we owned, including three dogs, into a ute, leaving our friends and family to pursue beekeeping careers.

The work we were promised never eventuated. The piece of shit VW Transporter we bought for moving bees kept breaking down (sometimes with a full load of hives) and needing costly repairs. A few other mistakes and nuggets of bad luck, and we found ourselves teetering on the edge of broke.

My husband found work with an artist blacksmith after it became clear that the beekeeping work would not even come close to supporting us. The blacksmith and his family very kindly let us build a dwelling on their property, which was nestled in a ruggedly beautiful valley in NSW.

We couldn’t afford to rent and buy materials for the house, so we pitched the tent and set about building a little shack on stilts.

Looking on the Bright Side

Here are a few specific situations in which I found pregnant-tent-living especially trying. In these situations, looking on the bright side was my weapon of choice in the battle against completely losing my shit.

Getting up to pee at night
On average, I had to get up to pee around five times a night. This involved heaving my rotund body up off the ground, battling through several screen doors in the dark (which had to be kept closed to save us from hordes of mozzies), and stumbling out onto the muddy ground.

There was no formal toilet, in case you hadn’t already guessed. Peeing meant squatting in the bush, a very vulnerable position to be in with so many leeches around. And leeches are attracted to the smell of urea, so I knew they were going to come for my bare arse as soon as the PJ bottoms dropped.

On the bright side?

Death adders aren’t attracted to the smell of urea.

Rain, rain, rain
Two words: Murphy’s Law.

Much of Australia was experiencing a drought and a very hot, dry autumn last year. Not us! As soon as we decided to live in a tent, the heavens opened up. Heavy, drenching, persistent rain. The valley is very still and humid at the best of times, but with the near constant rain, everything was consistently damp.

Mould grew on our mattress and clothes. Mould even grew on arsenic-treated pine. I was waiting for it to start appearing on our oldest, laziest dog (like moss growing on a sloth).

The stifling humidity made my all-day, all-night nausea even worse.

On the bright side?

When the valley did experience its once-every-ten-years major flood, none of the dogs were swept away to be devoured by bull sharks in the Hawkesbury River, and no one lost a vehicle (which has happened before).

The birthday from hell
On the morning of my birthday, I went to collect water from the nearby river, as I did every morning. It had rained the night before (of course) and the log I walked along to get to the prime water collecting spot was slippery. I thought I could handle it if I walked carefully enough.

I was wrong.

I slipped and fell into the river, landing on my ankle and twisting it quite badly. To add insult to injury, my gumboots filled with water.

I hobbled back to the tent in my sloshing gumboots. I shut myself in, put my fat ankle up on a pile of bedding, and spent the rest of my 34th birthday sulking.

On the bright side?

My husband bought me a delicious marble birthday cake, and I ate the whole damn thing myself.

I’m not going to lie, living in a tent for six weeks while pregnant was rough. But, we got through it, and in hindsight, it was a bit of an adventure (not one I’m keen to repeat, though) and will be a fun story to tell our little one when he’s old enough to understand.

And, on the bright side, we learned to never take hot running water or phone reception for granted ever again.