This past weekend, Melissa and I decided that we needed to have at least one outdoor adventure before summer was over. On the spur-of-the-moment, we decided to go to Lathrop State Park in Walsenburg, CO. We invited anyone who wanted to come – our friends Alejandro and Renee decided to join us with their adorable 10-week old baby boy, Danilo. And although he is still in mommy’s tummy, Caleb was part of the adventure too!

Melissa, Caleb, and I arrived at the campground about 6:30pm and found a beautiful spot to set up camp. My parents had given us their old tent last summer – which, I might add, is something of a story in itself with 144 square feet and an 8-foot dome top in bright teal! Light that sucker up at night, and it looks like the mother-ship has landed! (Wish I had a picture of it, but I didn’t get one this trip) After getting the alien spacecraft up, we put together our bed, which consisted of a king sized air mattress with two Thermarest pads. At the time, the Thermarests really had no practical purpose other than perhaps keeping us a bit warmer. Earlier that day, when we had packed, Melissa fortunately insisted on bringing the Thermarests and had it not been for her suggesting this, we would have been in a world of hurt (especially my VERY pregnant wife!)!

After Alejandro and Renee arrived, we had dinner and enjoyed a pleasant evening. That is, until we entered our tent to settle down for the night. What greeted us nearly brought tears to my eyes – our mattress was no longer a firm king of its domain, but a sad and wilted pancake! My lower lip began to tremble as I whimpered something incoherently to my lovely wife, realizing we now faced the prospect of sleeping on the ground. Melissa, being six-months-pregnant and already having sleep issues anyway, was none too thrilled either as she surveyed the situation.  I can’t even imagine the thoughts going through her head as she realized that she’d have to figure out a way to sleep with this preggers belly and all the discomfort associated with that belly. Wow, she hardly ever complained at all, I was so impressed with her!

It was nearly midnight, which eliminated the possibility of running out to buy a new mattress or trying to find the leak to repair it. So I decided to try to make the best of a less than perfect situation and attempted to re-inflate the mattress, hoping it would stay aloft enough to keep Missy comfortable as possible and for us to sleep for a precious few hours. I had brought a bicycle foot pump with us for just such an emergency. But this pancake would need more than a mere bike tire pump! I grumbled as I got the bicycle pump from the car, hooked it up to the mattress, and started to stomp on the pedal. The ensuing “squeak squeak squeak” must have made our neighbors wonder if we were trying to kill a small fuzzy animal. The noise alerted Alejandro to the fact we had inflation issues and he kindly offered to let us use his battery powered air pump (handy one to bring on a camping trip, Alejandro is!). I flicked the switch on the little machine, which roared to life with the strength of Boeing 747. At this point, there was no doubt the entire campground knew we had a sad and wilted pancake mattress!

We quickly re-inflated our pancake to once again become the king of all mattresses – proud and firm. We prayed and drifted off to sleep…and then I awoke in the wee hours of the morning and found midnight had come for our mattress – it was a pumpkin…er, pancake again. Miraculously, though, we hadn’t sunk all the way to the ground. If I remained precisely on my Thermarest, my body stayed suspended above the gravelly soil below. But if either one of us moved, the other immediately hit dirt. I’m not sure how the physics of this worked, because it seemed counter to the laws of nature, but indeed, it was true. All of my moving around and testing this floating theory woke up Melissa who was in a surprisingly chipper mood given the fact that she had spent the night on a flat pancake hovering mere centimeters from the cold hard ground while trying to remain comfortable with the large belly and baby in her midsection! All I can say is thank God for the Thermarest pads Missy had so lovingly encouraged me (okay, okay, she’s reading over my shoulder admitting that she INSISTED on bringing them in what she likes to call her “state of paranoia”) to bring, because they somehow managed act as a sort of boat in a sea of sad and wilted air. We managed to sleep decently and awakened to a beautiful morning.

We expected the following night would be far less eventful, knowing what we were in for come bedtime. But then, as we laid down for our second night, I heard a hissing noise. I discovered the hole! It was right between us and was creating quite the breeze. It must have gotten larger since the previous night. Melissa said  there were patch kits in the Thermarest bags! Had it not been for that patch kit, we would have had something even less than a sad little pancake, more like a crepe!  So I went to work with a heavy-duty patch and a small tube of very smelly glue. You’re supposed to deflate the mattress and let the glue dry for 2 hours before re-inflating, but we didn’t have that kind of time so I put our heavy flashlight on the patch and called it good. I was so thankful the Lord had helped us find the hole! No more sad and wilted pancake! I could have jumped for joy – until I woke up at O’ dark thirty and once again realized I was hovering only millimeters from the cold hard ground. My patch had held – but there was another hole. Where, we will never know, as the mattress is now laying shredded in a garbage bin in Lathrop State Park. Sunday morning as we tore down camp, something came over me, and I ripped into the mattress with the Holy Vengeance due it.  With my handy buck-knife I sliced and hacked, cutting the evil pancake into shreds! Finally, with my wrath abated, a small sadistic smile crept over my lips, and all was well with the world.

*The following is a note from my lovely wife who is was such a trooper on this trip, I’m so proud of her for sticking through it! -

So from a woman’s perspective…a very pregnant woman’s perspective…

I don’t know if you men out there realize, but when you’re coming up on the third trimester and the baby’s growing like crazy from week to week, sleeping comfortably suddenly becomes quite a production. I mean, you have this whole extra huge round appendage where your stomach used to be that needs its own special support system (in the form of an old flat king-size pillow that is wedged under my tummy as I sleep). And then we’ve got middle-of-the-night leg cramps, sore hip joints, and random hand numbness. All of which require waking up and rolling to the other side, which is a huge production in itself as turning over a pregnant body is not an easy feat. And then throw in an air mattress that simply will not stay inflated and sends you rolling like crazy if you even twitch off of your Thermarest…well, let’s just say it was quite the interesting night!

From Matt: It never ceases to amaze me as I hear her recount her experiences how I, as a man, could not handle the things she has to go though. I consider myself very blessed to be a man because I think I’d have already gone a bit mad dealing with it all! Here is my kudos to all you wonderful ladies out there who bear our children. I thank the Lord for your sacrifice of your bodies and your lives to bring our children, and the future world-changers into this beautiful life. Most of all, I lift up my wife, who is the love of my life and who is such an amazing wife and will be such an amazing mother. If it were not for her, I could never be a daddy (ok, that’s obvious, but go with me on this). She indeed is such an amazing woman. I thank God every day for the incredible gift of my wife, Melissa… and the gift of our unborn son, Caleb Joshua Frank.

I can’t wait to meet you son!