There's something to be said for living life as normally as possible while pregnant. The problem is, sometimes "normal" means "supremely uncomfortable or awkward when you have a large pregnant belly." I'm not saying we should just lie around for 9+ months, though I think most of us descend into some variation of that theme right around 35ish weeks (out of 40). Especially if you happen to hit that point right at the peak of summer and it's all you can do to drag yourself from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned building. Assuming all three exist, of course.
Otherwise, you're left with the patched-up version of the above scenario that I endured while hugely pregnant in Damascus, which was something like:
Sleep every night on a flimsy foam pad on the floor of the living room, the only room with AC (and wow, were we ever thankful for it!), heaving yourself up x number of times to go to the bathroom. Also, put on insect repellent to keep away the bugs while you sleep, and then Benadryl cream for all the bites you got last night anyway.
To get anywhere in the city, climb into - without falling back out of due to balance issues - a service van (an extremely bashed-up and stripped-down white minivan used for public transportation; fare = $0.10) that sometimes doesn't come to a complete stop while you're boarding and whose door sometimes doesn't shut behind you in case you do fall. "AC" in this case is "all the windows are rolled down and the driver drives as fast as possible."
Buildings are air-conditioned if you're lucky. Usually, you're not. That's why you start to only frequent stores who keep their meltables in at least semi-refrigerated coolers.
When I was 7 months' pregnant with Miriam and we were visiting my family in Oregon, we went camping on the Oregon coast. I love the Oregon coast, and we had a great time camping, except for the actual camping part. It rained all night long and I could not get my huge self comfortable. Even if I did manage to find a comfy, dry spot, it was only a matter of time before I had to get up and trek to the bathroom down at the end of the row of campsites. After this experience, I made a mental note not to go camping while 7 months' pregnant.
So, yesterday, we went camping. It was 106 degrees here in Tucson. We headed up Mt. Lemmon with some friends. We didn't camp at an actual campground, so there was no picnic table, no grill, no prepared firepit, no running water, and no bathrooms. Bring it on!
In the end, it was lots of fun, even if I hardly got any sleep. I think it would have been tolerable if Jeremy had let me bring my body pillow, but he had us all on a strict ration of one pillow each. At least it wasn't raining this time, but it was very windy. We all got extremely dirty and smoky and dusty, which made today's shower feel all the more wonderful. And Jeremy watched Miriam while I took a nap, and our bed has never felt better to my camp-weary awkward self. I just hope Sasha 2.0 will someday forgive me for a terrible night's sleep - seriously, it was like she knew I was doing the best I could but still felt like driving me crazy from within.
So you see, there's really not much about normal life that pregnancy has to change. You just might not get any sleep in the process. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has forsaken basic comforts during pregnancy. What's the awkwardest thing you've done?