I keep asking if I should wait to get pregnant so we can go on those two trips first
I’m sitting on the laundry room floor right now, folding beach towels from our weekend trip to the lake, and there’s a half-empty bottle of reef-safe sunscreen rolling around under the drying rack that got me thinking about this again. Me and my boyfriend Jake have two trips booked for the next ten months: a week in Portugal this spring, where Jake got a free spot from his work for hitting that stupid sales target last year, and a group cabin trip in the Smokies this fall for my best friend’s 30th birthday. It’s non-refundable, everyone chipped in two years ago to book it, I can’t just drop out because I got pregnant, that would suck for all of them, too. My OB said we could start trying to get pregnant whenever we wanted back in December, and since then I’ve toggled between “let’s just start now” and “we have to wait until both trips are done” so many times my head hurts.
Last week we got into a dumb 20-minute fight about it over unloading the dishwasher. I said he just doesn’t want to give up playing that coastal golf course he’s been hyping up for months, and he said I’m being ridiculous because no one gets pregnant the first month, right? All the casual parenting accounts I scroll say it takes most people a year, so if we start now, we’ll probably still go on both trips baby-free, and be pregnant by next Christmas anyway. But what if I am that person? The one it happens to first try? I’ve seen that happen to so many friends. What if I’m 12 weeks along in Portugal, throwing up every morning, too tired to walk the seven-mile old town route we mapped out, can’t drink the natural wine we were excited to try, and I spend the whole trip resentful? I feel guilty even writing that, like that makes me a bad future mom, but it’s what I think. It’s the messy thought no one posts about.
I ran into my neighbor Barbara out walking her golden retriever yesterday, and when I told her what I was stressing about, she laughed and said she waited two years to do all her big trips before having her first, and by the time she was ready, she had two miscarriages and had to do IVF. She didn’t say it in an “I told you so” way, just squeezed my hand and said “time isn’t promised, don’t wait for the perfect time”. But that same night, I had dinner with my cousin who just had her first boy, and she pulled me aside after dessert and whispered that she wishes she’d done the big Patagonia hiking trip she planned before getting pregnant. She said she loves her son more than anything, but that trip was her dream for 10 years, and now it’s just on a shelf somewhere, and she doesn’t know when she’ll get to do it. Who do you listen to when everyone has a different story that feels true for them?
I have a pregnancy test sitting in my bathroom cabinet right now that I bought three weeks ago at Target, just on a whim. I was in line getting toothpaste and mouthwash, and I saw them stacked by the checkout, and I just threw one in the cart. I haven’t taken it, obviously, we’re still technically waiting, but it’s just there, staring at me every time I brush my teeth. Last weekend, after the lake trip, I was flipping through my camera roll and saw a photo of me running after our dog Milo, sand all over my legs, holding a melted vanilla ice cream cone, and I thought yeah. This is nice. I want two more trips where I can just do that, no swollen ankles, no getting up to pee every hour in the hotel, no stranger asking me when the baby’s due when I’m just out for dinner with my partner.
My friend Lila got pregnant accidentally two weeks before her Thailand honeymoon. She told me she cried for three straight days, thought she’d ruined the whole thing. She was supposed to go rock climbing and do a multi-day hike through the jungle, all that stuff she’d planned for a year. But when she got there, she just said no to the hike, spent three extra days napping on the beach, ate three mango sticky rices a day, and said it was the best trip she ever took. She said if she hadn’t been pregnant, she would’ve spent the whole time rushing to check every spot off her list, instead of just slowing down and enjoying being there with her new husband. That makes sense, right? But then my other friend Mia waited five years, did three big international trips, all the things she wanted, before having her kid, and she said she’d never regret that. Those trips are just hers and her husband’s, no kid crying in the next hotel bed, no having to leave the restaurant early because of a tantrum, just them. Those memories are hers, that no one can take.
I don’t know what the right answer is. Tonight we’re going to that taco truck by the park we love, and we’ll probably talk about this again for 10 minutes, then get distracted by a dog wearing a little Halloween bandana and forget about it. We said last week we’d start trying right after the cabin trip in October, that gives us both trips done, that seems like a good middle ground. But some mornings I wake up and I feel that little twist in my chest, like what are we waiting for? And some nights I go to bed and I’m so glad we have these two trips to look forward to, just us. I don’t have a neat ending for this, no “here’s what I decided” that’s perfect. I’m just sitting on the laundry room floor, with a sunscreen bottle rolling around, and a question I’m still working out. That’s all.
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