Should I wait to get pregnant after a couple of vacations? Key questions to ask yourself
The coffee’s gone lukewarm on my kitchen counter, I’m scrolling through crumpled printed vacation photos I’m finally putting in an album, when my text notification pings. It’s Lila, my college roommate who got married last spring: “Should I wait to get pregnant after a couple of vacations? Everyone’s on my case about waiting, but I don’t know if we’re just being selfish.”
I pause, twisting the rubber band around the stack of photos, and think back to five years ago, when I sat at this same table asking myself the exact same question. My husband and I had just gotten back from our honeymoon, had been cleared by my doctor that we were healthy enough to start trying, and we had two big trips already booked and paid for: a two-week Patagonia hiking trip we’d saved three years for, and a 10-day road trip around Japan that had been my husband’s dream since he was a teenager watching Studio Ghibli movies.
At my cousin’s 30th birthday dinner a week later, she leaned over as I grabbed a dinner roll and said, “Aren’t you being reckless? Your fertility isn’t getting any younger. Why wait two whole years for a couple of trips when you could start your family now?” My mom nodded along, saying we could always go after the baby came, when he was old enough to come along. I left the dinner feeling tight-chested, like I was making a terrible selfish mistake that I’d regret for the rest of my life.
We ended up sticking to our plan. We ate instant noodles for three straight months before Patagonia to cover the last of the gear costs, I got blisters the size of quarters on both heels on the third day of hiking, and we fell asleep drunk on cheap Malbec every night under a sky full of more stars than I’d ever seen before. In Japan, we got lost in a Tokyo residential neighborhood at 11pm, stumbled on a tiny jazz bar run by an old man who played Coltrane records for us, and ate yakitori off a street cart standing up. No one needed a nap. No one had to be home by 8pm for bed time. We just were, just the two of us.
When we got home from the second trip, we packed our hiking boots in the back of the closet, started taking prenatals, and got to work. It took eight months for me to get pregnant. My cousin would’ve been quick to say that’s what I get for waiting, but my doctor said that’s just normal for most healthy couples under 35. One in three couples take that long, even when they start right away. My son is two now, and I still think about those trips all the time.
From what I’ve learned going through this, and talking to other friends who’ve been in the same spot, there are three concrete things to think through that no one tells you when everyone’s yelling their opinions at you.
First, ask what kind of vacations you’re planning. If your “couple of vacations” are two long weekends at a beach house an hour from home, or a Disney trip you could just as easily do with a toddler in tow, there’s no real reason to delay starting a family if that’s what you want. But if your trips are the kind you can’t redo the way you want them once you have kids, that’s a different story. Our Patagonia trip required 8 miles of hiking a day with a 30-pound pack. We couldn’t have done that with a toddler, and we won’t be able to do it that way again until my son is at least a teenager, if then. That trip is something that only exists when it’s just two people with no responsibilities but getting themselves up the trail. No one can give you that time back once it’s gone.
Second, if you’re worried about fertility risks, get actual data for your body, don’t go off what your cousin says. If you’re under 35 with no known fertility issues, schedule a 15-minute pre-conception checkup with your obgyn. Ask them how much risk adding 12 to 24 months of waiting adds for you specifically. For most people in that position, the difference is negligible. If you’re over 35, or you know you have issues like PCOS that can impact fertility, you can still plan smaller trips that work around trying, instead of waiting a full two years for big ones. That’s a concrete middle ground, not an all or nothing choice.
Third, don’t let other people’s priorities become yours. I’ve had friends who got pregnant two months after their wedding, never took those pre-baby trips, and are perfectly happy. I’ve had friends who waited, had trouble conceiving, and still say they’re glad they got that time alone with their partner before the hard parts of infertility and parenthood started. No one can tell you what you’ll regret more, because it’s your life.
I’ve had people ask me if I ever regret the eight months we waited to get pregnant after the trips, if I wish my son was older now. I don’t. I get why other people would want that, but for me, those trips gave us a foundation of silly, unplanned memories that we lean on when we’re up at 2am with a teething toddler or arguing about who forgot to buy milk. We don’t have to wonder what it would’ve been like, because we did it.
Lila texted me last week to say she and her fiancé booked their trips: a week in Portugal this fall, a week in Thailand next spring. They’re going to start trying after they get back. I don’t know how it’ll go for them. Maybe they’ll get pregnant the first month, maybe it’ll take a year. But I know they’ll sit at a sidewalk café in Lisbon at 2pm, no one yelling for a snack, no diapers to change, and that time will be theirs. It’s not the right call for everyone, but it’s the right call for them right now. And that’s enough.
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