Should I Wait to Get Pregnant After a Couple of Vacations? Key Things to Consider
I’m sitting at my kitchen table, wiping crumbs off my 3-year-old’s half-eaten Goldfish cracker plate, when my best friend Lila texts me a screenshot of a Google search: “is it stupid to put off pregnancy for more vacations?” She’s been torn about this for three months, ever since we booked our girls’ trip to Costa Rica next spring, and she got a promotion that comes with a three-month paid sabbatical the following fall. Her question isn’t new— I got the same knot in my stomach when I was in her shoes, five years ago, right after my husband and I got married.
Back then, everyone had an opinion. My mom kept dropping hints about my changing fertility timeline and how my aunt had waited too long and struggled. My cousin, who had her first kid six months after her wedding, insisted at a backyard barbecue that “travel with kids is totally fine, you just adjust.” She was chasing her ketchup-covered 1-year-old around the picnic table as she said it, and 10 minutes later, after we’d cleared the plates, she collapsed onto the porch step, chugged two cold beers in 10 minutes, and whispered, “If you want to sleep in a tent without a baby monitor, just go. Do it.”
My husband and I ended up waiting three years. We did the two backcountry camping trips we’d booked the year we got married, hiked the West Coast Trail, took that Alaska cruise we’d saved for since college. I still remember waking up at 4 a.m. to watch glaciers calve, just the two of us, drinking lukewarm coffee on the deck of the ship, no one crying because they dropped their toast, no one needing a last-minute diaper change. We didn’t even take that many photos— we just stood there and watched, and that’s the part I remember. When we got home, we started trying, and got pregnant on the third try.
Lila’s biggest worry, beyond the fertility questions, is that people will judge her for being selfish. She told me over coffee last week, “Everyone acts like wanting a vacation before a baby means I don’t want the baby, that I love traveling more.” That’s the narrative that gets pushed, isn’t it? If you put off parenthood for any reason that isn’t a big career milestone or a health issue, it’s seen as frivolous. But from where I sit, it’s not about loving vacations more than kids. It’s about knowing that once you have a kid, your day-to-day shifts permanently, and there’s something to be said for feeling like you got to live the version of your life you wanted for a little while, before you add another person to it.
That doesn’t mean waiting is the right call for everyone, though. My neighbor had her first kid at 26, accidentally, right after she and her husband got engaged, and she’s never once said she regretted it. They bring their two kids camping every year, and she says the trips are more fun now that she gets to watch them catch their first fish. The answer isn’t one-size-fits-all, but there are a few concrete things I tell people who ask me this question, that come from my own experience and talking to dozens of other parents who’ve gone back and forth on it.
First, carve out 10 minutes to write down what you actually want out of these vacations, not the version you see on Instagram. If you want to hike 10 miles a day through the Swiss Alps, sleep in a remote mountain hut, and stay out late dancing at a beach bar, that’s almost impossible to pull off the same way with a kid under 5. If you just want a week at a beach resort where you sit and read a book all day, there are plenty of family-friendly resorts with kid clubs that will let you do that even with a toddler. Be honest about what you want, don’t feel like you have to justify a big trip just because it’s what you’ve dreamed of for years.
Second, if you’re worried about fertility or health risks, book a pre-conception appointment with your OB-GYN before you decide. Ask them point-blank, based on your age, health history, and any existing conditions, does waiting 12 or 24 months change your risk of infertility or complications? For most healthy people under 35, the answer is no, the risk doesn’t jump that much in a couple of years. But if you have existing issues like irregular periods or endometriosis, your doctor might suggest you don’t wait. Getting that answer from a professional takes away the late-night Google panic that most of us get stuck in.
Third, if you do decide to wait, you don’t have to write off travel with kids forever. You can still take trips once your baby is here— they’ll just be different, not worse, just different. If you decide to go for it and get pregnant before the trips, you can always plan those trips for a few years down the line, when your kid is old enough to enjoy them with you.
Last week, Lila texted me that she booked her ticket to Costa Rica, and put pregnancy plans on hold for 18 months. She talked to her doctor, got cleared, and is already planning her sabbatical trip to Japan, the one she’s wanted to take since she was a teenager saving up for it in high school. I told her that sounds right for her. Yesterday I found my old photo album from Alaska, flipping through it while my son napped. There’s a photo of me and my husband, windblown, no kid between us, holding chipped mugs of hot coffee, a massive blue glacier behind us. I don’t look at that photo and wish we’d had a baby there instead. I just think that was our time, and now this is our time. There’s no perfect answer, just the one that fits what you need.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Should I Wait to Get Pregnant After a Couple of Vacations