Should I Wait to Get Pregnant After a Couple of Vacations? What I Learned From Waiting
Last Tuesday, I was wiping marinara off my 10-month-old’s high chair tray when my best friend Lila texted me a screenshot of a Reddit thread, followed by a shaky question: “Should I wait to get pregnant after our two planned big vacations? Everyone here is calling us selfish and saying we’re risking our fertility for fun.” I wiped my hand on my stained sweatpants and leaned against the counter to think, because that’s exactly the question I asked myself six years ago.
Me and my husband got married when I was 29, and almost every person we talked to asked when we’d start trying for kids. We already had two trips booked and paid for: a 10-day backcountry hiking trip in the Rockies we’d been planning since we were broke college students working part-time to save for it, and a week-long trip to Florida to visit my grandma, who’d just been diagnosed with progressive arthritis and could no longer travel to see us. My grandma kept saying she wanted to meet any future grandbabies, but she also admitted she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to sit on the beach or walk around her old childhood neighborhood. We hemmed and hawed for a month, and eventually decided to wait 18 months to start trying, so we could take both trips.
I still remember the awkward pause when my OB nurse asked about our plans at my annual checkup that year. I mumbled that we were waiting for a couple of trips, and she raised her eyebrow and wrote a note on my chart like I was making a reckless decision. A cousin of mine even pulled me aside at a family barbecue and said I’d regret it if we waited too long and couldn’t conceive.
We took the Rockies trip first. We stayed in a tiny cabin with no Wi-Fi, woke up when the sun came up, ate cold pepperoni pizza for breakfast every day, and hiked until our legs ached. I got caught in a rainstorm halfway up a mountain and laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe when we both slipped in a mud puddle. If I’d been pregnant, I would have spent the whole trip nauseated on the couch—my first trimester with my son was so bad I could barely keep down water, and I didn’t leave the house for two weeks straight. That trip wouldn’t have been fun for either of us.
Then we went to Florida. I spent four hours every afternoon sitting on my grandma’s porch with sweet tea, listening to her tell stories about sneaking out to go dancing in the 1950s. We walked the beach at low tide every morning, and she taught me how to find the perfect smooth sea glass. She died 10 months after my son was born. If we hadn’t waited, I would never have had that week alone with her. I wouldn’t have all those little memories to tell my son about when he gets older.
When we got home, we started trying. I spent the first three months panicking that everyone was right, that we’d messed up. It took six months to get pregnant, which is totally normal, but I still lay awake some nights replaying the decision in my head.
That’s why I don’t give a one-size-fits-all answer when people ask me this question now. But I do have three concrete things I tell people to think through that no one told me back then.
First, write down what you actually want to do on those vacations, and be honest about whether you can do it pregnant or with a new baby. If you’re planning a 10-day backpacking trip that requires 8 miles of walking a day, or an international trip where you’ll be moving from hotel to hotel every other night, that’s really hard to do when you’re in the throes of first-trimester nausea, or 8 months pregnant, or chasing a newborn who doesn’t sleep on a schedule. If your trips are weekend getaways to a cabin an hour away, or a beach trip where you’ll just sit and relax, you can absolutely do that pregnant or with a young baby, so there’s no need to wait.
Second, book a 15-minute appointment with your OB or fertility provider before you decide. Tell them how long you want to wait, your age, and your health history, and ask them what the actual risk is of waiting that time. I didn’t do this, and I spent six months panicking over nothing, because at 29 with no fertility issues, waiting 18 months didn’t change my odds at all. If you’re 37 with a history of PCOS, that’s a different conversation, and you can make a decision based on actual facts instead of random forum comments or unsolicited auntie opinions.
Third, don’t let anyone call you selfish for wanting time with your partner before you become parents. Those quiet, unplanned memories you make together are the thing you’ll pull from when you’re up at 2am changing a blowout or dealing with a teething toddler. You don’t have to check every box off a bucket list, but if two trips matter to you, that’s a good enough reason.
Last night, I texted Lila back all of this. She texted me an hour later that she and her partner are still going forward with their trips—Japan next spring, then Alaska the following summer, then start trying. I stuck a new magnet on my fridge this weekend, a photo of me and grandma on that porch in Florida. My son grabbed at it a minute ago, and I pulled it away before he could bend the corner.
I don’t know if Lila will get pregnant right away when they start trying, or if it’ll take a couple of years. I know there will still be people who tell her she made the wrong call. But I also know that whatever happens, she’ll have those memories, and that’s worth more than any rushed babymoon or early family photo.
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