Am I crazy for waiting to get pregnant just to check two vacations off my list?
I’m sitting on our couch right now, leftover pad thai congealing in the takeout container on the coffee table, and my partner is propped up next to me scrolling Airbnb photos of places to stay outside Lisbon. It’s 10pm on a Tuesday, we both have to get up for work at 7, and I can’t stop turning the same question over in my head: is it stupid that we’re putting off trying for a baby just to do this trip, and then the cabin trip to the Smokies next spring?
My mom called me last Sunday to ask about my cousin’s wedding, and halfway through she dropped the question like she always does: so when are you two gonna get started? I blurted out the vacation thing before I could even think, and she did that thing she does where she exhales really loud into the phone, that heavy sigh that means I’m being unreasonable. “You know honey, your eggs don’t wait,” she said, and I wanted to scream a little because I know that. I’m 32, I go to the OB for my annual checkup, I’ve read all the same posts and TikTok thinkpieces about fertility that every other woman my age has. I know the statistics. I know there are no guarantees.
Two weeks ago I went to my cousin’s baby shower, and when someone asked when it was our turn I said the same thing about the two vacations, and this woman who had her first kid at 38 leaned over and patted my arm and said “honey, you can travel with a baby. I went to Cabo when mine was six months old, it was fine.” I just nodded and smiled and ate my third mini quiche, but I didn’t tell her what I actually thought. I don’t want to go to Lisbon with a six month old. I don’t want to pack 10 pounds of diapers and formula and a portable sound machine and worry about whether the restaurant has a high chair or if the cobblestones will shake the stroller apart. I want to wander around the Alfama district at 10pm, stop at a random bakery for a pasteis de nata, drink a bottle of wine with dinner, fall asleep in a random park because we walked 10 miles that day and we’re tired. No schedule, no one needing me every 10 minutes. Is that really so bad to want?
I still have a half-empty bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge that I bought for game night last month, and I keep looking at it thinking if I got pregnant accidentally tomorrow, I couldn’t finish that. It’s such a stupid tiny thing to fixate on, but it feels like a metaphor, right? All these tiny, stupid, unplanned little things that I won’t get to do carelessly anymore once there’s a baby. Not that I won’t get new nice things, I know that. It’s just this version of carefree, the one that’s just me and my partner, no extra people depending on us for everything, it’s going to go away whether I’m ready or not. I just want to hold onto it a little longer.
The Smokies trip, that’s been three years in the making. My best friend’s husband has this tiny old cabin that’s been in his family forever, no TV, no cell service most of the time, just a porch with rocking chairs and a creek down the road. She’s been asking us to go since before the pandemic, and we kept rescheduling because of work deadlines and then my partner had that knee surgery, and now we finally locked it in for next May. I don’t want to go when I’m eight months pregnant, my feet so swollen I can’t wear hiking boots. I don’t want to go when I have a three month old that’s breastfeeding every two hours and spits up all my clothes and won’t sleep anywhere but my arms. I just want to hike three miles to that waterfall they keep talking about, swim in the cold water, sit on the porch until midnight playing stupid bullshit card games and drink bad beer. No monitor to check, no bedtime to stick to. That’s all.
I know people say you can do those things with kids. You can hike with kids, you can vacation with kids. I believe them. My sister has two little boys, they go camping every summer, they have a great time. It’s just different. It’s not that it’s worse, it’s just not the thing I want right now. I’m not saying I don’t want a baby. I think about it all the time. I stopped drinking coffee on weekdays already, just in case, I take a prenatal every morning even though we’re not trying yet. I painted the extra room soft yellow last fall, I already have a box of baby clothes my sister gave me sitting in the back of the closet. I want it. I just want these two stupid little trips first. Is that selfish?
Last week I was at the CVS buying toothpaste, and I walked past the family planning aisle and I almost grabbed a pregnancy test just because, I don’t know, I was curious. We’re being careful, but accidents happen, right? I stood there for a whole minute holding the box, and then I put it back. Because what if it was positive? What would I do? I already put a $500 deposit down on the Lisbon apartment. I know that sounds crazy, a $500 deposit isn’t worth delaying a baby, but… it’s not just the deposit. It’s the year of planning, the excitement of looking forward to it. I don’t want to put it on hold, I don’t want to cancel it and lose the money and feel resentful about it the whole time I’m pregnant. And I don’t want to go on the trip pregnant and miss all the food and wine I was looking forward to, either. That’s just me being honest.
My partner just looked up from his phone and showed me a photo of an apartment with a little balcony that overlooks the water, and it looks so perfect I forgot what I was even worrying about for a second. My phone just pinged, it’s a baby announcement from a girl I went to high school with, her second. I don’t feel jealous. I don’t feel rushed, not really, except for that little voice in the back of my head that says what if something goes wrong, what if you wait and it’s harder than you think. But what if it doesn’t? I don’t have a neat answer for that. I know I’m not going to get some big sign that tells me it’s the perfect time. Maybe this is just the time we want. Maybe that’s enough, for now.
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