Should I Wait to Get Pregnant After a Couple of Vacations? What You Actually Need to Consider
The iced tea on my back porch table was already sweating through its coasters by 4 p.m. when Lila leaned over, tapped her phone screen to pull up a photo of her and her husband standing under a waterfall in Costa Rica, and asked the question she’s been turning over for three months: “Do you think I should wait to get pregnant after these two vacations we have booked?”
Lila’s 32, been married 14 months, and we’ve talked about wanting kids every time we’ve gotten coffee for the last year. Her mom has been on her case for months, saying vacations can wait, that her clock is ticking, that she’s being selfish for putting travel before starting a family. Lila and her husband both work 50-hour weeks in marketing, haven’t had more than a long weekend off together since their wedding, and they booked a Portugal trip for next fall and a ski trip to Colorado for the following winter, two things they’ve been saving for since before they got engaged.
I told her my own story, because that’s what we do when our friends ask hard questions. When I was 28, my husband and I saved for two years to book that dream trip to Japan. We planned to start trying for a baby right when we got back. Then, two weeks after we booked the flights and the traditional mountain ryokans, I took a test and it was positive. We talked about postponing, but I was so excited, we decided just to go.
I spent the whole first trimester exhausted, threw up twice on the bullet train between Tokyo and Kyoto, couldn’t eat any of the raw fish I’d spent years reading about and craving, and I could barely walk 20 minutes without needing to sit down. My husband spent half the trip he’d been looking forward to napping next to me in our hotel room instead of exploring the temples he’d wanted to see. We got back, went straight to our first prenatal appointment, and jumped right into all the chaos of preparing for a baby, and we never got that recharging break we needed. I don’t regret my daughter at all, but I do regret that we never got that trip we worked so hard for. It’s not that the trip we took was terrible, it just wasn’t what we needed before becoming parents.
I also told her about my cousin Mia, who got pregnant two months before her European river cruise, and was one of those lucky people who glides through the first trimester with no nausea, just a little extra tired. She went, ate all the soft cheese, took all the walks through vineyards, had the time of her life, and came home and had a perfectly healthy baby. It worked out great for her. So it’s not like getting pregnant before your trips is always a disaster, and it’s not like waiting is always the right choice.
The thing no one tells you is that this isn’t a moral question, it’s a practical one. No one gets a medal for skipping vacations to have a baby, and no one is wrong for wanting a couple of trips just for you two before you start changing every single thing about your life. The advice I gave Lila wasn’t vague “follow your heart” stuff. I gave her three concrete things to work through, that any couple can do in an evening.
First, sit down with your partner after dinner one night, no phones, 20 minutes max, and write two quick lists. First, what’s the worst that can happen if you get pregnant before your vacations? For Lila, the worst case was they have to cancel the Portugal trip, lose the $1,800 they put down. They can absorb that, it’s not going to break them, and they can reschedule it when the baby is a little older. If they get pregnant early and Lila feels fine, they can still go, they’ll just adjust the itinerary—cut out the multi-day hike, add more hotel naps, that’s it. Second list: what’s the worst that can happen if you wait 18 months to start trying seriously? For Lila, that meant if it takes a couple of years to get pregnant, she’ll be 34 or 35 when she has her first kid. She already went and talked to her OB about that, who said that’s totally fine for her, she’s healthy, no red flags. That’s the second concrete step: if you’re worried about fertility, go get a basic check up now before you decide, don’t just guess based on what your aunt or the internet says.
Third, if you do decide to keep trying before your trips, spend $20 extra to add pregnancy cancellation coverage to your travel insurance. Most standard policies don’t cover cancellation if you get pregnant and decide not to go, but adding that coverage is cheap, and takes 10 minutes to do online. It eliminates most of the financial risk if things don’t go as planned.
We ended up sitting on the porch until the sun went down, swatting mosquitoes, finishing the last of the iced tea, and Lila said she and her husband decided not to prevent pregnancy, but also not to actively rush it. If it happens, it happens, they’ll adjust. If it doesn’t, they’ll enjoy their trips, and start trying seriously after.
Last week, I got a photo from her at the airport in Lisbon. She and her husband are wearing matching sun hats, holding giant iced coffees from a street cart, there’s no baby bump, and the sky behind them is bright blue. Her text just said, “Whatever happens, this is already worth it.” I texted back “I know that’s right.” There’s no perfect answer for every person, and no one gets through this without some kind of trade off. For right now, this is the answer that works for them.
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