Should I Wait to Get Pregnant After a Couple of Vacations? Practical Questions to Consider
The sticky popsicle drips on my kitchen counter were still tacky when Lila slid her phone across the table, the positive pregnancy test glowing bright against the scuffed wooden grain. Her 3-year-old was in the backyard chasing my tabby cat, yelling about a lizard he’d found, and her half-empty glass of iced tea was sweating a ring onto the placemat. She leaned forward and said what half a dozen women my age have asked me in the last two years: I can’t stop going back and forth. Should I have waited to try to get pregnant until after our two trips this fall and spring?
I get it. Five years ago, I was in the exact same spot. My husband and I had been trying for a year, got frustrated with the constant two-week wait cycle, and booked two trips we’d been talking about forever: a 10-day trip to Tokyo to visit his childhood friend, and a destination wedding in Puerto Rico where I was a bridesmaid. We put down deposits, used up all our saved frequent flyer miles, and a week later I peed on a stick and got that second line. I cried in the bathroom for 20 minutes, half happy, half panicking that I’d ruined everything. I’d put my whole life on hold for this pregnancy, and now I was ruining the two fun things I’d planned to enjoy before it started.
I ended up going on both trips, and it was messy. I spent the first three days of Tokyo curled up in our hotel bed, too nauseous to stand up long enough to put on shoes. My husband went to see the Senso-ji temple alone and brought me back plain congee from the 7-Eleven down the street. At the Puerto Rico wedding, I was 16 weeks pregnant, my feet swelled so bad I couldn’t zip my bridesmaid dress, and I ended up safety-pinning the back open and sitting in the back of the reception the whole time, drinking virgin piña colada. But I also ate the best sushi I’ve ever had on my fourth day in Tokyo, when my nausea let up for 12 hours, and I still think about that meal. I got to watch my best friend walk down the beach to her groom, and that’s the part I remember, not the swollen feet. We didn’t wait, and it wasn’t the disaster I thought it would be. But I also don’t tell people they shouldn’t wait, because that’s not the right answer for everyone.
What I do tell people is to ask yourself three concrete questions, instead of spiraling about whether you’re being selfish or irresponsible. First, add up all the non-refundable money you’d lose if you reschedule the trips for a year from now. When Lila did that, she found she’d only lose the $50 deposit on the Vermont cabin, and the beach condo her cousin owns is free to switch to any open week. For me, I couldn’t reschedule the Japan trip at all—our frequent flyer miles couldn’t be changed, and the hotel had a strict no-refund policy for bookings made with a discount. That’s a very different calculation. If you’re going to lose $5,000 you can’t get back, that’s a good reason to wait. If you’re only out a small fee, rescheduling isn’t a big deal either way.
Second, use what you already know about your body and pregnancy. If you’ve been pregnant before and you know you get nine months of nonstop morning sickness, or you have a history of complications that require you to stay close to home, that’s information that matters. Lila had her first pregnancy with zero nausea, worked at her daycare job until three days before she gave birth, and she’s never had any health issues. That’s way different than if you know you’re high risk and need to limit travel after 20 weeks. If you haven’t been pregnant before, ask your doctor what’s typical for your age and health, don’t base it on the horror stories or the perfect pregnancy reels you see online.
Third, write down the one thing you actually want out of each trip, not what you planned on paper. Lila originally planned the Vermont trip to do five-mile day hikes to see the fall foliage, the same thing she and her husband did on their honeymoon. When she thought about it, she realized she didn’t actually care that much about the hiking. She just wanted a week away from work, where no one would email her, and she could sit on a porch and drink warm apple cider while her husband and son ran around. If she’s 7 months pregnant and can’t hike five miles, that’s fine. She can still get what she actually wanted out of the trip. For my Japan trip, I’d always planned to cram 10 temples and 10 different neighborhoods into 10 days. What I actually wanted was just one good sushi meal and time with my husband’s friend, and I got that, even with three days in bed.
A lot of people will give you a hard answer one way or the other. They’ll say you should always prioritize your baby and put travel off, or they’ll say you should never put your life on hold for a pregnancy. But the truth is, there’s no universal right answer. If you’re 36 and you’ve been struggling to conceive for a year, waiting another 12 months for two vacations feels very different than if you’re 28 and you can try again next year no stress. If your trips are the kind you can take any time, or reschedule for little cost, that’s one thing. If it’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip to see your best friend get married overseas, that’s another.
Last week, Lila texted me a photo from that Vermont cabin. She’s 20 weeks pregnant, sitting on the porch with a mug of cider, her 3-year-old is holding a pinecone he picked up off the ground. They changed the cabin to one with a bigger porch on lower ground, no long hike from the parking lot, and it’s working out so far. She’s still a little nervous about the beach trip in spring, when she’ll be 34 weeks, and she’s not sure if she’ll have to reschedule last minute. No one can tell her if waiting would have been easier, or if this is the right call. It’s just the call she made, based on what matters to her right now. That’s all any of us can do, really.
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