Should I wait to get pregnant after a couple of vacations: A real mom’s takeaways
The mimosa glass sweated through the paper coaster on the outdoor brunch table, and Lila dragged her thumb through the ring of water it left on the wood. She and her husband had just wrapped up their two big pre-baby trips, two years of checking the spots off their shared bucket list: backcountry skiing in Banff, two weeks beach hopping the Greek islands. Now she leaned in, voice quiet, like she was asking something she was embarrassed to admit. “We always said we’d do these two trips then start trying. But now that we’re here… should I wait longer to get pregnant?”
I knew that question exactly. Five years earlier, I’d sat in that same booth, asking myself the same thing. My husband and I had just gotten home from our two dream vacations: two weeks chasing cherry blossoms around Japan, and a 10-day road trip around the South Island of New Zealand. We’d planned those trips for three years, saved every extra penny, swapped date nights for packing practice, and turned down countless wedding invitations to make the dates work. When we landed back home, I had my appointment to stop my birth control all scheduled. Then I canceled it.
I kept finding excuses. My cousin was getting married in Maine the next summer, I wanted to enjoy that without morning sickness. A group of my college friends was planning a long weekend in Cabo. What if we couldn’t take a trip like that for a decade? I scrolled Instagram late at night, looking at safari photos, and wondered if I’d ever get to see elephants in the wild if I had a baby. All the advice online was all over the place. Half the commenters on every forum said I was reckless to wait, that fertility drops off a cliff after 30 and what if I had trouble conceiving? The other half said I was smart to soak up freedom while I could, that you never get that undivided time with your partner back again.
I ended up waiting three more years after those first two vacations before we actually started trying. I won’t lie: that extra time led to extra stress when we ran into fertility issues. It took 18 months and two rounds of IUI to get pregnant with my son, who’s four now. But that doesn’t mean waiting is always bad. I have three close friends who waited five years after their first pre-baby vacations, got pregnant first try, and still talk about how glad they were to have that time to themselves. So there’s no one right answer, but there are a few concrete things I wish someone had told me back when I was sitting in that brunch booth, twisting my own drink around.
First, get a basic fertility check before you decide to wait. It’s not invasive, it’s not expensive, and most insurance covers it for people over 30 anyway. All it takes is a quick blood test for you and a sperm analysis for your partner, and a 20-minute chat with your doctor. I skipped this step when I decided to wait, just assumed everything was fine because I was healthy and had regular cycles. It turned out my egg reserve was lower than average for my age, and if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have added three extra years of waiting after my first two trips. If Lila had gotten that test and found out something similar, she could decide to skip the extra backpacking trip she wanted and start trying, or go ahead and go knowing what she’s up against. Knowledge doesn’t force you to make a certain choice, it just keeps you from getting blindsided later.
Second, write down what you actually want to do before baby, instead of just adding more vacations to the list. Once I had checked off my two original dream trips, I kept finding more to add because the fear of losing freedom feels bigger than the actual trips you’ve already taken. I realized after a year of waiting that I didn’t actually need any more big trips. I already had the memories I’d wanted for years. The extra trips I was adding were just things I thought I should do, not things I actually cared that much about. I tell people to split their list into two categories: must-do before baby, and nice-to-do anytime. That multi-day high-elevation hike you’ve dreamed of doing since you were 19, that requires you to carry a 30-pound pack for a week? That’s a must-do, go do it. A long weekend at the wine country two hours from your house? You can do that with a baby in a carrier, or when your kid is 5 and it’ll be just as fun. Lila did this exercise after we talked, and found she only had one more must-do: that Rockies backpacking trip. Everything else was just extra, so she and her husband went on that trip six months later, then started trying.
Third, if you do decide to wait, you don’t owe anyone a long explanation for your timeline. I got so many comments from extended family and random acquaintances about how I was “wasting my youth” trying to travel instead of having kids. I used to stammer and over-explain, until I figured out I could just say “we’re following our own timeline, thanks for checking in” and then ask them how their garden’s growing, or change the subject to something else. No need to defend your choice to anyone.
Last month I met Lila for brunch again. She showed up with an eight-week-old baby girl asleep in a car seat, a pink onesie covered in little sunflowers. She said she doesn’t regret waiting that extra six months for her hike. When she was standing at the top of the pass, looking out at the mountains, she knew that was the last big adventure just her and her husband for a while, and she’s glad she got to have it. I looked at the baby, then at Lila, and thought about my own choice. I still have those photos from Japan and New Zealand, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I do wish I’d gotten that fertility check before I decided to wait longer. Some things work out the way you plan, some don’t. There’s no perfect answer, just the right answer for you.
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