Should I wait to get pregnant after having a couple of vacations? A parent’s honest experience
The rain streaked the coffee shop window last Saturday, and Lila’s nose was still peeling from two weeks hiking the Portuguese coast when she leaned across the table and asked the question I knew was coming. “All my mom’s group chat won’t stop blowing up. They say I’m being selfish, that I’m running out of time. Should I really cancel these next two trips just to start trying for a baby now?”
I stirred my cold coffee and nodded. I’d been in that exact spot five years ago, sun peeling from my own pre-baby trip, every well-meaning relative leaning in to tell me I was making a mistake. My husband and I had been saving for two big trips for three years: a cherry blossom trip to Japan, and a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon we’d talked about since our first date. We were 29, ready to have kids eventually, but the trips were already paid for, mostly non-refundable back then, and we both couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d never get another chance to do them just the two of us.
My aunt called every Sunday to remind me that my fertility “drops off a cliff after 30.” My obgyn offhandedly mentioned that delaying a couple years would increase my miscarriage risk. We almost caved. We almost canceled the trips, put the money toward a nursery, and started trying that month. But we didn’t. We went.
In Japan, I ate all the raw sea urchin and sushi I wanted, drank warm sake under cherry blossom trees at 10pm, walked 12 miles a day without stopping to pee every 20 minutes or adjust a maternity belt. We fell asleep on a regional train heading to Kyoto, our bags at our feet, and missed our stop by an hour, and we just laughed and got ice cream while we waited for the next one. Three months later, we camped in a leaky tent at the base of the Grand Canyon, hiked 24 miles in two days, and drank cold beer at the bottom watching the Colorado River flow by. If we’d started trying when everyone told us to, I would have been three and a half months pregnant on that hike, and I never would have done it.
When we got home, we stopped using birth control and started trying. I was 30, exactly where everyone said I shouldn’t be, but I didn’t have that quiet “what if” hanging over every ovulation test. I didn’t lie awake at night wondering if I’d ever get to see the cherry blossoms or hike that canyon. That’s the thing no one tells you when they’re yelling at you to hurry up: regret is heavier than an extra year of age on your fertility chart.
I told Lila that first, the practical stuff isn’t hard, it just requires you to ignore the noise and do your own math. First step: make an appointment with your own obgyn or fertility specialist, not your cousin on Instagram or your mom’s bridge club. Go over your personal health history. If you’re 32, no known fertility issues, your odds of conceiving within a year are around 85% at 32, and 82% at 34. That’s a difference of 3%, not 30%. If you’re over 35 or have PCOS, endometriosis, or a history of infertility, that changes things — you don’t have to do an all or nothing. You can do one shorter trip instead of two, or do the trips and check in with a specialist every six months, or freeze eggs if you can afford it to buy yourself time. It’s not hurry up or wait forever.
Second concrete thing: when you book your trips, add pregnancy cancellation insurance. It’s almost always a $20 to $50 add-on when you book, and it covers you if you do get pregnant accidentally before you leave, or have pregnancy complications that mean you can’t go. I forgot to do that for our Japan trip, and I spent the whole month before leaving stressed about what would happen if we got pregnant early, so that’s an easy fix I pass on to everyone. If you’re set on waiting until after the trips to start trying, just stick with whatever birth control method you already trust. No surprises that way.
Lila nodded, and pulled out her phone to show me photos of her grandma in Thailand, who’s 88 and can’t travel long distances anymore, so Lila has to go to her. That’s the other thing no one talks about: some trips aren’t just fancy vacations for fun. They’re the only chance you’ll get to make that memory. Waiting a year to have a baby isn’t throwing away your chance at parenthood. It’s choosing to make the memories that will make you a calmer, less resentful parent later.
I have a friend who skipped her dream trip to Italy to start trying, got pregnant right away, and the first three years of her son’s life she told me she’d lie awake some nights angry, not at her son, but at the fact that she’d given up that trip for no reason that mattered to her. She never got that chance again, because her mom got sick right after the baby was born, and they couldn’t travel. That’s the risk people don’t talk about when they tell you to hurry: the risk of regret that stays with you.
It’s been three years since I had my daughter, and we haven’t had a trip just me and my husband since. We go to the lake with her, we do weekend trips to the zoo, and it’s wonderful, but it’s not the same as the trips we took before. I don’t regret a single day of waiting. I don’t feel like I wasted any time. When Lila texted me last week from a rooftop in Chiang Mai, she sent a photo of her holding a plate of mango sticky rice, with her grandma grinning next to her. She said she’s so glad she didn’t cancel. I don’t know how long it’ll take her to get pregnant after she gets home. It might be a month, it might be three years. But I know she’ll never lie awake wondering what if.
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