Should I Wait to Get Pregnant After My Vacations? A Parent’s Real, Unfiltered Answer
I was wiping blueberry muffin crumbs off my 3-year-old’s stroller handle when Lila leaned across the coffee shop table and dropped the question. She’d just booked two back-to-back trips this year: 10 days in Tuscany with her husband, then a long weekend at a cabin with her college friends, and she’s been ready to start trying for a baby for six months. “Everyone’s got an opinion,” she said, twisting the paper sleeve on her cinnamon latte. “My mom says go ahead and start trying now, you’ll regret waiting if it takes longer than you think. My sister says go on the trips first, you’ll never have time alone again. So what do you think? Should I wait to get pregnant until after my vacations?”
Five years ago, I sat in that exact same spot, asking myself the same question. My husband and I had talked about kids since our wedding, but we’d been putting off trying to check a big Japan trip and a multi-day backpacking trip through the Rockies off our bucket list. We waited a year and a half, saved up, took both trips. On the Japan trip, we hiked halfway up Mount Fuji, ate yakitori at a 2-seat alley stall until 2 a.m., didn’t set an alarm once in 12 days. I remember coming home sun-tanned and relaxed, and started trying the next month. That trip still feels like this soft, good memory I pull out when bedtime routines feel endless and I haven’t had 10 minutes to myself all day. Waiting for that trip was the right call for me.
But I’ve also seen the other side play out for people I love. My cousin got pregnant on her honeymoon, no pre-planned big pre-baby trip. For years, she said she regretted not checking that Europe trip off her list before kids. By the time her two kids were 4 and 6, they saved up and did a 2-week trip through France. She sent me photos last summer of them climbing the Eiffel Tower, the kids covered in Nutella from morning croissants, and she said it was way more fun than any trip just her and her husband would have been seven years earlier. “I would have been stressed about money and when to start a family anyway,” she told me on the phone. “This way, we got to share it with them.” Not waiting was the right call for her.
What I’ve learned from talking to a dozen friends in this spot is that no one talks about the middle ground. It’s always all or nothing: either you have to go now or you’ll never travel again, or kids don’t change anything so why wait. The truth is somewhere in between, and there are three specific questions you can ask yourself to figure out what’s right for you, no generic advice required.
First, ask if these are trips you actually can’t do later, even with adjustments. If you want to do a 10-day backcountry hike where you carry a 30-pound pack, or backpack through Southeast Asia staying in $20-a-night hostels, that’s really hard to pull off when you’re pregnant or have a toddler under 5. That’s a good reason to wait. If it’s a week at a beach resort or a trip to visit family in another state, you can do that pregnant, or with a baby in tow, it’s just different. No need to wait a full year for that.
Second, ask how comfortable you are with the risk of waiting. I have a friend who waited two years to do two big international trips before trying, and it turned out she had unexplained infertility, and it took her another three years to get pregnant. She still says she’d trade those two trips to have her kid a couple years earlier. If you’re over 30, or you already know you have irregular cycles or other fertility factors, that’s something to weigh. A six-month wait to take one trip is very different than a two-year wait to check multiple trips off your list.
Third, ask if you can shrink the timeline so you don’t have to choose. If you really want that trip and you really want to start trying, do a shorter trip this year, then start trying in six months instead of 18. Or plan the big trip for after the first trimester, if you get pregnant earlier than you expected. Most people can still travel safely in the second trimester, and you can still have a good time, even if you’re skipping the wine and turning in a little earlier.
Lila nodded, and fed a stolen blueberry to my daughter, who was grabbing at anything on the table within reach. She said she’d always bought into the idea that pre-baby trips are the last fun trips you’ll ever have. I told her I do miss unbroken sleep and spontaneous late nights out with my husband, that’s true. But I also have new kinds of fun: chasing my daughter through a pumpkin patch, watching her see the ocean for the first time, that’s its own thing. It doesn’t erase the good trips I had before, it just adds new ones.
Last week, she texted me a photo from Tuscany. She’s sitting on a stone wall holding a glass of local red wine, no baby bump, sun in her hair. She still hasn’t decided when she’ll start trying after she gets back, and that’s okay. There’s no perfect answer here. Some people wait and it’s the best choice they ever made. Some people don’t wait and that works out too. All you can do is weigh what matters most to you, not what everyone else says you should do.
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