Should I wait to get pregnant after taking a couple of vacations? A parent’s honest perspective
Last month, I sat across from my friend Lila at our usual sun-faded corner table at the downtown Starbucks, where we meet every few weeks to catch up. She stirred her iced oat latte so long the ice turned to slush, then blurted out the question that’s been keeping her up at night: “Should we wait to start trying until after our Iceland trip? We already did the Amalfi Coast trip this spring, so that’s two vacations in a year. Everyone says we’re being ridiculous putting it off for trips. But I can’t stop thinking I want to enjoy this one first.”
I told her I get it, because I stood in that exact spot five years ago. Back then, my husband and I had just closed on our first little bungalow, our fridge was covered in wedding photos, and every family dinner came with the same unasked question hanging over the table: when are you having kids? Our pre-conception checkup came back totally clear, our doctor said we could start whenever we wanted. But we already had two trips booked: a first-anniversary beach trip to the Yucatán that fall, and a two-week trip to Japan the next spring that we’d been saving for since we got engaged.
I went back and forth for weeks. I scrolled all the message boards: one side said any delay is reckless if you want kids, the other said you’ll never travel again once you have a baby so enjoy your freedom. I remember sitting on our unfinished back porch one night, drinking cheap canned beer, and talking it through. I wanted to eat all the raw fish I wanted in Tokyo. I wanted to hike the 8-mile trail around Mount Fuji I’d been staring at on travel blogs for a year. I wanted to drink margaritas on the beach at 10 in the morning and not open a symptom app every time my head ached. I didn’t want to spend the whole trip worrying if that cramp was something bad, or if the street food I ate would hurt the baby. So we decided to wait.
I still remember lying on a white sand beach in Tulum, sun on my shoulders, watching my husband try to learn how to skimboard and face-plant into the shallows. I finished my margarita, and thought, even if this is the last time we do something this unplanned and messy just the two of us, it’s worth it. Then in Japan, I got a brutal stomach bug three days in, spent 24 hours curled up in a tiny ryokan room unable to keep anything down. I was miserable, but I kept thinking how much more miserable I’d be if I was pregnant, stressed about going to a foreign clinic, worried about the baby. That moment alone made waiting worth it for me.
After we got back, we started trying, got pregnant in three months, had my daughter, who’s now three and climbs all over our furniture and draws on the walls with crayons I can’t scrub off. I’ve thought about this question a lot since Lila asked me, because it comes up all the time in my local mom group, too. People act like it’s a black and white choice: either you’re ready for kids right now, or you’re selfishly putting off parenthood for vacations. But the thing no one says out loud is that it’s okay to prioritize the things that matter to you right now, before you add a whole other person to your life.
When people ask me this now, I tell them to do three simple, concrete things to figure it out for themselves. First, grab a piece of paper and write down everything you actually want to do on these trips that you’d have to skip or change if you were pregnant. It’s not just “travel” – it’s the specific things: the typhoid vaccine you need that’s not recommended for pregnant people, the 10-mile day hike you’ve planned, the wine tasting tour you’ve wanted to do for years, the late-night street food you want to eat without worrying about food safety. If more than one or two of those are non-negotiable for you, waiting isn’t selfish, it’s just giving yourself the trip you saved and planned for.
Second, check how much stress the alternative is causing you right now. If you’re lying awake at night worrying “what if I get pregnant before the trip” that constant low-level anxiety doesn’t do anyone any good, whether you’re trying to conceive or not. Waiting 6 or 12 months to eliminate that stress is a totally valid call.
Third, ask your doctor what the actual risks are for you specifically, not what your cousin or the random lady at the grocery store says. For me, at 29, my doctor told me that waiting 18 months for two trips wasn’t going to change my chances of having a healthy baby at all. If you’re 38 and have a history of fertility issues, that answer might be different. Get the facts from your care team, not social media.
I know people who got pregnant before their planned big trips and had a great time. My older sister got pregnant on her honeymoon, still went on the post-wedding trip to Costa Rica, just skipped the zip lining and ate only cooked fruit, and came home with the best photos and memories. It works for some people. It just didn’t feel right for me, and that’s okay.
Even people who end up struggling with fertility after waiting often tell me they don’t regret it. A friend of mine waited two years for two big trips, then spent three years trying to get pregnant through IVF. She told me last month that if she hadn’t had those trips, those two years of just her and her husband having fun, she wouldn’t have had the energy to get through all the hard treatment.
Lila and her partner decided to wait until after Iceland. She sent me a photo last week, standing in front of Skógafoss, rain on her face, holding a classic Icelandic hot dog piled high with everything, grinning so wide her eyes crinkled. I texted back “worth it” and she said “I’ll be covered in spit-up and up at 2 a.m. soon enough. Right now this is exactly what I need.”
There’s no universal right answer here. If you’re ready to start trying now, even with trips coming up, that’s your call. If you want to wait to enjoy the trips you planned, that’s your call too. No one gets a prize for checking the box of parenthood early, and no one gets judged for wanting one more big adventure just for you two before the adventure of parenthood starts. It’s still working out for me, and I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t regret a single day I waited.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Should I wait to get pregnant after taking a couple of vacations