Notably, I also got to imbibe wine and spirits with abandon throughout the trip, which is obviously something I would not have done on a babymoon, and I didn’t have to worry about the potential risks of a single bite of food I tried, either. I would argue that restrictions in either area would have made the trip, if not less enjoyable, less hedonistic, and hedonism does, I’ve heard, tend to evade new parents. And perhaps more importantly, my partner and I got to enjoy intimacy without the ever-present third party who appears in pregnancy (and stays for quite some time thereafter).
And while I wouldn’t say anything quite so dramatic (or trite) as ‘we fell in love all over again’ on this trip, I do feel as though the adventure, novelty, and distraction-free quality time—we are not phone people when on vacation—deepened our bond, inspired optimism about the life we would not only live together, but also with our child, and ultimately made us feel more confident in our decision to start a family.
These happy consequences do not surprise Stein. “Taking risks and doing adventurous things creates confidence and security in a relationship,” she says. It also helps build what Earnshaw calls a couple’s emotional bank account. “When we have a ‘well’ that we can drink from, even during a drought we won’t go thirsty,” she says. “That well can be the good feelings, memories, and experiences you built with each other pre-baby.”
As it’s turned out, without that well, we may have died of thirst long before the birth of the baby. At my 20-week pregnancy scan, I was placed on travel restriction and pelvic rest (a.k.a. a total sex-and-orgasm ban) for the duration of my pregnancy. This meant we couldn’t have gone on a babymoon even if we had wanted to. It also meant that in total, we would be spending around six months celibate. To add insult to injury, I’m writing this piece from Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, where I’ve been placed on glorified bed rest for the last four weeks of my pregnancy. All of which means my partner and I have been completely robbed of our last remaining time alone together as a couple doing anything, let alone anything resembling the things we enjoyed pre-baby. It’s been rough, generally, and very rough on our relationship.