The note, titled “Carly and Robbie’s Pre-Babymoon,” still exists on our phones. As I read it now, I’m struck by its scope, which was hilarious and close to impossible.
Before we were to embark on the life-changing journey of becoming parents, Carly, my wife, and I decided we needed to, and this is verbatim from the list, “Find Carly a dentist,” “Take a road trip (out West, Vermont, Maine) w/ dogs,” “Eat lots of sushi,” “Backpacking w/ dogs,” “Go to theme park” (to presumably ride roller coasters), “New sink,” “Find Carly a new job,” and my favorite, “Read books.” (Which books? Doesn’t say. Just books. I hope I read the correct ones.)
We compiled this list together, sitting on our couch, in May 2020. It was our attempt to determine what we wanted to accomplish by the time the demands of parenthood, and restrictions of pregnancy, arrived. We checked off very few of our goals. We never went to a theme park. We still have our same kitchen sink. We did not take a road trip with the dogs, out West, or to Vermont or Maine.
No, this pre-babymoon lasted a mere three weeks. Because 18 days after we wrote this note, wide-eyed and filled with anticipation, we found out Carly was pregnant. That baby is now almost two years old.
The babymoon would have to wait.
Honeymoons, which possesses one of my favorite Spanish translations luna de miel (literally translating to “moon of honey”), are familiar to me: A couple travels to somewhere remote, usually tropical, to enjoy the beginning days of their marriage and escape the stress that accompanies planning a wedding. A day after we were married, Carly and I hopped on a plane to Italy for the first time in our lives; it was magical.
A babymoon, though—what the heck is a babymoon? I didn’t know until Carly brought up the “pre-babymoon” that still occupies gigabytes on our phones that it is, simply, a honeymoon for expecting parents, a time to spend time alone together before their world is turned upside down and their hearts are filled by the presence of a child, their child.
At first, as a 29-year-old going on 65, I thought it was one of those typically Millennial creations, like olive oil in a squeeze bottle or $20 avocado toast. Apparently, though, it was actually coined in the 90s by a British pregnancy author, who intended it to be the time spent with your new child after they were born; “[b]ut influenced by the ‘trip’ sense of honeymoon,” Merriam-Webster writes, “it soon gained another meaning: ‘a trip or vacation taken by a couple shortly before the birth of a child.’”
Whatever its origins, we never took one before Mayla, our now almost-two-year-old, was born: There was a pandemic tearing through the world, and the farthest we traveled in the weeks before she was born was our mile walking loop around the neighborhood. This time, though, with our days much busier and our nights centered around feeding, bathing, and putting Mayla to bed, we decided it could be good, perhaps even necessary.
So for Christmas our biggest gift to each other was nothing tangible, but a weekend away—the long-awaited babymoon.
We went to Highlands, a quaint mountain town 90 minutes from Asheville, and there is honestly not too much to report about the trip because we did basically nothing for 36 hours. And it was extraordinary.
We made a dinner reservation for 9 p.m. and didn’t leave the restaurant until close to 11. We slept, a lot. We lay in our hotel bed and watched TV and read for hours. We had a late brunch and walked around Main Street. We smelled spices inside a spice and tea shop. It snowed as we were driving there on Friday night, so we were forced to do everything slowly; North Carolina does not handle snowy roads well. And that pace, and feeling, was perfect for this weekend. It was a magical, wintry escape.
If the purpose of a babymoon is to remind expecting parents of life without children, when their responsibilities shrink and they don’t have another human to attend to, and to connect deeply with their partner and reaffirm that they are the person with whom the want to share the journey of parenting, then ours was a success. It was, in the truest sense of the word, relaxing.
But there lingered in the back of our minds, when we were waking up late and sitting with just each other at restaurants, when there was no stroller to push through the cracked sidewalks and no books about llamas to read before bed, that we were missing something, or someone. We both, I think, try to ensure that our identity is not completely intertwined with Mayla’s, that our life and interests and time extends beyond our daughter’s, that we are not just parents. And we both, admittedly, enjoyed the long-awaited babymoon, even if there we didn’t ride any roller coasters. But by the next morning, we missed her.
So we checked out an hour early and drove home to see our daughter.
Join our mailing list!
Subscribe to the Essays of Dad newsletter, a weekly email with parenting stories, background on essays, book recommendations, and more.
Essays of Dad 