IVF on the Down Low

I figured it out. The reason this trip is so hard is that it wasn’t designed with family travel in mind. And that’s ok. My sister SHOULD plan her wedding however she thinks her wedding should be. She wanted a beach wedding on a romantic island and that’s what she’ll have. I should have approached the whole thing differently from the beginning. When my sister picked the hotel, she said that it was great for kids and described the play area, etc. But, my sister has never traveled with kids. Her romantic destination does not cater to families. It caters to people like her. I know that she would have been hurt if we chose to go elsewhere and I didn’t even consider it. Instead we just went along with the plans. Of course we would join them at the lovely hotel they picked for their romantic weekend!

Instead, we should have looked at everything more closely and done something to fit our needs better.

Sigh.

The trip to Mexico is no longer a distant worry, it’s now just a few weeks away. And I am panicking. PANICKING! Deep breaths. The 2 main issues:

1. Transportation. We finally decided that we would use the hotel’s van service. They will pick us up and get us all the way from the airport to the hotel. Easy! And they have seat belts so we can use our car seats. But, it costs $80 per person. 80!!! OMG. I just don’t know if we can do that. There will be 6 of us. Nearly $500 to get to the hotel and then back to the airport. O.M.G. Other options? I don’t know. Take a cab. A cab may or may not have seat belts and I really want the kids to be in car seats. Rent a car and get on the sketchy car ferry. The most feasible alternative is chartering a private van to go from the airport to the ferry, but then I have no idea what happens when we get off the ferry. The hotel is walking distance from the dock but we will have luggage and 2 car seats. Cab? Maybe for part of our group and the rest can walk? My stomach is tying up in knots just thinking about this part of the trip. $500. We don’t have $500 just lying around.

2. Sleep. Our toddler certainly isn’t a perfect sleeper even in his normal environment. I worry that we will have 6 days of overtired, refusing to sleep toddler on vacation and possibly spilling into the week we return as well. We’ve decided to get a room with 2 beds and each of us sleep with 1 kid. Just seemed like the easiest thing to do. I don’t trust the hotel crib for the littlest one and figured Gavin wouldn’t like seeing her sleep with us while he was trapped in the crib. Either way, we’ll all be in one big room. This will be bad. Gavin will spend the night trying to get us up out of bed, I’m sure of it and I have no idea how we’ll get him down in the first place. The last time we traveled with him was this summer. That hotel room had a separate living room so we did our normal routine and then left him alone. This hotel room has no separate space. Argh.

I think I’ve worked through everything else. I will be taking my pump so that Shawn at least has a bottle for Gwyn during the ceremony. I thought about buying a manual pump because it’s easier to pack and I wouldn’t be as worried about losing it, but I don’t want to spend $50 on a pump just for this trip, so I’ll take my Freestyle and will lug it in my carry on. We will use drop-ins for bottles and I will take pump wipes. I have no idea how we will be heating bottles.

The bridesmaid dress has 1 strap and it fits a little loosely. I would feel more comfortable if it were a bit more snug so that there wasn’t a worry about exposing myself, but I also need to be able to pull it down to nurse. I’m somewhat considering changing clothes after the ceremony.

Not sure how easy it’s going to be for Shawn to keep Gavin under control during the ceremony. Because of the ceremony time he will probably be going without a nap. Oi.