I’m writing this in flight to Marco Island and while I still have two more flights on the horizon pre-baby, I’m weirdly obsessing about the fact that this is one of the last flights I’ll take before he’s here.

I love that my little guy has gone so many places with me already. Together, we’ve been to London, Atlanta, New York, Miami and Scottsdale. Now we’re en route to Marco Island with trips to San Francisco and Sedona on the horizon before I’m actually cut off from boarding a plane for a while. I like to think I’m cultivating a little traveler with every trip and new airport, and I talk to him (in my head, I’m not that much of a crazy lady yet!) through all of the terminals, telling him where we’re going and what I know about the city. And maybe a little bit of complaining about La Guardia’s awful, awful United terminal and people that listen to sound on their phones without headphones. Misery likes a little company.

My first flight pregnant was to London, of all places, and I was absolutely terrified, I was about 10 weeks pregnant and in the throes of first trimester hell, totally unconvinced that I could ever feel normal again. Relatively speaking, I was actually lucky that while I was nauseous for about 18 weeks straight, it never really resulted in throwing up — but I didn’t know that yet and was convinced I’d lose it during take off or landing. The only thing that helped my nausea was eating, a lot and often, but even this was complicated thanks to mercurial food aversions. I decided the best thing to do was pack a small convenience store of snacks in my tote bag. To my best recall, this included: dried mango, crackers, peanut butter, turkey jerky, instant Carnation breakfast shakes, bananas, trail mix, and string cheese.

I’m not sure I even want to put this in writing because it was so very real at the time, but in retrospect I wonder if my first trimester morning sickness was partially mental. As soon as I’d HAVE to be okay, I would be. I think I ate the string cheese and a banana in the first hour or so of the flight, and the rest of my little stash remained unnecessary, untouched and annoyingly heavy to carry around.

By far, the toughest thing about traveling, for me, has been the fatigue and trying to keep up with it all. Particularly during work trips, the long days of concentration in uncomfortable chairs followed by dinners out (without a few glasses of wine to help pass the time!) are unbelievably exhausting, especially when I used to be able to do it all without batting an eye.

I’m lucky that most of my work trips land me in big, amazing cities. I love to walk, and often book hotels at least half a mile away from my meeting places during the day with the express intent of walking different ways to work and seeing what I can of the cities I’m visiting. I quickly learned that this strategy was no longer my friend, and that eliminating as much unnecessary walking as possible helped mitigate the cumulative exhaustion that hit me like a brick wall by the end of every trip.

Besides trying to take it as easy as possible when I land, most of the managing I do for traveling pregnant comes into play in the air. A few of the habits I’ve developed to make flying while pregnant as pleasant as possible:

• Not drinking much, if any water until the last 30 minutes of the plane ride (at which point I’ll down a ton!) out of fear that I’ll have to use the bathroom, desperately, but turbulence strikes and we can’t get out of our seats. I am literally terrified of that scenario thanks to the tiny human constantly sitting on my bladder.
• Getting up to use the bathroom at least a few times (even if it’s just to walk down the aisle and do a few calf raises in the bathroom) helps with back pain from sitting in the uncomfortable seats for hours on end.
• Compression stockings are amazing, and for me, eliminated any swelling. I admit my vanity gets the best of me on trips to warmer climates where my toes are showing and I can’t bring myself to break them out, but I intend to track down a footless pair to wear for San Francisco and Sedona!
• Always booking an aisle seat. My protective mama bear mode is in full force these days, and joined with my ever-present claustrophobia, being trapped in a middle or window seat with someone who’s not conscious of their personal space will have me stressed out for an entire flight. Get your elbow far, far away from my baby, sir. Being in the aisle seat allows me maximum lean-away-ability and a prayer for sanity.

There’s also a few perks of traveling while pregnant–primarily that people are generally much nicer and considerate. A little kindness or smile in a long airport line goes a long way towards improving my mood. But I suppose that’s one of the best parts of being pregnant whether at home or abroad.

I credit all of the travel I’ve done with the little guy for both making time fly and giving me lots of great memories with him before he’s even here. I remember standing on top of the Rockefeller building with my brother when I flew in to NYC a day early to meet him for a day of sightseeing, and thinking how incredible life can be. Pregnancy has been far from easy, and travel (particularly flying) is inherently draining these days. But standing there and feeling on top of the world, I thought about how lucky I’ve been to see so much of the world already, and how ready I was for this next adventure. I hope he’ll love to travel as much as J and I do and that we’ll create lots of memories as a family exploring this beautiful world.

Until then, I’ve got my compression socks and a full bottle of water waiting for me to chug in 37 minutes when we’re getting ready to land.