James and I aim to take one kid-free getaway every year, even if it’s just one night in nice local hotel. We find it’s great for our marriage to get away from the demands of life at home as parents and be just us. With our third baby due in February, we knew our options were narrowing for getting away for a while. So early January, both James’ mom and my mom came to visit us to watch our boys together, and James and I took off to the Bahamas for a babymoon.

We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar, a gorgeous new property that sprawls the coast in Nassau. It’s directly adjoined to SLS Baha Mar and Rosewood Baha Mar resorts and allows access to facilities at all three properties. We selected the Bahamas as our destination because we were just over a month out from our due date, and therefore I was looking for a quick flight and to not be far from a hospital. As it was January, local locales would be frigid, and we’d already visited South Florida multiple times in recent years. We were thrilled with our choice. Baha Mar is a perfect location for a babymoon, honeymoon, girls trip, or family vacation…we saw groups of all types and everyone was enjoying themselves.

On our last night, James made maternity portraits of me along the Baha Mar beach and along the lush gardens at the Rosewood. Just down this path is an amazing Mexican restaurant Costa, in which we dined under cabanas surrounded by koi ponds the night before. After our portraits, we went up to the hip rooftop lounge at the SLS to take in the sunset.

The Bahamian culture is reverent of pregnant women. I was honored by how kind, uplifting, and spiritual the locals were toward me as a woman who was carrying a child. I’ve often wondered how they are doing, as Baha Mar is closed for most of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Little did we know that January would be the best time to travel in 2020. I’m so grateful that we had this trip to fill our tanks before the pandemic began. Anyone else dreaming of traveling again?