Expectant girls just wanna have fun.
From bestiemoons to bachelorette trips, it can feel like every major event in a woman’s life has now been turned into an excuse to book a getaway with friends. The latest one? Being pregnant.
And no, this isn’t a babymoon, otherwise known as a relaxing or romantic rendezvous enjoyed by expectant couples before receiving their bundle of joy.
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Instead, millennial women are having hatchelorette parties — a catchy bit of branding for a celebration of their pregnancies. Not an entirely new concept, but one that appears to be picking up steam of late, here are the apparent requirements: just the girls, somewhere away from home —while travel is still an option.
Kiara Bastian, 31, of Kalamazoo, Michigan —a happy veteran of her own hatchelorette happening —is the first both in her family and her friend group to have a baby. She’d already enjoyed a bachelorette trip and a babymoon —but Bastian and her pals wanted one final girls trip before motherhood.
“[My friends] just wanted us to have a last hurrah because we love to go out and travel. So they were like, ‘Hey, let’s have a last road trip,” the new mama told The Post.
The intrepid crew enjoyed a whole weekend filled with games (think baby instead of penis-themed), a viewing of “Knocked Up”, massages, a scavenger hunt at the baby store, mocktails, matching PJs and cutesy gift bags.
The meticulously-planned moment was reminiscent of, but more relaxed than, a bachelorette event.
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“I just wanted to be bonding with my girls,” Bastian said. “I was scared, you know, I don’t want to be the mom that can’t go to Jamaica next month because I have a baby now.”
But missing the next trip wasn’t her biggest concern. The beauty salon owner noted that the stress of constantly worrying about keeping mother and child healthy can be “the most anxiety-driven thing” of a woman’s life. Especially, as US maternal mortality hit its highest rates since 1965 last year, with rates among black patients being particularly alarming.
“I just needed my girls,” she admitted.
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The weekend turned out to be the perfect way to spend time with her support group, celebrate her healthy pregnancy and ease any anxiety about becoming a new mom.
“I made it my last reassurance like, ‘We’re doing this. We have a village. We’re happy. This isn’t a burden. This is something that the whole group can benefit from,” Bastian said.
Since welcoming her son Kruz six weeks ago, she’s been visited by everyone who went on the trip several times, she said.
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“We are obsessed with him,” Bastian said.
Bastian isn’t the only newly-minted mom to benefit from a planned time-out with friends.
Emily Belson, 32, who lives near Washington D.C.,decided to throw her sister Carla Kiley, 28, a hatchelorette trip as a replacement for Kiley’s cancelled bachelorette do, scrubbed from the calendar in the spring of 2020 due to pandemic-era lockdowns.
“It seemed like a fun opportunity, to celebrate her in a similar way,” Belson told The Post.
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She booked a few conjoining rooms at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club and invited her mom and her sister’s two closest pals to stay the night after the traditional baby shower, attended by a much larger group of family and friends.
Belson decorated the rooms with balloons and goodie bags for each girl, scheduled massages and an early morning yoga class and a lovely dinner with mocktails — and a few co*cktails for those who weren’t expecting.
The doting older sister admitted that the original bachelorette plan included more upbeat events, such as karaoke, and co*cktails, but that the main goal with the hatchelorette was to coordinate some kind of girls get-together before Carla’s life got a bit crazier.
“It was really sweet, chill and intimate. We had a great time. And the most important thing to me was that she felt like she got a similar experience to all of her friends with their weddings, since she didn’t get to do it at that point,” she shared.
“My hope was just that she would just feel special and like her friends wanted to celebrate her,” Belson said.
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Belson who is now expecting her third child hasn’t and won’t be having a hatchelorette herself. As the mother of two young boys, her main goal right now is peace and quiet —which could provide a clue as to why hatchelorette parties haven’t quite yet made it mainstream.
“A night away by myself would be great…at this point, quiet is what sounds really nice to me,” she said.
