There is something about going through a tough time that just makes me want to run away from my problems and hide from the real world. To avoid all the reminders. To forget all the pain. To escape our reality.

So, after miscarriage 3, I googled cheap flights and searched the world for a last minute get away. At the best of times my husband and I are not good beach people – we are too active to sit in the sun all day and we have a desire to see the world. And, given the circumstances, we knew we had to be active to keep our minds busy and not just thinking about 3 lost babies. We’ve always loved to travel, and in recent years we’ve been going to more adventurous destinations before we have kids, since with kids we’d be more inclined to go to “safe” vacation destinations (there’s that life plan again).  Anyways, we have a list of dream places to visit, but after a few hours of scouring the internet I determined none of the dream places would work right now. They were either too expensive for an unplanned, last minute trip (Oktoberfest in Germany or Galapagos Islands), or it was the rainy season (Southeast Asia), or it was generally too unsafe (Egypt).

When pondering places to escape too, I was talking to a friend about our trip planning, and he suggested Peru because it’s cheap, and Machu Picchu is supposed to be pretty awesome. So, I looked into it – we could afford it, the weather was supposed to be good, it’s pretty safe (if you don’t read about the safety of road travel through the Andean Mountains, which we didn’t), and we could plan a busy itinerary.

Although, I absolutely hated the thought of delaying our escape, but the reality was we couldn’t simply hop on a plane the next day.   We had to delay the trip to accommodate our work schedules and to ensure there were not any complications from the miscarriage (we didn’t feel like experiencing the medical system in a developing country – one of the benefits of being a Canadian). So, between work and medical appointments, I spent the next four weeks organizing our itinerary (we never travel with tour groups – we like the freedom and flexibility of doing our own thing). It was the perfect distraction and before we knew it we were on the plane to Peru.

We had an amazing vacation. There were no dreaded questions about family planning, no explanations of what recurrent pregnancy loss means to our future, no emergency room visits, no doctor appointments, and no painful medical procedures. And we got to spend amazing quality time together while experience the amazing sights – Huacachina, the Nazca Lines, Arequipa (highly recommend a few days here if you are ever in Peru), the Colca Canyon, Lake Titicaca, Cuzco and Machu Picchu.

The escape plan to Peru, worked perfectly for the 2 weeks we were away. But, all our realities returned the second we got back home to our big empty family house and more doctor appointments and medical tests as they tried to determine why we were experiencing recurrent pregnancy loss. So, although the escape plan worked for the duration of the trip, we found that it is not a great long term coping mechanism.

So, now we are on miscarriage number 4. As soon as the ultrasound (unexpectedly) told us that baby 4 was dead, I desperately wanted to run away. But logic says it won’t work and past experience proves that it won’t work because reality will be waiting for us when we get home. Combining this reality with the fact that I will be reducing my work, a trip right now would also be financially irresponsible. So, no major trip to an exotic location right now, but we will be trying to focus on happiness and good times. We know that spring is arriving and pretty quickly the snow will melt and we will spend our weekends hiking, camping and fishing in our massive backyard – the Rocky Mountains. Really, what better way is there to spend the summer then outside in the mountains?