Can you enjoy a holiday when you’re waiting for your 12-week scan?

There is a strange limbo between discovering you are pregnant and reaching the 12-week scan.

After miscarriage, I found it almost impossible to treat pregnancy as straightforwardly good news. I wanted to be excited. I also knew how quickly excitement could be replaced by something else. So I waited.

Christmas arrived in the middle of it all and, rather than spend the entire festive period mentally counting down to a hospital appointment, H and I went to Vienna.

That was the uncomfortable question sitting underneath the trip. After miscarriage, hope suddenly felt risky.

We stayed at the Mercure Hotel Josefshof in Josefstadt, and it became our base for those strange few days when I was simultaneously a tourist, a pregnant woman and someone trying very hard not to think too far into the future.

Its location made life wonderfully uncomplicated. We could walk towards Vienna’s historic centre and City Hall, but retreat when my pregnant body decided it had done quite enough sightseeing for one day, thank you.

Travelling while pregnant wasn’t about squeezing every landmark into an itinerary. I didn’t want to conquer Vienna. I wanted to experience it, and then somewhere warm to sit down.

This, of course, was ridiculous. There was absolutely no chance I was going to forget I was pregnant. My body reminded me, and every decision about food, drink, walking, resting and what came next reminded me. But Vienna gave my brain other things to notice.

The grandeur of the Hofburg Palace. Christmas lights reflected against old buildings. The smell of coffee escaping from cafés as doors opened, and people wrapped in coats and scarves.  At Café Central, even sitting down for coffee felt like part of the sightseeing.

Pregnancy changed the way we experienced the trip. We stopped more. We sat more. I noticed cafés and benches with an enthusiasm previously reserved for landmarks which was actually no bad thing.

There is a version of travel that becomes an endurance event, particularly when you feel obliged to prove you’ve “done” a city properly. I wasn’t interested in doing Vienna properly.

I was interested in being there.

By New Year’s Eve, Vienna seemed to turn itself into one enormous celebration.

We watched the annual New Year’s Eve run through the old city, surrounded by runners, spectators and, rather wonderfully, dogs joining in the general commotion. There was music, movement and a really festive atmosphere. Eventually, we made our way towards City Hall Square.

I had cinnamon-coated waffles and alcohol-free glühwein, which is perhaps not the wildest New Year’s Eve confession ever committed to the internet.

But I was pregnant.

I was 39.

And I was happy to be standing there.

For a few hours, I wasn’t thinking about scan dates or previous pregnancies. I wasn’t wondering what might happen next. I was just in Vienna with H, holding something warm in my hands and watching another year arrive.

That felt good enough.

We also discovered Fromme Helene on Josefstädter Strasse, where traditional Austrian food provided exactly the sort of winter dinner I wanted after walking around in the cold.

There were generous schnitzels, crisp potatoes and salads, but what I remember almost as much as the food is the pleasure of sitting down.

Pregnancy travel taught me something I had previously been rather poor at accepting.

You don’t fail at sightseeing because you need an afternoon rest. You don’t waste a city because you spend an hour drinking something warm in a café. And you certainly don’t earn extra tourist points for trudging around until your pelvis objects.

I would plan the trip differently from the way I travelled before pregnancy.

Not dramatically. Just more kindly.

Looking back, I can see why this particular holiday stayed with me. Of course I remember Vienna.

I remember the Christmas lights, the Hofburg, the cafés, the cold air, New Year’s Eve and the waffles.

But underneath those memories sits another one.

Waiting.

I was waiting to know whether this pregnancy would continue.

When you’ve experienced miscarriage, allowing yourself to imagine a baby can feel frightening. Hope suddenly seems like something that needs managing. Vienna couldn’t change that.

What it could do was give us several days in which life carried on around the uncertainty.

We walked.

We ate.

We laughed.

We watched runners and dogs charge through the streets.

We drank alcohol-free glühwein.

And every evening we returned to our little sanctuary at the Josefshof.

I went to Vienna thinking I needed a distraction before my 12-week scan.

Perhaps what I really needed was permission to live while I waited.

Pregnancy after miscarriage can make the future feel conditional. You catch yourself thinking, I’ll relax after the scan. I’ll celebrate when we know and I’ll allow myself to believe it when…

Vienna reminded me that life doesn’t wait for certainty. Sometimes you’re frightened and happy at the same time. Then sometimes you’re carrying hope while deliberately trying not to look at it too closely.

But when you’re standing in a freezing square in Vienna, pregnant at 39, clutching an alcohol-free glühwein and realising that, for this particular moment, you are OK, that’s what counts.

Did getting away help, or did the worry simply come along in the suitcase?

Occasional stories, experiments, discoveries and questions from Saffron & Cyrus.