Pregnant millennial moms are throwing ‘hatchelorette’ parties

Future girls just want to have fun.

From honeymoons to bachelorette trips, it can seem like every major event in a woman’s life is turned into an excuse to book a getaway with friends. The last one? Being pregnant.

And no, this is not a babymoon, otherwise known as a relaxing or romantic date enjoyed by expectant couples before receiving their bundle of joy.

Instead, millennial women are partying with hatchelorette — a sort of drag brand for a celebration of their pregnancies, created by author Laura Lane.

Not an entirely new concept, but one that seems to be picking up steam of late, here are the obvious requirements: girls only, somewhere away from home – while travel is still an option.

Kiara Bastian, 31, of Kalamazoo, Michigan — a happy veteran of her events — is the first in her family and group of friends to have a baby. She’d already enjoyed a bachelorette trip and a baby – but Bastian and her friends wanted one last girls’ trip before the mother gave birth.

“[My friends] just wanted us to have a last hurray because we love to go out and travel. So they said, ‘Hey, let’s take one last road trip,'” the new mom told The Post.

The intrepid crew enjoyed a whole weekend filled with games (think baby instead of penis), a viewing of Knocked Up, massages, a baby store scavenger hunt, mocktails, matching PJs and cute gift bags.

The meticulously planned moment was reminiscent of, but more relaxed than, a bachelorette party.

“I just wanted to bond with my girls,” Bastian said. “I was scared, you know, I don’t want to be the mom who can’t go to Jamaica next month because I have a baby now.”

But missing her next trip wasn’t her biggest worry. The beauty salon owner noted that the stress of constantly worrying about keeping mother and baby healthy can be “the most anxiety-inducing thing” in a woman’s life. Especially as maternal mortality in the US reached its highest rates since 1965 last year, with rates among black patients particularly alarming.

“I just needed my girls,” she admitted.

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 being a new mom.

“I made my last reassurance like, ‘We’re doing this. We have a village. We are happy. This is not a burden. That’s something the whole group can benefit from,” Bastian said.

Since welcoming her son Cruz six weeks ago, she has been visited by everyone who went on the trip several times, she said.

“We’re obsessed with him,” Bastian said.

Bastian isn’t the only new mom to take advantage of a planned vacation with friends.

Emily Belson, 32, who lives near Washington, D.C., decided to throw her sister Carla Kiley, 28, a Hatchelorette ride as a replacement for Kiley’s canceled bachelorette, taken off the calendar in spring 2020 for due to pandemic-era lockdowns.

“It seemed like a fun opportunity to celebrate it in a similar way,” Belson told The Post.

She booked a couple of connecting rooms at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club and invited her mom and her sister’s two closest friends to stay the night after the traditional baby shower, followed by a much larger group of family and friends.

Belson decorated the rooms with balloons and goodies for each girl, scheduled massages and an early morning yoga class, and a nice dinner with mocktails—and some cocktails for those who weren’t expecting it.

The doting older sister admitted that the original bachelorette plan included more upbeat events like karaoke and cocktail parties, but the main goal with the hatchelorette was to coordinate some sort of girls’ date before Carla’s life got a little crazier.

“It was really sweet, cold and intimate. We had a great time. And the most important thing to me was that she felt like she had a similar experience to all her friends with their weddings, because she didn’t get to do it at that moment,” she said.

“My hope was just that she would feel special and like her friends wanted to celebrate her,” Belson said.

Belson, who is now expecting her third child, has not and will not have a hat herself. As the mother of two young sons, her main goal at the moment is peace and quiet – which may provide a clue as to why strip parties haven’t yet become mainstream.

“A night away would be great…at this point, quiet is what sounds pretty good to me,” she said.