The best way Richie Gomez and Miranda Roldan describe the tempo of their life at this second doesn’t match their easy-going moods.
“It’s chaotic,” Richie says calmly.
“Every thing … simply … chaotic,” Miranda echoes with barely extra element.
From their house in Tampa, Richie and Miranda sound extra like they’re nonetheless melting in a backyard tub at Sandals Royal Bahamian than drowning in dysfunction. Their minds are filled with Caribbean influences that lately recalibrated their views on life. So, when Richie talks about bouncing backwards and forwards between work obligations in New York and Florida, he isn’t even certain if he’s again or forth proper now — and he doesn’t appear to care. And Miranda is surprisingly serene for a self-described type-A getting into her third trimester of being pregnant.
Hear intently. Are these the sounds of a house renovation venture in the background?
“We’re altering our sunroom to a enjoyable room,” Richie says with playful enthusiasm.
How may they be so content material whereas their lives transfer at the pace of an F-1 race? Richie and Miranda say their psychological conversions from “we’re late!” to “what’s the rush?” occurred just a few weeks in the past. They had been feeling the squeeze from work, journey, and approaching parenthood when the random concept of a Babymoon getaway to Sandals surfaced. At first, they brushed it away with predictable excuses. Too busy. Too drained. Too pregnant. Ought to we? Can we?
“No, we will’t,” Richie mentioned.
“Wait a minute,” Miranda countered. “Let’s cease for a second.”
Cease the doubts. Cease the chaos. Cease all the things.
Miranda had heard of a “babymoon package” at Sandals Royal Bahamian. She and Richie had additionally seen photographs of the powdery seaside and soul-soothing ocean. It appeared like a spot the place expectant mother and father would possibly disappear right into a lounger-for-two throughout the day and mix right into a sandy dance ground at evening, and the place chaos is nonexistent.
“If we don’t go now, we gained’t go in any respect,” Miranda mentioned to Richie. “Let me make one telephone name.”
She stepped away from the stacks of being pregnant books and the mess of a renovation venture to make that decision. The subsequent sound she heard was the voice of a Caribbean angel.
“What would you love to do in your trip?”
Miranda’s neck and shoulder muscle tissue started to deflate. “Chill out,” she mentioned with a deep sigh. “We simply wish to calm down.”
“After all. Do you may have any particular requests?”
“If we come,” Miranda requested, “may I’ve a maternity pillow?”
“Most actually.”
The promise of a maternity pillow accomplished the planning. Richie and Miranda would delete each occasion from a five-day block on their calendars and substitute them with one: Escape to Sandals Royal Bahamian.
Excited as they had been, Richie and Miranda didn’t notice the transformation that was about to occur.
One Duty: Present Up
Richie’s and Miranda’s scattered lives started to merge and settle at the Sandals Airport Lounge in Nassau, Bahamas. Miranda arrived from Florida and loved quick pampering. Richie arrived half-hour later from New York.
“They needed to handle me,” Miranda says of the Sandals welcome crew. “Airports are alleged to be hectic, however they made me overlook all my issues.”
Richie launched his tight grip on obligations when he noticed the automobile that may take the two of them to the opulent all-inclusive resort.
“A Rolls Royce,” he says. “I’m carrying shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops, completely in trip mode, and I’m using in a Rolls. However you understand what? It didn’t really feel fallacious.”
He exemplified all the things that’s proper about the Sandals Babymoon escape. Informal and stylish. Enjoyable and five-star. Easy and stylish. “All we needed to do was present up,” Richie says. “The Sandals crew did all the things, I imply all the things, and so they genuinely loved doing it.”
Richie and Miranda saved getting swept away. By the ocean views. By the happiness. And by one other angelic voice. “My identify is Shantell. Enable me to take you to your suite.” Shantell can be their butler by title and their greatest buddy by selection. After the preliminary introduction, she led Richie and Miranda to a peaceable villa with a backyard view and an outside soaking tub filled with heat water and flower petals.
“For us?” Richie requested.
“After all,” mentioned Shantell. “You got here to calm down.”
Richie and Miranda acquired critical. They took two baths on that first day.
“The Sandals employees knew higher than us what we needed. We by no means requested for something. They only made all of it occur.”
One afternoon they walked into their villa and puzzled how the chocolate-covered strawberries had appeared, or who left the bottle of Richie’s favourite whiskey. After one other tranquil day at the quiet pool, they returned to a platter of cheese and crackers.
“Oh, the cheese,” Miranda says as if nonetheless floating on a heart-shaped cloud. “I really like the cheese.”
One other time they got here again to a ravishing unfold of contemporary tropical fruit.
“Oh, the fruit,” Miranda says. “I really like the fruit, too. The Sandals employees should know what it’s wish to be pregnant, and hungry.”
At any time when Richie and Miranda strolled out to the pool after sleeping in, they’d see chairs reserved for them, with an umbrella raised and fluffy towels positioned excellent. Shantell would ask the mother-to-be easy questions, like, “Would you want contemporary fruit juice at 4 o’clock?”
“Oh sure,” Miranda mentioned. “I might love contemporary fruit juice at 4 o’clock.”
The bartenders blended up particular mocktails. Mango and peach. Pineapple and ginger. Miranda sipped them at the pool bar, on the seaside, and generally in the villa from the blessed consolation of her Sandals being pregnant pillow.
“Oh my gosh, the maternity pillow,” she says together with her ideas nonetheless resting peacefully. “Any pregnant lady will let you know how essential a superb maternity pillow is. I used to be by no means stressed. I slept. And I awakened comfortable. I’m nonetheless comfortable.”
The happiness was like a free take-home memento from Red Lane Spa, too. Miranda’s prenatal therapeutic massage therapist knew all about side-to-side positioning and discovering the proper strain factors for a girl in Miranda’s stage of being pregnant. However she additionally supplied a sort of consolation that doesn’t fade.
“She talked with me, mom to mom, about hydration and napping. That’s certainly one of my on a regular basis modifications now: I’m not too proud to cease all the things and nap.”
Life Is Not the Similar
5 days in a Caribbean paradise has a manner of reminding us of what to let go and what to embrace — like a toddler in the womb, for instance. “A blessing to rejoice,” Sandals employees members would say, after which they’d show it. When Richie and Miranda approached their desk at Butch’s Steakhouse one night, they noticed wine glasses, white napkins, and good blue flower petals in honor of their little boy.
“Surprises like that may simply seem,” Miranda says. “They made us really feel particular.”
After which on Sunday, Richie and Miranda took a five-minute boat experience to Sandals’ dreamy private island, the place they snorkeled in the sea and dozed on the seaside. Once they returned to the villa, Richie walked right into a flurry of balloons and a message on the mattress spelled out with little candles: DAD.
“I’d forgotten it was Father’s Day,” he says. “The Sandals crew gave my first-ever Father’s Day message.”
Earlier than their Sandals Babymoon escape and the Babymoon package and the reminders of perspective, Richie and Miranda say they didn’t know the definition of enjoyable.
“The journey modified us,” Richie casually says inside earshot of the half-finished enjoyable room.
“We’re nonetheless busy,” Miranda says, “however our expertise at Sandals allowed us to place the chaos apart and give attention to us. Now we’ve a brand new outlook on household and on life.”
And that’s a priceless present for all three of them.
Want extra inspo to your personal babymoon? Take a look at this highlight on the Chen’s dream babymoon at Sandals Grande St. Lucian. After being married at the resort, they got here again to rejoice turning into mother and father!
