Younger brothers out of state wedding 3 weeks before wifes due date
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Just like with so many probabilities, it doesn’t really matter how low the chance is if you’re the one it happens to. Personally I wouldn’t have liked to give birth without my husband there, particularly if there was some kind of emergency associated with it. I was even stressed at how long it would take him to drive home from work. To have him be probably 4-5 hours away? That would be an additional stress I don’t need at 37 weeks.
Bottom line is she doesn’t have to “let” you go. It’s your choice, and either way you choose, you have to deal with the fallout. She wants you there, your brother wants you there, you’re going to disappoint one of them. Up to you which one.
I dunno. This is a hard one. It seems awful to miss your brother’s wedding based on the unlikely (but not negligible) possibility that she’ll give birth three weeks early. If she’s goes into labor there is no way whatsoever that you can guarantee you’ll be back in time.
What do you mean by “an emergency flight back”? Do you have your own plane? Flights that long aren’t going to be frequently running shuttles so you’re probably looking at 6-7 hours from when you find out she’s in labor. What if she goes into labor at night?
I think it’s 4-5 hours if he’s lucky; depending on the airports involved there might not be regular departures every hour–in fact, it’s unlikely that there are. Bottom line, if something happens you won’t be there. If you’re willing to risk that you’re going to have some fallout to deal with.
Yes, I should have said 4-5 hours minimum. In reality if he has to catch a flight on short notice it’ll probably take longer than that.
Yeah, so let’s say she goes into labor at 2am Saturday morning. AND you have your phone on and it wakes you up. You are able to get on the earliest flight back, which is 6am. 4 hours have gone by when you take off. You land at 8:30, get to the hospital at 9:30. Almost 8 hours have gone by that she’s been in labor. Baby may already be there.
And good point Fyodor about going into labour at night. Flights usually stop around 8pm and don’t start again till 6am or so. If she went into labour anytime during that period you’d be stuck.
I’m not saying there is no chance she could go in labor. The probability that she will go into labor on day -21 from her due date is about 1%.
Whether that 1% comes up or not, your wife is worried and will feel as though you deserted her if you go to the wedding.
She’s not being unreasonable. She wants to know that her husband and father of her child will be there if something happens, and be able to support her and see his child born. Our daughter came almost 3 weeks early – I had preeclampsia, was on bedrest for a bit, and then we were sent to the hospital for an emergency c-section following what we thought would be a normal dr. appointment. Arrived at the hospital at noon and baby was out at 5pm. All kinds of shit can go down at the end of a pregnancy – Wendy had a column about this not too long ago where everyone shared their horror stories. I have two very good friends whose babies were stillborn at term. What if you weren’t there when your wife found out she lost the baby? That’s obviously a rare and dire situation, but I wouldn’t exacerbate a pregnant woman’s anxiety without very good cause.
What I meant by let me go is her “approval”. I’m not going if she doesn’t approve or is okay with it.
I get the situation about the flights and worse case scenarios that were mentioned. Just really down about missing my younger brothers wedding.
