Family funeral 5 hours away 38 weeks pregnant

[thechicks]

FIL has recently passed away. I will be 38 weeks pregnant on the funeral date, funeral is a 5 hour flight away. DP originally said no to travelling that close to my due date, their family are piling pressure on to be there. I am really torn between being ok with her going and being really not ok with it. DP's family are unlikely to react well if they tell them they aren't going. I'm totally torn on what to do.

38 weeks pregnant is not "imminent birth" 🙄
Some people are reacting as if the OP is 40+ weeks.

Many women don't deliver exactly at 40weeks 38 weeks would be perfectly normal. Plus, the op may well feel anxious and need a bit of support at home in the run up?

The op doesn't want her to go, the dp wants to stay at home. A selfish family a 5 hour flight away need to zip it.

There is nothing selfish about a family expecting the closest members of that family to attend a funeral when it is perfectly easy to do so

There is when the fanily member has said they'd rather stay wirh their heavily pregnant dw and yet the family put pressure on them to go.

That doesn’t scream of someone who doesn’t want to go. That to me says she wants to go but she is feeling torn because both sides are pushing her.

"DP is really back and forth between wanting to go and thinking it's a bad idea. She wants me to make the decision really. I would rather she didn't go, but that isn't going to go down well with her family."

This post reads to me that the wife is getting pressure on both sides, not just from her bereaved family. She clearly wants to go to the funeral, but she needs her wife's blessing, which is why she is asking her to decide. If she felt it best to stay behind, she wouldn't be back and forth but would be firm in her decision to stay.

What a dilemma for her when OP won't give her the blessing to attend her father's funeral. And then, she has to stand by as their closest friends fly out to the funeral, because they "knew FIL well", but she, his own daughter, has to stay behind. I again suggest they ask if one of the friends would stay with OP instead.

@thechicks you keep repeating about not having anyone else you'd be comfortable having with you in the delivery room without appearing to register that the liklihood of you being in the delivery room without DP is about 2% and to avoid that 2% risk you are considering a 100% certainty of damaged relationships.

If DW doesn't go then the ramifications between her and her family, between her family and you, and sometimes even between you and her, will last for years.

If DW goes then most likely there are no bad consequences beyond you feeling a little anxious while she's gone but you don't go into labour. This is at least 95% probability. About 5% probability, maybe the first twinges of labour start while she's away but in that case it's much more probable that labour will be long and you almost certainly still won't be actually ready to go into the delivery room until she's back.

Just 5 years ago during the pandemic thousands of people suffered the anguish of not being able to attend funerals of dearly loved relatives, and many women had to give birth without anyone familiar supporting them. Neither of these is desirable but there are a ot of people who know exactly how difficult each of these is, I don’t envy you this choice and if the funeral was scheduled for when you are at 40 weeks it would be much more reasonable to ask DW to stay but two weeks earlier is a different proposition.

This