URGENT husband advice: How long/quickly does labour last with No 2 if No 1 was an induction and emergency c-sec?

[SkyeBlu]

My wife is currently 39 weeks and 3 days expecting our second baby. Our first baby had to be induced at 42 weeks and after a traumatic labour ended in an emergency C-section. She is very twitchy about my commitment to work and needing to be 3.5 hrs drive away for work all day on Thursday (2 days time) - 3 days before official due date. I really need to go to this meeting. Am I or she being unreasonable? Please advise!!!

45 minutes my second birth was.

Thanks for all the great advice ...Its the wife here now! Very grateful of all the support above... to fill the picture a little more, the birth of baby 1 was utterly horrific...the emergency c-sec we all thought (including Drs) was too late and baby had died...they had to work very hard to get him back/resuscitate, which Drs and midwives were fantastic and did brilliantly..he is now a very healthy 4 year old. However it has taken a long time to get over trauma and feel ready to embrace No 2....I am determined to give VBAC a go, as I believe everything went wrong due to being induced (they will not do that again) and I have until 41 weeks to let nature take over and give it a go, but as husband points out...I was overdue with No 1 which is why I had to be induced and it's not even the due date yet and apparently it is a really important meeting that will cause him a lot of stress if he misses....and he will have his telephone on...etc etc...get back asap if I ring....but otherwise be away for most of the day 3.5 hrs drive away (that relies on M6 not being closed/severe traffic jam etc....). I think if I don't give birth that day and he does excuse himself it will lead to a massive headache for him and resentment of me 'crying wolf'.....
Also in terms of other support, I do have great friends around, in laws galore willing to help (that I do like and get on with) and my mother who is arriving today to stay and look after No 1 son...... so it is not as if I don't have support, I just don't want anyone else there but him when/if it all kicks off..........sorry for lengthy message - but after all the effort of above, I felt important to give a bit more detail than what he did! Thank you XXXXXXXXXX

I know everyone nowadays thinks the father has to be there, but countless numbers of women have managed without. Unless it is a planned induction or a caesarian, the birth could take place today, next week or even be under way now. Go to your meeting.

If it helps.. my number 1 was induced and ended in an emcs after 32hrs labour. No 2....i went for a vbac. .so natural delivery. Went from no pain or anything to mild contractions to baby in just shy of 2 hours.
Obviously you have to work until you start parental leave but perhaps you could reschedule that meeting? You wouldn't want to stress your wife out. I had my child with me and I dread to think how we would have managed if I had to wait on my husband getting home.

I was going to say if your wife's happy for you to miss it and your happy then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. But it seems your wife wants you at the birth so you need to be there. You need to clear your schedule for the next two weeks.

There is no way of knowing. By the sound of it you have a choice of attending the meeting or not.
So you have an option of
1 planning to go to the meeting, being prepared to cancel on the day or to be called out. Ensuring your wife has someone else who could take her to hospital and be her birth partner and understanding there is a chance you might miss the birth of your child.
2 not going to the meeting and not showing you are pissed off if nothing happens wrt labour.
3 arranging a video conference Skype type thing and again not showing your pissed off if nothing happens.

FFS it isn't "crying wolf"! I really hope that's not how he phrased it. The whole point is that a due date is just an estimate. The weeks before and after are going to be weeks when anything could happen. When was this meeting planned - why didn't he spot the issue with timing? He could have had months to prepare his work for the fact he might not be able to travel.

X post sorry

You're the one BU mate.

Tbh I cant believe that a father would take the risk of not being there for his wife afer such a traumatic birth.
Because you WILL need someone to speak for you during thre birth and he shoud be that person.
As for not needing to have th feather at the birth, yes before fathers weren't needed. But women had someone with them at the birth. Their mum, a sister, a friend. If he cant be bothered to be sure to be there at the birth of his child, then his dw shouod organise to have a doula with her. no woman is supposed to give birth on her own. (MW don't count btw. They are overworked, in and out. They cant physically give continuous support)

As some PP have said, if you go into labour today, he will have to miss that meeting. Will the world collapse if it works out like this?

As for you crying wolf... if this is what he thinks about you saying he needs to be there around your due date, then he is a really crap person. Its not about crying wolf, its about saying 'this is the time (in as in the week) when i will give birth'. This is a statement, not guess work.

If there is someone else around to take care of the mum and other child during the birth, then no, the husband doesn't have to be there. But he should take a deep look inside and see how he would feel if he really was away at the meeting and not there for her at a crucial moment.

As long as it is someone the woman is confortable with.
Why should the woman giving birth should NOT have the person she needs/wants to support her in such a difficult situation (Lets remember that her first child was DEAD when he was born, needed to be revived etc... so a pretty stressful and tramautic event. Its easy to see why the DW woud want her dh by her side in case this was going to happen again).
Is it that HER needs dont matter nearly as mch as HIS needs??

Presumably the wife also needs a roof over their head and money coming in long term. Thre is a difference between being unwell or on paternity leave/birth actually happening to not wanting to take the risk in case baby arrives on a specific date.

My DH is a vet. He couldn't refuse to do long involved calls or go into mobile signal blackspots because I might go into labour if he wanted to remain employed - so we worked out options. For our second his parents will stay with us from 36 weeks as I had a 2 hour 1st stage (2.5hr 2nd stage) with my first at 38+4.

The reality of his job involves being unavailable even if he is geographically close. I prefer he keeps his job plus we needed to take holiday at short notice rather than paternity leave for financial reasons so needed to keep employer on side...

Admittedly if he's the boss then he should delegate but if he's a normal employee then refusing to go is an issue - I assume he'd need to take holiday - which can be refused by the employer

Presumably the wife also needs a roof over their head and money coming in long term.

He isn't going to lose his job because his wife was in the verge of childbirth. Don't be ridiculous. And a vet's work is hardly comparable to a business meeting.

Should he also refuse to leave the meeting if he's called? After all it's more important than his wife, and she's got other people around, so it's not like she needs her husband there. You wouldn't mind if your husband missed the birth of your child, so no one else should be bothered about it either? No matter what happened with their first birth?

Plenty of employers are dicks - came across a few volunteering at cab..

If you have a job that doesn't allow you to just leave or rearrange your meetings, a job with an employers that is utterly crap, then surely you plan around it in advance and you still help your dw to find a solution that will work for her?
You don't just say 'oh btw, I actually have to go to xx meeting just before your due date. Just suck it up'

And surely when your dw has had such an herendous time the first time, younwill have talked to her about it, you will supported her and ensuring therebis someone present, someone she totally trust, will have been part of the conversation?

Because it doesn't look like any of that has been done.
It's much more of a ' well i have to go to xx metting. Wont be thyere on x date. Just suck it up' which is a crap thing to do both as a father and as a partner.

If baby does decide to come that day it could take minutes, hours or days, who knows?

Surely if wife is feeling worried about things, husband should respect this and be supportive i.e. Attend meeting by conference call or Skype?

No employer will be cross about an employee not attending a meeting in person so close to his wife's due date.

In my case, DC1 was born after a 14 hour labour and ventouse cos he got stuck. Terrible birth but no problems afterwards. In contrast DC2 arrived at 35 weeks after less than an hours labour, simple birth but admitted to ICU after an hour due to collapsed lung. So you never can tell what's going to happen!

Honestly, I'd tell my dh to go & none of my pregnancies have made it to edd. If anything happened I'd call him & if he made it great, if not such is life. But it is normal to feel 'clingy' in later pregnancy. I do understand your worries though SkyebluDW my dh often works up to 4 hours away & uses the motorway network so it's a possibility that he'll struggle getting back this time (dc5 due August), for me delivering alone isn't a terrible thought though & I have a wonderful neighbour who's more than happy to sit with the older dc.
For reference my 1st was 27 hours
2nd 8 hours (but was premature & was deliberately slowed down)
3rd 4 hours
4th 9 days latent labour where I stalled at 3cm then 1 hour from the synto drip being started.
All times are from 1st pain/bloody show & in dc1s case waters breaking.

My first was a v. quick natural delivery - looking back there were plenty of signs before the main event, I just didn't recognise them!
Everyone warned me to get to hospital ASAP with second, however second baby also gave a full day of warning signs (that I recognised this time!) and a same length of labour at same gestation of 41 weeks.
Obviously no one can predict, but in all likelihood, if there are no signs by morning of the meeting, there's a high probability you'll be fine! I know 3.5 hrs seems like a long time, but you're likely to have some signs in advance.

I hope all goes much more smoothly for you this time!

Actually being in labour is different to "might go into labour in next 3 weeks".

Don't assume that going overdue with your first is any guide to what will happen this time.

DC1: 36 hour labour ending in EMCS at 41+4.
DC2: waters broke at 35+1, admitted to antenatal ward, no other signs of labour till baby born in 50 mins the next morning. DH was 40 mins from the hospital and missed it!

It really is bad planning and lack of consideration on the part of the husband if he is only now mentioning this meeting. How long has he known about it? Why hasn't he said to his employers that actually it's his wife's due date and he doesn't want to be that far away, especially considering what happened with their first child?

@BandeauSally brilliant response, just what I had in my mind too 👍🏻