Baby on the way.

[krisko]

My advice. Dont do it.

You will kick yourself for the rest of your life if there are any complications, the baby comes early (Very probable) you'll be wondering all the time and your head won't be in it.

You'll have plenty of time for more races down the line. Albeit sleep deprived, which will be great training for a 24hr

 

[0psi]

I faced this very predicament recently and got to attend both the birth and the race. Ideal. Instructions to the race director, should he get a call, were to let me know if she'd gone into labour and pull me out of the race only when contractions were closer than 7 minutes apart.

Do we also keep a jet on stand by for a quick trip interstate. I hear those new F-22's are pretty quick.

As for taking the missus to the race, well you won't be able to fly, so you'd have to drive and Murphys Law states that she will go into labour exactly 4hrs and 27mins from the nearest town. Please allow a 2% margin of error on this time as placement of hospital in said town is also taken into consideration.

 

[Hornsby]

As a father of two there is nothing more special and amazing than the birth of any child so ditch the ride and experience something truely fantastic.
No bike ride anywhere in the worldwide, even on the greatest bike in the world, is worth missing the birth of a child let alone the years of grief and reminders you will receive from your wife and your families.

BTW this should have been posted in the Girls only forum to get the "correct" view point

 

[harmonix1234]

There will always be more Babies.
This race will only happen once.
You don't want to miss it.
You will regret it for the rest of your life.
I had a 3 hour ride the night my son was born!

And I missed my childs birth for reasons that were outside my control.
How do you know there will always be more babies? You cannot know this families future.
And I don't really know if he would regret missing the race for 'the rest of his life'. He may be slightly disappointed for a short amount of time, but I reckon he'll get over it.
I guess I am most certainly biased because of my personal experience, or lack thereof so to speak.

 

[Norco Maniac]

There will always be more Babies.
This race will only happen once.

it doesn't always happen that way. my last try for a baby ended in three miscarriages and the end of my fertility.

there will, however, always be another race.

a friend of mine who just gave birth has a husband in the armed services - he watched the entire homebirth live via webcam. he was in Afganistan at the time. i never forgave my (now-ex)husband for deciding to teach away for six months of my twin pregnancy and i really think it soured our marriage irretrievably.

 

[steve24]

+1

She'll be chasing after children for the next 18+ years, might as well give her some practice chasing you through transition with a fresh bottle and a gel.

Enjoy being single while you can fellas and after a mega trip C D when you want a real life changing adventure have a baby or more.
When your time comes i think you might have changed your minds.....

 

[Matty_P]

Be there for the birth so you can understand that no race/ride will ever be as tough as childbirth.

That's my experience with what my wife went through delivering our two gorgeous sons....

 

[morrisan]

there will always be more babies.
This race will only happen once.
You don't want to miss it.
You will regret it for the rest of your life.
I had a 3 hour ride the night my son was born!

amen!!! Brother

 

[nzhumpy]

I have to agree with the majority here and say don't do it. It is something that you will come to regret.

I was in the same predicament as you with the Scott 24 being a few weeks away from my 1st due date. In the end I could have competed-albeit with a 1 week old- but I've already forgotten about missing the race and love having the wee tacker around, I'm not usually very emotional on the outside but I wept like a schoolgirl when he was born, it is something you will never forget and give you a new kind of respect for your partner.

Must go, to tired.

 

[fergo]

Dont do it!!!!!

Its like buying something really expensive - If you have to ask, you cant afford it.

While she may be late and the birth up to five weeks away, she will never forget that you left her when she was in need. Small side remarks will be heard everytime you talk about riding in front of your mates.

Stay home.

 

[Larabeemax]

Clearly some people commenting on this thread have had sarcasm detection gene removed at birth. Plenty of self-righteousness to compensate though.

 

[stu125]

I was faced with a similar decision but not a race just a 3 day social ride with the boys that we had been training for very hard.
I decided not to go on the ride just in case. Well nothing happened but 4 weeks later when my first child was born it turned into my greatest day ever.
May not seem like a huge thing to miss but you wait once you experiance it wow it is awesome.

Dont risk missing a birth for a ride

Stu

 

[Tacky Monster]

I'm a mum with two kids. I say is if the race was near to home go for it but interstate is too risky, you don't want to miss it! My husband says our kids births were the most amazing days of his life.

 

[Jackstack]

Be there for the birth so you can understand that no race/ride will ever be as tough as childbirth.

That's my experience with what my wife went through delivering our two gorgeous sons....

It's funny you should say that, because I do believe a recently crowned women's 24hr MTB solo world champ, made a comment after the race that, that race was harder than childbirth. I'm sure said Champion could confirm or deny this though.
In saying that I still wouldn't want to have to give birth, give me a 24hr solo anyday, thank god blokes can't have babies.
Smart move here is don't go to race and avoid the jedi mind games that would haunt you for eternity anytime this race happened to pop up in conversation when the mother of your child is around.

 

[Matty_P]

It's funny you should say that, because I do believe a recently crowned women's 24hr MTB solo world champ, made a comment after the race that, that race was harder than childbirth. I'm sure said Champion could confirm or deny this though.
In saying that I still wouldn't want to have to give birth, give me a 24hr solo anyday, thank god blokes can't have babies.
Smart move here is don't go to race and avoid the jedi mind games that would haunt you for eternity anytime this race happened to pop up in convdersation when the mother of your child is around.

Hence that's why I said 'my experience'. I can appreciate that any mum can provide their experience, I was commenting on mine as a Dad.

 

[Pebble]

Even if you're prepared for the fact that you could miss the birth and your partner doesn't mind, it's probably something you would regret down the track.
Hopefully your partner won't mind should you want to race next time it's on and she's stuck at home baby wrangling...or being dragged along for the trip Could be a good excuse for a holiday, albeit with baby stuff and bike stuff you might need extra extra extra baggage allowance!

I don't think it's wrong to go to the race, it depends on you and your partner, how you both feel about it. Either way you would be taking a risk, if it was me I'd tend to err on the side of caution on this one.

My first child my Husband was there. On the 2nd one he was working away (fifo) and already having one kid to look after, no family around I was praying that she wasn't going to try and pop out early. It helped that we had a caesar booked in for the week before the due date as she was the wrong way around and thankfully it all went to plan, otherwise he would have been on the first plane home but would have missed the birth!

And that's the other thing, you don't know if she might need an emergency caesar, if she does a least you can be there to bond with the baby when she's in recovery etc. I reckon my Daughter has a stronger bond with her Dad because of this, but then again it could be just a Daughter - Father thing anyway.

 

[Jackstack]

Hence that's why I said 'my experience'. I can appreciate that any mum can provide their experience, I was commenting on mine as a Dad.

Hence why i said " I still wouldn't want to have to give birth", and that would be from my experience.
I think we've all established that the OP should seriously consider not going to the race but I don't think we need to be getting too precious about some of the replies in this thread, that are obviously just a bit of harmless fun.
I've been there, done that, and got the three offspring as well, I'm sorry if I upset you but was only having a bit of fun.

 

[JorgenY22]

And that's the other thing, you don't know if she might need an emergency caesar, if she does a least you can be there to bond with the baby when she's in recovery etc.

Fantastic advice.

6 weeks ago on this day. Actually on this very minute (7:20pm) my baby boy was born by way of emergency c section after 42 hours of early+real labour that started Thursday night as we were going to bed. He was in the posterior position and quite big headed, so it was a case of a square peg and the round hole - he just wasn't going to come out normally.

There were no complications but whilst my wife was in recovery, I got to spend all that time with my baby. Here's the hot tip, take your shirt off and enjoy the skin to skin contact with your baby until mum comes out. This is something that can bring long term benefits to your baby especially.

It was a very special time, and in not long time at all his instincts were firing, as he was hunting actively for boob and I believe that this was instrumental in us not having any issues at all with the breast feeding which could otherwise have presented. He was straight on to his mum's boob once the real thing presented itself, and has been very strong since then. Even though the birth didn't go to plan, the feeding is just as important in the weeks following and that's a massive relief for us right there.

I would not miss being there during the birthing time for the world. I would never be able to get that time back - it is a fantastic experience of bonding between mother, father and baby.

Good luck, you're in for something very special!

 

[Tacky Monster]

It's funny you should say that, because I do believe a recently crowned women's 24hr MTB solo world champ, made a comment after the race that, that race was harder than childbirth. I'm sure said Champion could confirm or deny this though.

I recently thought about doing a 24 hour race, having done an 8 hour in the past and lots of 3 hours. It can't be worse than child birth I thought. Then I had a think about my child birth experiences and realised how lucky I was they didn't last for long. 1st one I let my husband sleep through the night expecting it to be a long labour, only to arrive at the hospital 10cm dilated with the midwives in shock as I didn't look that advanced, it ended up being 5 hours of true labour despite the bub being posterior. 2nd bub I was induced and OMG that was intense but again pretty quick, 3 hours max. I remember thinking I am so glad I will never do this again. I reckon a 24 hour race would probably be worse than my experiences but if I had a long labour, I don't think it would beat it.

 

[Jackstack]

I recently thought about doing a 24 hour race, having done an 8 hour in the past and lots of 3 hours. It can't be worse than child birth I thought. Then I had a think about my child birth experiences and realised how lucky I was they didn't last for long. 1st one I let my husband sleep through the night expecting it to be a long labour, only to arrive at the hospital 10cm dilated with the midwives in shock as I didn't look that advanced, it ended up being 5 hours of true labour despite the bub being posterior. 2nd bub I was induced and OMG that was intense but again pretty quick, 3 hours max. I remember thinking I am so glad I will never do this again. I reckon a 24 hour race would probably be worse than my experiences but if I had a long labour, I don't think it would beat it.

I still reckon as a general rule of thumb, childbirth would be worse. There isn't any joy till it's over with childbirth, but a with 24 solo there is usually lots of fun bits interspersed with the pain bits.