How to time a trip?

JoyfulJuly · April 2014

I understand that this situation may not be similar to some of the situations that your families may have had. However, this is something which has been heavily weighing on me whenever it crosses my mind. For those of you who were matched with out-of-state parents prior to the birth of the baby, how the heck did you decide when to travel?

My husband and I are matched with someone in another state and we will definitely be driving, however, it is a long trip so we can't just wait for a call that she is in labor and hop in the car. Although I will have our things packed to jump at a moments notice, we really want to be there when she has the baby and she wants us in the delivery room with her, also.

I know we should plan on being there before her EDD but I am struggling with how far in advance. My job is not an issue but my husband has very limited paid time off and will already be using FMLA to be there for the most part. I should add that assuming the baby is healthy and discharged right away and that there are no unforeseen legal complications, we will need to stay in that state for nearly three weeks so he is already taking quite a bit of unpaid time off which makes me nervous because financially we need to stay on top of things with all of the money we have laid out and will continue to over the next few months.

Any advice on when to arrive?

[Deleted User] · April 2014

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JoyfulJuly · April 2014

marshmallowevening said:

If you really want to try to be there for the birth and it is a long trip, I'd reconsider flying. Births can be random, so it could happen before or after the due date, and the labor process could be brief or several days. Flying is often more expensive, but if you're not paying for unnecessary accommodations ahead of time, that may make up for the difference.

Flying is actually cheaper but with the amount of "stuff" we are bringing AND needing to rent a car for 3-4 weeks, it would be silly. Plus, we are dropping our dog off at my mom's house on the way. It's a 16 hour drive for us.

JoyfulJuly · April 2014

Thank you everyone for the responses! I really appreciate it.

This is our birth mother's 6th pregnancy and 4th baby. She went in to labor 39 wks with her 1st, 40 wks on her EDD with her 2nd and 38 wks with her 3rd. To complicate things, there has been a bit of inconsistency with dating the pregnancy so we aren't really sure if her EDD is around 7/21 or 7/31. Our agency mentioned that we could possible schedule an induction but I'm not sure that she would go for that and I've heard stories of strong arming into c-sections which I would never do because it's surgery with a serious recovery. I'm also aware that this baby may come quickly because it's her 4th child.

With traveling separately, there is a possibility that I could drive out early, stop at my mom's to drop the dog and then my husband could fly to meet us at a moment's notice. We have a lot of airline miles so it shouldn't even be a big issue but I need to locate the nearest airport and such. We don't mind that he will be staying afterwards and not working or being paid but there's a limit to how long that can go on before he needs to go back to work so if there are complications (medical or legal) he may need to fly back anyway.

JoyfulJuly · April 2014

fredalina said:

Do you have the option of traveling separately? Your H could return home and go back to work before you even. Depending on the size of the state, you can stay near the border making it closer for him to travel. (For example, say you live in Little Rock and emom is in Knoxville. That would be a 10 hour drive probably, or close. But if you stayed in Memphis after TPR but before ICPC, it would be a 2.5 hour drive. Much more convenient for your H to return to work.

It's such a long drive that it isn't commutable to begin with. Recently I realized after the fact that the Extended Stay America with whom I spoke about staying there is actually across the border to another state even though it's about 8 miles from the hospital. She is on the state line to begin with. I hadn't considered changing hotels for after TPR but maybe we will. I have to check with the attorney again, I think he gave us a time frame for that.

spotco2 · April 2014

Luckily ours was out of state but still 6 hours away. We had planned on a scheduled induction, but she went into labor early so we grabbed random items and jumped in the car. We left around 5:30, he was born at 7:52 and we arrived at 1:26.

That was on a Thursday night and we signed the papers on Saturday morning. We had to stay in NICU for just over 2 weeks and luckily that was enough time for the ICPC to go through. Once we were discharged, we packed up the hotel and headed for home.

I'm not sure that you can stay in a hotel in another state (even that close) legally until the ICPC is done. I would look for somewhere else just to make sure.

I don't see why you couldn't drive out early with your husbands bags and just let him air commute with a carry on back and forth and just take a cab or rent a car to meet you if it's very far or you could just pick him up at the airport and drop him off.

We had already discussed me flying back and forth due to work if the ICPC took longer. We also discussed renting a second car for a few days while we were there but staying 20 miles from the hospital. Luckily we were able to move into a hotel that was next door to the hospital after the first week.

JoyfulJuly · April 2014

Thank you for your response. I should have been clear that I've already scrapped the extended stay that we were going to be at because I realized it was over the state line.

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