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Fish Boy
Trad climber
Vancouver
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Topic Author's Reply - May 21, 2012 - 08:55pm PT
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I'm looking forward to being interrupted, and my wife needs her sanity. Managing risk is the key, and top roping short 5.5's seems tame, we aint doing A5 on El Cap.
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sudarkoff
Trad climber
Sunnyvale, CA
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May 21, 2012 - 09:13pm PT
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My wife climbed the day before my son was born with her OBGYN's blessing. Don't be stupid, use caution, don't do anything your body's not used to and have fun!
My wife used a full body harness from Petzl. I added a few stitches here and there to prevent various parts from sliding around. It's not the mosts comfortable arrangement, but it works for toproping.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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May 21, 2012 - 09:34pm PT
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Hey Fishboy, I have no kids or experience with pregnancy but common sense tells me the obvious thing to do in this situation would be for her to acquire the full body harness, quit climbing, & focus more on belaying you, It will build much character & patience in both your wife & unborn child. Marathon belay sessions will help her to deal with & prepare for the stresses & challenges of parenthood. Not to mention giving you a chance to crush a bunch of meaningless, inanimate projects before your climbing life screeches to a temporary halt & the real project begins. Congrats & Best of luck :-)
Of course you'll owe her some serious rope gunning once the baby's out & she's back in action!!
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rosiemaple
climber
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May 21, 2012 - 09:39pm PT
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I switched to a full body harness (petzl) when my regular harness became uncomfortable and enjoyed climbing in it until the day before my kid was born. Climbing can be a very safe activity when done properly.
We had a great birth experience and an exceeding healthy baby, and I think staying fit and active was important for that. Furthermore, continuing to do the things that you love, and learning adapt them to a new lifestyle while pregnant is great preparation for having a kid and sharing fun activities with them.
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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May 21, 2012 - 11:50pm PT
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Your lovely lady can and should decide what is right for her, taking qualified opinion into account.
Pregnancy does not equal disability. Some pregnancies will have problems. Most will not. Listen to her body.
Every woman's body is different. My only pregnancy with any issues was the one when I was not active, merely in college. My blood pressure skyrocketed. Child was OK, normal despite my tiny weight gain. Probably stress and age related.
My second pregnancy, I ran up to the day I delivered. My doctor was wonderful. There was no data on exercise and pregnancy then. He discussed the warning signals with me and gave the tools to manage the situation myself. Absolutely no issues, and a healthy baby. I set PRs up to my 7th month of pregnancy before I slowed down. Race directors tried to keep me out of their races, and people looked at me with great concern.
My third pregnancy came ten years later. I climbed, skied and ran up to the day I delivered. Climbing stopped at 7 1/2 months because it was ski season and indoor gyms did not exist. I am a coward, so well protected leads and top roping is always my modus operandi. Truthfully the skiing was much harder on me as I was teaching children. Try getting out of the beginners chair carrying 25 extra pounds on your middle and 50 pounds of child on your left and 50 pounds of child on your right. Child 3 was a healthy 8 pounds. I didn't need a full body harness at the time that I stopped as the seasons changed to frigid New England winter by the time I got that big. I would have continued climbing and rigged a chest harness if the weather was warm and dry weather.
People mean well. But it is her mental and physical health. It does drive me crazy to see guilt inflicted on women.
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rockgirl
Sport climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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May 22, 2012 - 10:18am PT
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I climbed through both my pregnancies and used the Petzel full body harness both times. It's comfortable enough. I climbed The Chief when I was 2 months pregnant and swapped leads and even took a fall- no problems. I stopped leading around 2.5 months. Switched to full body harness at 5 months. Stopped lead belaying around 6.5 months. Sent a 12a on top rope at 8 months pregnant (http://mamaclimbs.com/8-month-pregnant-5-12a-preggo-point/); and climbed until 37 weeks. I was planning on going out on my due date, but I went into labor instead ;)
The day I went into labor, I took the dog for a walk and shoveled snow.
I was also featured on Good Morning America for climbing while pregnant and I'm surprised some of the comments here actually are similar to those of non-climbers. Hopefully, they are just trolls.
http://mamaclimbs.com/15-minutes-well-4-counting/
Comparison of "taking it easy" pregnancy vs "climbing as hard as felt good" pregnancy: http://mamaclimbs.com/staying-active-pregnant-results-post/
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 22, 2012 - 10:02pm PT
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One of the stupidest things I have ever seen was a visibly pregnant woman rideing in a hunter jumper show. As the show photographer I see all kinds of weird and ocasionaly scary stuff but this was right up there. She got loose in the saddle and hit the saddle hard as it was coming up hard while shen was comming down, got thrown and went into premature labor right there in the dirt. Most likly pretty hard to process that over the years. I often never know what really happens @ those events once the meat wagon takes em away. Sometimes you hear rumors and sometimes not.. I don't recall what the final outcome of that one was but it sure as hell looked sketchy when it went down...
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Fish Boy
Trad climber
Vancouver
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 14, 2012 - 09:12pm PT
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He popped out a few days ago, on my birthday actually! Farley Cadel de Kam is Squamish's newest climber/biker/skier to be!
My wife rode her bike 16km's to her last midwife appointment, got home and her waters broke...then it began. That was many of the funky things she did, including walking out to Garibaldi Lakes a month ago....they are both very healthy!
-peace-
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 14, 2012 - 09:42pm PT
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Way to go fishboy! 16k bike ride to breaking water, there's a story!
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Oct 14, 2012 - 09:46pm PT
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Any kind of roped climbing has a potential of pretty sharp trauma. Why not just go for walk-ups for a while? It won't be all that long. Time flies.
Cindy (my wife), with the approval of good ol' doc Sturm in Yosemite, climbed Mt. Dana at 8 months. As we went up, I wondered what it would be like to pick-a-back her down if something went wrong. Tried it.
She might have survived, but I wouldn't. But she went up and down and everything came out all right.
We loved Doc Sturm. He used to say when confronted with a sleepless baby, "A teaspoon of whisky for the baby, two tablespoons for mom." We didn't find out until later that he was kidding.
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Wen
Trad climber
Bend, OR
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Oct 14, 2012 - 10:40pm PT
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Congrats Fish Boy, the next phase will feel amazing and hard and tiring and rewarding all at the same time.
Like some of the others, I climbed and randonee skied until 8 months with my first baby. My good friend who was preggo at the same time skied until 6 mo and went into early labor. Our pregnancies were similar until that point, we worked out together until she went into labor. All I can figure is it happens to some women, not to others.
I climbed and mountain biked until 7 mo with my second, and again no problems.
To all the preggo moms wondering about this stuff, I think it's a very personal decision, and no one else can tell you what to do. My OB gave me good advice...listen to your instincts and make the decisions that feel right for you.
It's the same with parenting actually. There's no cookbook, just your instincts combined with the opinions of others.
My $.02.
Wendy Laakmann, mom of two amazing children who love the outdoors
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Oct 14, 2012 - 10:53pm PT
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Congratulations!!! She sound like a great life partner, and she'll be a great mom, too. I was on the side of an active pregnancy if she feels well. Now you'll get different advice -- she can take two weeks of doing nothing but bond with baby and heal. I didn't after my first and felt tired for weeks. I did nothing for two weeks with baby 2 and 3, then jumped into all my activities again and felt fabulous. Life will never be the same again for wither of you, but it will be a new adventure. Enjoy!
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Oct 14, 2012 - 11:31pm PT
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any surprise that this thread is full of anecdotes? why even ask the question
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Fish Boy
Trad climber
Vancouver
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 14, 2012 - 11:40pm PT
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Anecdotes is what I was looking for. Thankfully here in Canada we have a great healthcare system which answered our questions.
I assume you haven't read the thread, just the first post or two. Why would you bother to post here, ya w@nker!
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