- Share This Post
- submit
- 8
-
Sparkle (0)
When I delivered my second child this past May, things didn't go exactly as I'd planned, which is usually how it goes, but still. I had totally intended to Twitter the whole thing. I had a brand new MotoRazr smartphone and everything. It was going to be awesome. But when the time came, it just wasn't possible. Man, was I bummed.
Turns out that when you have a precipitous labor - that's fancy doctor talk for holy freaking jeebus baby came SUPER FAST (dead-on ninety minutes from first contraction to baby busting out of the nethers) - there's just no time for Twittering. Which, again, sucks, because I really wanted to tweet the whole business. I actually had a moment while my husband sped down the highway, me in the passenger seat with a baby head pushing its way out between my legs, where I thought, oh, hey, this sucks, and also, I WILL NOT GET TO TWITTER THIS DAMMIT. Because, you know, the pain and terror were such that I could not have forced my fingers to tap out text on that smartphone if my very life depended on it. (Which, thankfully, it didn't: the husband was using Bluetooth to communicate with ambulances and the ER. This is why he is always in charge during emergencies: he knows to call ambulances and hospitals, whereas if I could have reached my phone I would have been Twittering: OH HAI EVERYBODY I AM HAVING BABY NOW. IN MY CAR. WHEEEEEE!)
Anyhoo. Such was my luck. Ginny, of GinnyCase.com, however, is Twittering her labor. Right now! As I type!
13 hours ago: Off to the hospital
8 hours ago: At 4 cm. Epidural is in. Doing well.
3 hours ago: doc says we are at 5 cm. Hopeful for regular delivery. Iolani is very active and they had to keep readjusting the monitor.
2 hours ago: Funny that I can use my iPhone during really strong contractions. Dodger game started and we don't get fox sports west.
See? IT'S GRIPPING.
But is it healthy? You know, psycho-emotionally or whatever? It occurred to me after I missed my own opportunity to live-Tweet my own labor and delivery that maybe my priorities were a bit skewed, that I had been jonesing to Twitter during a time when I might have otherwise been, oh I don't know, focussed on the miracle of life blah blah blah? Holding my husband's hand? Chomping ice cubes and taking care of myself? Knitting booties?
Has the Internet really so taken over my life that I couldn't imagine giving birth without inviting in all my Twitter peeps? Is that wrong?
Here's my take: first of all, if a labor is long and arduous (as my first was - 36 hours. I KNOW), having things to do to pass the time and distract oneself is a very, very good thing. First time 'round, my husband did Sudokos and napped while I praised the epidural gods but cursed whatever dillweed decided to not put televisions in the labor rooms at the hospital. Twitter would have been a blessed distraction - and I desperately wanted distractions lo those many hours. But that's just the selfish benefit: the real benefit of having the opportunity to Twitter (or, for that matter, blog) a birth - I think - is that it's just one more way in which we mothers continually lift the veil off of motherhood and childbirth and the like. We provide one more window onto our maternal experiences - good or bad - and so share the complex and wide-reaching realities of those experiences. I think that's a good thing.
But that's just me. What do you think? Twittering childbirth: a service to humankind and really cool distraction, or just more evidence that we're turning into Tweet-happy, blog-crazy, virtual-world dwelling cyborgs?
(Also, does anyone know anyone else who live-Twittered their labor and delivery? Because I think that it's just so cool. Am that much of a geek, yes. What of it?)
