Yesterday my brother, Kurt, and his wife, Melissa, gave birth to a beautify baby girl, Kaylee Marie Steinbrueck – their first. (No, that’s not her in the pic)
While I wasn’t in the delivery room or even at the hospital, I kinda felt like I was and so did their 213 Facebook friends as Kurt and Melissa posted updates to Facebook throughout the day as the labor progressed.
I would love to post screen shots of Kurt and Melissa’s updates and all of their friends comments on them. If they were my updates I probably would. But since they’re not for privacy reasons I won’t. I hope some summaries will be adequate to give you a sense of what it was like..
The updates started at 6:31am with “We’re off to the hospital” and continued every hour or two…
11:59am “Santa Claus is about to come and give Melissa the gift of no pain.”
Throughout the day each update was met with a handful of replies of prayers, encouragement, and best wishes.
At 7:30pm Kurt posted that after hours of pushing Kaylee was not turning and they were going to have to do a c-section. 18 people responded with thoughts and prayers.
There was a long silence after that. I’m guessing they probably don’t allow laptops in the operating room. Kurt and Melissa were a bit preoccupied at the time too.
I got a call from my dad late in the evening. He was there at the hospital. Kaylee had joined this world. Everyone was ok. What a relief!
I was so excited and was going to post an update to my own Facebook profile or post a congrats note on Kurt’s wall before I went to bed. But then I figured I didn’t want to steal Kurt’s thunder. I wanted to allow him the privaledge of making the announcement.
That announcement came at 2:11am, followed shortly by 3 pics of my new born niece.
I counted 14 updates over the course of 20 hours. And dozens of comments – too many to count – from friends and family.
It’s moments like this that cause me to marvel at the way technology can enhance relationships and bring us closer.
Got any stories of how technology has impacted your relationships?
Paul,
We enjoyed sharing the day with our friends and family. It was also great to know that throughout the day our “friends” were praying for us, with specific prayers for the various situation. I am a strong believer in the power of prayer, so this was a great thing to me. I also really appreciated not having to call 218 people after Kaylee was born to let everyong know ;).