Keturah is about to deliver any week now, preferably in about 15 minutes from right now. But no later than August 4. More than one person has explained that going through the process of pregnancy and childbirth is never the same twice and certainly not like the first child you have. Just the other day I was talking with my neighbor (a mother of 3) about how Jude will be born soon, and we haven’t even painted his nursery or done all the other things you do BEFORE you have a baby. Like buy diapers. Her comment, “Yeah, that second one sorta sneaks up on you.” Ain’t that the truth.
A significant difference the second time around is what we are planning to do to communicate our child’s birth announcement. The first time around, we prepared in advance by going thru our Outlook address books and copying emails of friends and family into a excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet was then converted into a comma delineated email draft that I had ready on my laptop. When the day came, and our child was delivered, I would ultimately find my way to my laptop, add the necessary details (like if it was a boy or a girl), and send it out for all to see.
While there is still some time left, it would appear that none of that is going to happen this time around. That was back in 2006. And things have changed since then.
First, when we had our first child we didn’t find out the sex of the child until the actual the birth. So many of our friends were eager to know if we were having a Mason or a Simone (our pre-determined boy and girl names). This time around, we already know that we are having a son and everyone knows we are planning to name him Jude.
Second, our tools have changed. Quite bluntly email is not the most efficient mechanism for us to inform that Jude has been born, has ten fingers, ten toes, and weighs _______ . In fact, I’ve recently tested the effectiveness of email vs. normal postal mail by sending a simultaneously emailing someone a document and dropping it into a post office box on the same day. I’m curious to know what the better medium (email or snail mail) is for ensuring someone will read a 5 page document. But I digress (and will cover the results of this test in a future post).
But the major difference is the tools that we have at our disposal to broadcast our messages. Yes, in 2005 we had Flickr and this blog, but we have now augmented that with web tools like Facebook and Twitter. And the ability to use these tools via our cell phones has improved greatly well. One of the true beauties of Twitter is that utilizing your cell phone you can target the folks that are following you, but what you tweet is published to your public Twitter page as well.
So if you want to know right away, you should be following me on Twitter. My plan is to provide updates throughout the process. As much as possible. And quite honestly, my role in this is almost inconsequential to what Keturah has to go through. And when Jude is finally born, I’ll probably call my parents, then my grandmother, then Tweet the details.
Keturah and I both on Facebook, so it won’t be long before we post some items there as well. Pics from my cell phone will be sent to Flickr and simultaneously to this blog. And yeah, eventually we’ll get around to sending some emails around, but doubt that a conscious effort to let everyone know will occur right away. In fact, it may be a few days. Even a week. That’s the interesting state about email these days. Its just not that efficient, anymore.