I know… I know…. it’s been a while since my last post. Once again, one of those life events got in the way, but this time I’m very happy to report that it’s the kind of life disruption that we should all be blessed to have.

Now before I go on, I should preface this entry by emphasizing that neither my wife and I are what one might describe as a digi-geek. I mean, we’re Apple fans and enjoy neat products, but it’s not like we relish the opportunity to employ the use of some kind of gizmo for any reason anywhere just because we can… I’m a marketing guy and she’s a hair stylist, so there’s a good deal of right brain stuff going on.

So… here’s the story:

digitalChloe – Part I

At about 2:30am on May 20th, my wife woke me up with the words “Babe, somethings happening!” She was, of course, referring to the fact that Baby Ferreira, by then five days overdue, was starting to stir in a way that makes parents-to-be both elated and s*!# scared!

So…I sat up in bed, and, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, asked my wife how intense and far apart her contractions were. I was really excited about meeting my baby girl, but have to be honest and tell you that I was kinda hoping they were mild and hours apart :/ Can’t remember exactly what my wife’s response was, but I know it was loud and it was clear there would be no more sleeping.

And so began the clock watching….I wasn’t through the first cycle of contraction-timing when I realized that this was going to be a pain. I mean, you have to watch the clock, note the start time, the duration, then measure the periods between, write this all down, keep a constant eye on it….. and all this at 3am while my wife is crying in agony and I’m still half asleep! So I did what any other loving, smart husband would do in that situation. I fired up my iPhone.

Thirty seconds after opening the App Store I had purchased (for the reasonable sum of only $0.99!) a simple, but powerful app called “Contractions”, and by the time the next contraction rolled around all we had to do was touch the screen: once at the start of the contraction, and and once when it was over. My new best friend in the form of a neat little iPhone app then did all the work:

5/20/09 3:34 AM – Duration: 1:17 – Interval: 0:33
5/20/09 3:34 AM – Duration: 0:12 – Interval: 3:26
5/20/09 3:30 AM – Duration: 1:17 – Interval: 3:22
5/20/09 3:27 AM – Duration: 0:53 – Interval: 2:17
5/20/09 3:25 AM – Duration: 0:36 – Interval: 1:48
5/20/09 3:23 AM – Duration: 0:30 – Interval: 2:37
5/20/09 3:20 AM – Duration: 1:29 – Interval: 2:13
5/20/09 3:18 AM – Duration: 0:58 – Interval: 5:39
5/20/09 3:12 AM – Duration: 0:38 – Interval: 2:19
5/20/09 3:10 AM – Duration: 0:37 – Interval: 7:52
5/20/09 3:02 AM – Duration: 1:03 – Interval: 2:31
5/20/09 3:00 AM – Duration: 0:11 – Interval: 2:21
5/20/09 2:57 AM – Duration: 0:17 – Interval: 2:40
5/20/09 2:55 AM – Duration: 0:42 – Interval: 6:43
5/20/09 2:48 AM – Duration: 0:26 – Interval: 3:20
5/20/09 2:45 AM – Duration: 0:25 – Interval: -

Chloe Daniela Ferreira was born at 6:37am on May20th, 2009, and what you see here is the actual contraction history – or as my wife refers to it, the “pain log” – leading up to DigitalChloe’s birth, and that I was able to very easily email to myself! How’s that for social going mobile?

As you can tell from the log, by the time we left for the hospital, which just happens to be 5 min from our front door, the contractions were coming thick and fast. I cannot overemphasize just how tremendously helpful having this app was to us. In a strange way, it was also very comforting in the way that it was one less thing we had to worry about.  Instead of constantly asking ourselves “is it time?”, and rushing out of the door as we nervously tried to time the contractions, we were able to focus on getting through the contractions themselves, confident in the fact that the data would objectively tell us when to go to the hospital.

I’m happy to tell you that the next three hours involved very little use of technology. Rather, it was charactised primarily by amazing strength of character and bravery on the part of my very courageous wife . This was followed by some rather tender and beautiful moments as we held baby Chloe and all fell in love all over again. ‘Nuff said.

<fast forward to the point where we start calling people and Doctors, Nurses and Pediatricians are all coming in and out of the room>…

digitalChloe – Part II

So it’s post-delivery, we’re exhausted and trying our best to take in everything Doctor Mike is telling us to do/not do. As he’s explaining things us, polite Doctor that he is, he pauses to look at and greet my folks. They exchange some pleasantries, he congratulates them, tells them how beautiful their new granddaughter is and so on, and then goes right back into some parental instruction while the folks are listening in intently. Pretty normal post-delivery scene right? Except that my parents are in actually about 9,974 miles away in my home town of Ballito, in beautiful South Africa! Aah… the miracles of Skype.  The irony here: my in-laws, who live 2 miles from the hospital, were still on their way!

digitalChloe – Part III

Okay, so first of the major parenting challenges behind us, we very hppy to be discharged from the hospital the next morning so that we could go home and start the next chapter. Being the concientious parents we are, we were committed to doing as instructed by the Pediatrician and taking careful note of when Chloe slept, poop’d, pee’d and ate. And, having learned the value of leaning on those who are smarter when faced with parenting tasks in raising our 3 yr old son, we once again consulted The Oracle… I mean App Store:

With its simple, one-touch interface sharing functionality, B-logger now helps us to accurately record, monitor and share exactly when each of the major life events of a newborn – i.e. sleep, poop, pee and eat – take place. With very little effort, we’re able to arm ourselves and Chloe’s Doctor with accurate information about how many times she’s feeding in a day, for how long, how much she’s taking in, how many bowel movements she had, and so on an so forth. I can even tell you, in hard numbers, just how much she prefers Mommy’s left breast to her right! Very cool… crazy, but very cool! And helpful, very helpful.

digitalChloe – Part IV

Of course there was also the expected emailing and posting of pictures to Facebook for distant friends and family, but that’s so DigitalBaby 1.0. and our Chloe is more of a web3.0 kinda gal. ;p

digitalChloe – Part V

This may be the best chapter yet, and here’s why: it’s still being written… by you…. and DigitalChloe*… on Twitter. Check her out – she’s really cute )

*Smart girl though she is, we don’t allow baby C on the web yet, so she tells Mommy C what to tweet on her behalf.

Now, I’m sure that this entry will get a mixed reaction as to whether our experience was actually enriched or diluted by the presence of technology. To the Luddites among us, let me just say this:

I started this off by emphasizing the idea that both my wife and I are creative types, as opposed to techies. I’ll add to that by saying that the real ephiphany for me came when I realized that it wasn’t because we sat down and said, “Okay, how can we integrate social media and mobile apps into our birthing experience”. It just happened… and it made sense… and it was really helpful. Perhaps, as one of the execs at our recent iBreakfastLA said, the phone really has become our “remote control for life”. And I like it!

- Devon a.k.a. The Proudest Daddy in the World”