I Blogged Through Birth

Our author is hooked up
and plugged in.

Like most things in my life, I approached the subject of childbirth with nonchalance. I could have taken childbirth classes, but I preferred to lie on the couch, dunking Oreos into a tall glass of milk. Sure, I flipped through the "Labor and Delivery" chapter of What to Expect When You're Expecting during that final month of never-ending insomnia, but I didn't actually expect for a baby to emerge from down there. I just assumed that I had watched enough episodes of "A Baby Story" to figure out what to do when the time came.

The time came on July 11, when, just shy of 41 weeks, I entered the hospital for an induction. That night, I pulled up my weblog and announced that "if all goes to plan, Blog Thru Birth 2004 will start either tonight or tomorrow." The premise of "Blog Thru Birth" was self-explanatory: I would use my weblog, The Sarcastic Journalist, to give updates on my labor as it happened.

The original plan was to write on a private blog for the birth of my first child as a way to keep family updated. My husband and I lived in Houston, but the rest of our family lived elsewhere. Since I didn't want an entourage of family at the hospital, I offered to write the details on the 'net for them to read. Somewhere in the process, I decided to also relay this information on my public weblog, which I had since early 2003.

We arrived at the hospital at 7 p.m., my laptop in tow.