My Phone and I, We Go Way Back

I was pregnant with our third son in October of 2009. Like, really really pregnant. The kind of pregnant where strangers holler at you from across parking lots, "OHMAHGAHD look how big your belly is! What do you have in there, triplets?!?!". I didn't mind, though, because, in addition to being large and sweaty and beluga-y, I was thrilled to be pregnant.

The year before, I had two miscarriages. They ripped me apart and left me broken, bleak, empty. People told me I would feel better when I finally got pregnant again and they were right; that little fellow in my belly was helping to fill the empty places the other babies left behind.

Because I was all blissed out about being pregnant again and because of a genetic (not my fault!) propensity toward oversharing and because I had an iPhone, I facebooked that pregnancy like no pregnancy had been facebooked before. There were happy "we just felt the first kick!" posts, there were innumerable photos of the belly, both cute and hideous, there was a lot of complaining. There was even one about nipples.

And then? Then, four days before my due date, my phone died. It just. Stopped. Working. And worse yet, the Fresno Apple store was being remodeled, so I couldn't just walk in and get a new phone. On a land line, I called my husband and yelled, "I CANNOT HAVE THIS BABY WITHOUT A PHONE!". He guffawed, but I wasn't messing around; in my puffy, milkshake-addled state, I truly could not imagine going into labor and not being able to text all my friends, to post that first newborn photograph, to share it, all of it.

(This, by the by, is when I realized it: I could not live without my phone. In the few months that I'd had an iPhone, I had forgotten all my old ways of staying connected with my people. The phone gave me all sorts of new ways and I LIKED THEM.)

So, in a burst of genius that can only be attributed to being flooded with all of the hormones, I called my sister-in-law in Sacramento (that's three hours away, mind you) and convinced her that waiting hours in her Apple store for my new phone, then waiting another 40 minutes or so to overnight it to me was a supergreat plan. She executed the plan flawlessly and the next afternoon, I had a phone. I was complete again.

Two days later, my water broke. I sent texts to all my friends on the way to the hospital. I called my mom and my cousin, who have been by my side as each of our boys came into the world. My husband took gorgeous photos of the baby and me minutes after he was born and minutes later, I shared them on Facebook.

People say that smart phones pull us apart, take away our connectedness, but there are times when the opposite happens. Before my handy dandy little phone came along, there would have been a few phone calls to the hospital, a few visitors offering congratulations and love. Instead, everyone I love all over the country was (almost) right there with me, cheering me on, sending the good juju, and sharing in my joy. So yeah, I'm the lady with her phone always in her hand. I'm the lady who facebooked her labor. I'm the lady who wouldn't have it any other way.