Going "Live" Online - The Facebook Reveal

Perhaps other people today find nothing strange about sharing something so intimate and personal as the expected arrival of your first child via its current fruit size in the highly impersonal and decentralized space of "online" - but Jon and I actively postponed the sharing of Baby Davis online and on social networking sites like Facebook in particular. Part of our resistance to share in the online forum was born of a desire to share directly and personally the news of our baby's pending arrival. Given distance and the rush of our normal lives, this took a very long time: from the marathon calls to very close friends and family at the 10 week mark, to a second round of calls in the early second trimester, to the final detail work and ultimately e-mail announcements as the pregnancy became more and more of a reality.

In contrast, our mothers - or the soon-to-be-grandmothers - of Baby Davis were incredibly eager to share the news on Facebook and threatened to mutiny (lovingly and jokingly) at the 20 week mark. At a certain point, your pregnancy magically crosses the barrier from private to public. For me that shift happened at the 19 week mark - when my first "stranger" asked me if I was expecting. And at that point - the secret, private, personal pregnancy is over; the public face of your pregnancy begins - complete with the freely offered opinions and advice on what a pregnant woman ought to be doing ("you shouldn't be out in this weather") or not doing ("you can't eat that") or comments about your overall appearance ("gosh you look small, are you gaining enough weight?" or the alternative "gosh you look huge!").

Might as well take the good with the good-intentioned by welcoming the well-wishes of your friends (and your friends friends, and...).

And so at "negative" 16 weeks - we announced the expected arrival of Adaline.

From the album:Mobile Uploads

By Jon Davis

Meet Adaline! She is -16 weeks old! Oh and by the way, we are having a baby!!!!