Guy live-Twitter’s wife’s childbirth, lives to tell about it

By Steve Safran 

Rex points us to what has to be a first an interesting event in Twitter-land. Twitter user taulpaul (real name Paul Saarinen) live-Twittered his wife, Annemarie, giving birth. Cool idea – breaking news for your friends who are dying to know the latest. But you’d have to think Paul’s wife would (rightly) have said at least occasionally “put down the damn Blackberry, I’m giving birth here!” After the breaking news text, Paul posted pics on Flickr (detail, right). Back on July 16, they had a false alarm, which he also Twittered. (Update: Paul also streamed live from the birthing room. We now love his wife.) Still, apparently, Annemarie hasn’t killed Paul, which any judge would have probably allowed. And we welcome baby Elle Marie Saarinen (7 lbs, 21 inches) to the world. Elle – Dad’s gonna be a bit of a gadget freak, but don’t let that worry you.

Adds taulpaul: The real challenge was keeping the ustream.tv video feed from crashing. I suspect the hospital never intended the wifi to be used for lifecasting* births. Elle and Annamarie are doing well. Now I have to go home today and start the process of bluetoothing the baby’s room.

*Adds me: I don’t know if taulpaul meant to coin the word “lifecasting” or if it’s a function of the “f” being directly above the “v” on the keyboard, but I love the word in this context.

Advertisement

Update: OK, I concede to the commenters – this wasn’t the first Twittered birth. I remain impressed. By his wife, that is.

Advertisement