Missed this one over the holidays:
The [Wisconsin] State Journal will stop publishing birth announcements later this week because Madison’s two birthing hospitals will no longer provide the information to the newspaper.
The end of the traditional keepsake for parents and notice to the community stems from a growing concern about infant abductions, hospital officials say.
Birth listings “set people up as targets for somebody who might want to steal a baby,” said Kathy Kostrivas, Meriter Hospital’s assistant vice president for women’s health services.
Birth announcements still go in the paper? I MIGHT put one in my old hometown paper like I did a wedding announcement, but most of the people I know in town are on Facebook now and the ones who aren’t I didn’t talk to all that much anyway so who gives a shit?
Speaking of birth announcements, we’re about two weeks out here, and there are some administrative things involved with the site happening. I’ll be gone for a bit, probably, but this isn’t going to be a nonstop mommyblog when I come back. The ferrets are pissed enough about the attention being diverted from them, and it’s not like Republicans are going to stop being idiots.
Little Kick is a planned c-section, a result of all the surgeries I’ve had over the years, so no live-blogging the delivery, either. Assuming I’m not anesthetized, I’m going to be somewhat … occupied at the time. We will, however, post the news when she’s born on Jan. 25, and a picture once she’s all cleaned up and cute and ready to meet the Internet.
And we very, very, very much appreciate the warmth and love and support you’ve all given us since we let the news slip. You’ve all been there for most of the distance we’ve traveled to get here, and that has pretty much kept me from losing my mind.
Mr. A and I have had many, many conversations over the past 8 months about when and how to tell people, and who to tell about what. We’ve both gone back and forth on the privacy concerns involved with putting your kid on the Internet to whatever degree, not because we’re afraid of an abduction (absurd) but because she’ll be a person in her own right, and she deserves some say in how much of herself she really wants out there.
Before she can make that or any other decision, we’ll have to make it, and erring on the side of caution just means there will be more material for her to discuss with her therapist later. Besides, if there had been an Internet when I was a kid I’d still be grounded, and while I hope she avoids most of my mistakes, I want to preserve her opportunities to repeat the really fun ones at least once.
A.