A Tale of Two Deliveries

My wife made me write this. I’m glad she did.

T-minus three weeks to due date with baby #1. I had just asked Wilson what was going on in there.

In labor, knowing is half the battle — or so says the dad who doesn’t understand the first thing about growing and birthing a child.

Maybe knowing is the whole Megillah for papas because we can’t feel or intuit anything during pregnancy. All we can rely on is what laboring moms tell us (which I personally have a tendency to severely overreact to or moronically question) and increasingly, what real-time data tell us.

Over the past two and a half years my wife Molly has given birth to our two daughters. The first and second pregnancies were vastly different experiences for me as a bystander-come-father because of the information at my disposal, and lack thereof. Starting with the latter:

Pregnancy One / 2nd + 3rd Trimesters

I pretty much stared at her belly and asked her how she was doing every few minutes. The frequency of my questions increased as she entered the third trimester and cruised past her due date. I would furrow my brow and say “I don’t know, what do you think?” every time she uttered one of the following statements:

“Was that a contraction?”

“Ehhh, I’m feeling tight…”

(Deep sigh)

When she went into labor, we were flying rather blind — I was most of all. Turns out it was all guesswork — timing, intensity, when to make the jump to the hospital — irrespective of what we “learned” in the birthing class.

Pregnancy Two / 2nd + 3rd Trimesters

The game changed this time around. Molly had been working at Bloom Life for six months when we got pregnant again. They had a product — this sensor that slots into a small patch that Molly could attach to her belly. It measured uterine contractions — the actual electrical activity of the muscle — and craft a data-rich picture of what was objectively happening in there, transmitted in real-time to a handy app.

It also gave me new answers to each of those statements and questions:

Molly: “Was that a contraction?”
Gabe: “Check the app.”

Molly: “Ehhh, I’m feeling tight.”
Gabe: “Is the sensor on? No?! Get that thing on right now and check the app!”

Molly: (Deep sigh)
Gabe: (Already checking app)

The first time around, I simply didn’t know what to believe — what was real, what wasn’t, and the timing of it all. The second time my wife’s incontrovertible data was there for me and Molly, and it changed the experience entirely. We were both more informed, and made better decisions as a result.

(For a little perspective, and Molly’s version of the events that unfolded, check it out here.)

The raw data from Molly’s second pregnancy. You can guess when we knew she was in labor for realz. (Note: A more easily digestible version was delivered to us in real time on the app.)

So this post is timed with Father’s Day, obviously (or perhaps not-so-obvious? It’s just over a week away, FYI).

Molly asked me to write it about whatever I wanted to, but c’mon — she expected a gushing account of her stellar company and their first product. I tried to explain that Father’s Day is for me — this guy — even though neither of us are fans of Hallmark Holidays (excepting Father’s Day, of course). She ignored me. I still love her.

Biases noted, I was elated that Molly used this device. More importantly and likely the subject of another post altogether,

I love that my wife is an early employee at a tech company that is solving critical, unaddressed needs (i.e. maximizing maternal health) with surprisingly underserved markets (i.e. moms and babies).

The people she works with, including co-founders (and dear friends) Eric Dy and Julien Penders, are so viciously smart and mission-driven I often wonder why I’m allowed in the room — even if I’m just over for a Bloom company BBQ.

They’re empowering moms and dads by building deeply sophisticated yet consumer friendly tech that every parent-to-be deserves to make informed decisions. And contractions are just the beginning. Other actionable data for pregnant families such as fetal movement, and amassing data sets that could unlock mysteries like factors contributing to preterm birth, are on the horizon. This group is going to revolutionize maternal health.

But if they want me to use their product one more time, I might need an army of entrepreneurs to help me parent three kids.

Everyone deserves this.

If you want to learn more about it all straight from the source, check out the goods on their site.