The plan was for an Ottawa woman to share the birth of her baby in a live-streamed video on her website for the world to see. Clearly, someone forgot to inform the baby about primetime viewing.
For nine days beyond her due date of Oct. 7, Nancy Salgueiro kept her many Facebook fans up to date with encouraging posts about the pending birth.
Then on Saturday evening, the mother of two (almost three) went into labour at home while her online observers sat transfixed in front of their computer screens. But as the clock ticked past midnight, many of the would-be witnesses to this unique event fell asleep -- understandably, since many of them were almost as pregnant as Salgueiro.
Finally, at 3:18 a.m. Sunday, the baby boy appeared to those watching online and took his first breath. He weighed 6 lb. 10 oz.
When she announced her plan to give birth live online more than two weeks ago, the 32-year-old chiropractor and trained childbirth educator from Barrhaven told CTV Ottawa: "I really feel it's important for young women to see what normal, natural birth, undisturbed by anything, can be like."
Salgueiro and her husband Mike Carreira, the parents of a five-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, are advocates of natural childbirth. Their shared goal, they said, is to offer an honest account of the joy, as well as the pain that can come with giving birth in a natural way.
"It's a little different when it's live. You can check in and see how things are progressing," she said.
On her website, yourbirthcoach.com, Salgueiro says childbirth has become an ultra-private, almost secretive experience in North American culture that many women fear because they lack first-person experience.
"I do believe birth has been stolen from women," Salgueiro says in a video on her website.
"It is such a wonderful, amazing experience and the power that we have in our bodies and in our ability to birth babies and become mothers is incredible, but it's been taken away because we've given that power to someone else and we need to take it back."
By Sunday afternoon, her thousands of Facebook and Twitter followers were anxiously waiting for two things: a video of the birth they had slept through and the name of the baby boy.
"Baby boy born at 3:18am Oct 16. We need to confirm how we are spelling his name before I post it," Salgueiro tweeted. "Will let you..."
The message ended bluntly, but then she probably had other things on her mind.
