Charlie’s Print Debut

May/June 2009 Issue | Posted by Tom and April Hoopes in Editor's Note

April: I’m glad we have Faith & Family. Our birth announcement here will be the first one in print: Charles Albert Hoopes was born on Feb. 13, weighing in at 9 pounds, 7 ounces.

He was born at 5:11 a.m. Tom texted our daughter with the news at 5:18 a.m. His Facebook was updated with the information at 5:26. Our birth announcements/baptism notices were sent via email a few days later.

Maryan Vander Woude writes (page 37) about how coming across an old box of letters in her basement made her long for the days of handwritten notes. Coming across printed announcements of our first children gives me the same longing.

We can never come across old text messages and Facebook updates in the same way!

But Charlie is adorable, and I have completely forgiven him for being 10 days late.

Tom: I, too, am overjoyed with Charlie’s arrival. So much so that I wanted to let the world share in my joy right away. Technology allowed me to do just that. (I even texted pictures to Cecilia. “Definitely a Hoopes!” she texted back.)

It is kind of eerie, though, watching the video our daughter Olivia made of Charlie being swaddled a few minutes after birth. You can hear what we were talking about in the labor-and-delivery room.

Me: “It’s up on Facebook.”

April (with significance): “Tom.”

Nurse: “Did you Twitter it?”

April: I suppose I should look at the bright side. We now have a record, online anyway, of lots of friends from around the country weighing in with their congratulations and well-wishing within hours of the birth.

Of course, there’s a downside to that, too: There are lots of comments on Tom’s Facebook “Adventures in Childbirth” photo album. Two of them commented on the picture of me leaving the house: “April’s face cracks me up,” said one. My labor face was not a happy face. And another: “April looks big and tired.”

I did. I was. But in the weeks post-delivery I holed up in my room and rested — with nothing to do but read this issue of Faith & Family, in faxes.

I read “Unfaithfully Yours,” the latest gripping marriage saga in our Marriage Matters section (page 23).

I read “A Catholic Mom in Hollywood” (page 59) and found I could relate — to the Catholic mom part anyway.

I read “No Need for Speed” (page 33), which Tom particularly recommended to me (he knows I have Jeanette Flood’s lead foot disease).

But most of all I enjoyed time with Charlie, who I’m told is the first of my children to look like me as a baby instead of Tom. I think someone on Facebook noticed that first.

Tom and April Hoopes, Editorial Directors

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