euphoria meets holy crap meets badass

This is what I discovered when I went into labor with our second child. We had just received the iPad three days earlier and my husband was stoked. He played with it every free moment he had. And I knew it was cool, but I had no idea it would be more exciting than the birth of your child until the day Stella was born.

I had a difficult labor. By the time Stella arrived, I had labored for nearly 22 hours. And throughout the ordeal, the iPad seemed to overpower the experience. In the early hours when my contractions were 7 minutes apart, my husband used the iPad to check the World Cup scores for the South Korea vs. Greece game. By the evening, when I was dialated nearly 8 cm and in excruciating pain, instead of holding my hand and comforting me during each contraction, my husband was cradling the iPad.

I yelled at him that I would burn the iPad if he didn’t shut it down and focus on what was going on. I couldn’t believe he would marvel at the freaking iPad more than the birth of our daughter. After Stella finally arrived, he spent the evening playing with apps and surfing. Then my husband turned himself into an Apple salesmen. And for the next two days while we were in the hospital, I watched him give iPad demos over and over and over again to every nurse and doctor that walked into the room. Each pitch lasted at least 10 minutes. It was unbelievable. And each time, he sold everyone. Every time the nurses and doctors returned, they asked more questions about the iPad and its functionality.

This whole ordeal got me thinking about user experiences versus real experiences. I guess we’re living in a time where if the user experience is that great and that awesome, it can rival the experience of even the most precious and intimate human experiences. It’s sad, but true.

Tags: iPad