A soldier out in Afghanistan got to share the birth of his baby boy some 7,500 miles away in Utah thanks to the power of the web.
Paul Gibbs, 25, spent most of Tuesday on Skype as he helped coach wife Katy, 27, through an intense labor from a dusty Army base in Sharana.
Katy, in the more luxurious surroundings of Timpanogos Regional Medical Center in Oram, eventually gave birth to 6lb, 10oz Everett Joseph seven hours after first logging on.
And the first words the little boy heard were uttered by his proud papa who said: “Hey, buddy. I’m your daddy.”
Despite the joy of having a new born, Katy told KSL.com that she wished her husband could be there to share the experience.
She said: “I really wish he could be here. It’s his first baby, and I want him to experience that special bond that you feel with that.”
But, she added, it would hopefully not be long before the family is reunited as Paul, a Utah National Guard member working as an engineer, is due to return to the U.S. in April.
Katy, who has a three-year-old child from a previous marriage, met her future husband in 2011 when the pair were students at Utah Valley University.
Married last May, Paul was just one week into his deployment the following month when he found out he was to be a father.
Katy told the Desert News: “It was a good surprise and very wonderful, but we also knew that he wouldn’t be able to come home so it was kind of a sad, bittersweet moment.
“It was definitely not planned with him being gone.”
