IN today's modern world, when a baby is born, everyone who needs to know can be contacted in an instant using mobile phones and the internet.
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But that wasn't the case for Koroit couple Carina and Matt Lane when their son Phoenix made his entrance on Thursday morning during the Telstra blackout.
With no way of contacting their parents, siblings and other family members, the Lanes had to resort to the old fashioned way driving around to tell everyone in person.
"It's so much easier to pick up the phone or send a text message," Mr Lane joked yesterday.
He said Phoenix was the couple's first child, the first grandchild for their parents and first great-grandchild for his wife's grandparents .
"We had planned to spend a couple of hours on our own with him we just didn't expect it to be so long," Mr Lane told The Standard yesterday.
"So it was a bit of a blessing in disguise."
Phoenix was born at 11.40am and Mrs Lane said they were completely unaware of the communication issues the rest of the district was facing.
She said with both their parents having only Telstra landlines and mobiles, there was no way to contact them.
"We tried to start telling everyone at about 2pm and could dial out of the hospital no worries, but couldn't get a connection to anyone with Telstra," Mrs Lane said.
"We checked our mobiles and saw they had no service and then we figured something must have been wrong."
She said Mr Lane left the hospital about 7pm, driving to his parent's home in Warrnambool before heading to Koroit to deliver the news to Mrs Lane's parents.
"Matt's sister in Melbourne and my sister in Queensland just had to wait," she said.
And the bush telegraph was also in full force, with Mrs Lane's grandparents finding out about their first great-grandchild at the Koroit newsagency on Friday morning.
"That wasn't what we planned, but it couldn't be helped," Mrs Lane said.
"Dad went and told his mum on Friday morning and she has been calling from her home-help person's mobile to try and arrange to come out for a visit.
"We managed to get a group message to extended family and friends on Friday afternoon but anyone who was with Telstra missed out."