THERE’S A BABY IN THERE

Last week, K and I went in for the anatomy scan. Well, she’s the one that was being scanned. I was there for moral support and coat holding. The idea behind everything was that they would poke around using the ultrasound machine and take measurements of the little person growing inside her. We arrived at the office, checked in with the ultrasound technicians, hung up our coats, and BAM! time for the examination. K laid down on the examining bed, with a screen above her, letting her watch what was going on. I sat at the foot of the bed and tried to look over the technician’s shoulder. I got comfortable on my little stool and waited. But I didn’t have to wait long.

And then I saw a spine; a femur; a heart; a head; more spine; and then a hand. It was awesome.

Babby stynxno was curled up, resting, and seemed to be using the placenta as a pillow. The technician took the measurements she could but we weren’t able to see the face. The little baby wouldn’t uncurl. The technician tried everything, going in from the left, the right, the underside, and even asked my wife to wiggle around and see if it would wake up. But every time the technician tried to take a scan, babby stynxno would raise up its first and try to push the annoying thing away. It refused to uncurl.

“It’s stubborn!” the technician said.

“That’s my kid!” K cheered. It seems our kid got both our stubborn streaks.

At the end, we were told that K would have to come on back to try and get more measurements of the face. We were given a stack of 8 sonograms in one long strip, like what you’d get at a photobooth on the boardwalk. We weren’t asked what pictures we wanted – the technician just tried to take the best ones she could. And, in the middle of the batch, was a picture that I didn’t expect. Because, you see, we found out the sex of the child. And they took a picture of it. So right there, in the middle of the strip of pictures, right there, is a picture of my babby’s nether regions.

I don’t think that one is going up on the fridge.