Bloggerette

I had a feeling.



It's probably coincidence, of course, and I'm not particularly superstitious; but when I first learned Kelly was pregnant, the image of a baby girl instantly came to my mind. Actually, not really an image. More like, it felt like it was going to be a girl. That feeling stuck with me through the past couple months of anxious expectation, though of course I braced myself for the possibility that it could in fact be a boy...

I met Kelly at the hospital for her second, and more thorough, ultrasound visit.



Here's some pics of the ultrasound machine, if you've never seen one. It's actually a Sonograph, though most know it by it's other more generic name. Pretty high tech stuff; it looks kind of like a control station from some starship. Some gel gets spread on the mom's belly then a hand-held scanning device is glided along in different angles and positions, sending very high frequency sound waves (at 20 khz and above) and capturing the reflections, to reveal the bun in the oven.



I asked the nurse if it was ok for me to take photos in there. She said she wasn't sure, as she'd never seen anyone taking photos of an ultrasound visit. That surprised me, but then again, I suspect few people are as photo-crazy as I've been, lo' the past year or so. She went to ask someone, but that person apparently was at lunch or something. All right then. Action...



The views on the screen alternate between squiggly, moving shadows and lines, then sudden bursts of recognizable body parts and images. We could make out her head and face, and her arms and hands were constantly moving about. Her leg and arm bones, spine and ribs were particulary visible. Then the bottoms of her feet suddenly came to the forefront of the image...I was particularly struck by this, wondering where those feet will take her, in the years ahead. Seeing her in there alive and kicking was extremely moving, I swelled with happiness and pride.

It's amazing what ultrasound technology can reveal; they can even see the four valves of her heart pumping away...



Then came the moment of truth...



I knew it.

Finally, the ultrasound had one more surprise in store for us; this revelation of our baby girl:



Amazing, isn't it...