One Year Ago... Ultrasound Pics

One year ago today we were having our final official ultrasound before Abby's birth. Because of concerns about various potential complications, I had several ultrasounds, including two at the perinatologist's office. Aside from my own concern about potential problems, I was glad to have so many chances to sneak a peek at our little one and to be assured that the pink wardrobe we were accumulating was indeed the right color. Here are the highlights.

If you've ever seen the episode of Friends where Rachel has to repeatedly pretend to recognize the baby on the screen, you understand my general skill in interpreting ultrasound pictures. Before I became pregnant and even with a few of my own later ultrasounds, I would nod, smile, and take someone's word for what I was being shown. But at my first official ultrasound, the 20 week survey where they check out every part of the baby's body, it was a totally different experience. The pictures were so clear that we took a least a dozen extras home. And I could interpret them even without the aid of the handy body part labels.

This one was my very favorite. This shot was my first glimpse of my baby girl's sweet little face, only a few minutes after we learned her gender.


This profile shot was Jonathan's favorite. And so began a highly successful campaign to have Daddy wrapped around her little finger by a young lady whose weight was estimated at 10 ounces.


I will spare my daughter's dignity by NOT posting the "It's a girl" shots.


Even though there's quite a bit of distortion around the edges of the pictures, the next two shots showed our baby's features in amazing detail when she weighed about 1 pound 4 ounces.



Fast forward about 13 weeks to these views of a roughly 5.5 pound baby. When I held her in my arms only 3.5 days later, she looked just like this. Normally, the perinatologist's office just gives out pictures on a CD. But the shot of Abby's little mouth was so sweet that the nurse couldn't resisting printing it out for us.



Ultrasound technology is so amazing. In addition to the obvious medical benefits, the ability to know your baby's gender and to see glimpses of her features before she is born makes this medical technology priceless. Some might say that too much knowledge ahead of time spoils the surprise. I can understand that point of view, but that wasn't the case for me. I personally struggle with transitions, even small inconsequential ones. So anything I could do to get to know my child before her birth only increased my joy at our first meeting and eased my transition into parenthood.