(For god’s sake don’t!) be still,
thou swiftly beating heart!
Our future daughter, as seen via the miracle of ultrasound, January 25th, 2019.
Theory is all very well, but even in this virtuality afflicted world, there remains room for in-person experience. Even if at one remove.
This past Friday saw me book a virus car (a private joke that should probably be retired, as the former VrtueCar is now CommunAuto) in order to pick up Raven at work and drive her to a clinic for our first ultrasound. A “dating ultrasound”, one of many things it looks like I will learn about for the first time, despite the fact that I like to think of myself as well-educated even in such things as gestation and childbirth – despite never having been actively involved with same before. But I digress.
Poor Raven, all 5’2″ inches and 115 pounds of her (maybe 120 now), has been very serious about her health and the health of the proverbial bun in the oven.
For the ultrasound, she was instructed to drink at least a full litre of water, and drink it she did, every last drop.
She was in agony when I picked her up, and it only got worse from there. The test, thank god, was more or less on time, and the technician (a woman who described herself as a photographer), made quick work of the first, full-bladder stage of the proceedings, then sent her out for a quick pee, along with instructions that, next time, she should listen to her own body and not blindly obey generalized instructions.
Anyway, the point, really, is that watching that black and white video of our tiny blob (just one, thank god! And in good position, normal, healthy heart a-beating, and visibly so, as well!) had the cliche’d effect: it suddenly became real in a way that no occasional bouts of nausea, nor suddenly hyper-sensitive sense of smell (Raven’s not mine, on both counts), ever managed to accomplish.
I found myself grinning like an idiot and came close to tears like the sentimental fool I usually am only when reading the final 90 pages of The Lord of the Rings.
In truth, it didn’t look any different from ultrasounds I’ve seen in movies, or still photos shown to me by friends, but seeing — yes, seeing! — the beating of that little heart and knowing that it was happening inside my sweetie, as a result of my sperm’s having had a good time with Raven’s egg, made for an irrational difference.
Next up, something called the Harmony Test, which among other things, will tell us with a claimed 99% accuracy, whether we are looking at progeny with Downe’s Syndrome. Possibly some of you will be shocked and/or appalled to know that we won’t carry through the pregnancy should that be the case. If that’s eugenics, so be it.