TK, up close and personal

After the lovely weekend of both of us feeling TK move around, we got to come home and go straight into the anatomy scan Tuesday morning. We were both nervous, as this really felt like the last big hurdle. It isn’t, of course. I think that might be getting him into college. In any case, we were nervous because even though most of what they might find on an anatomy scan would be fixable stuff (clubfoot, cleft palate), it’s certainly not stuff you wish for, either.

We got a very nice tech, thank heavens, and better still we got an intern. This meant that Very Nice Tech narrated everything she did and Wes and I, between us, remembered enough high school biology to make sense of what she was saying. She was great when Wes would ask questions, too. He has a rather impressive ability to see what’s what in an ultrasound. I just lie there hoping she would tell me things were good, not sure I could see what was what even if told. But Wes kept saying things like, "That’s an arm, right?" And he was right.

There are some things that seem funny for a split second, like, "Here is one arm. And here is the other arm. Both arms are there." You find yourself thinking, "Well, of course they are." But then you realize that maybe they might not have been, that they aren’t always. And then it’s just sort of sobering and you feel lucky. And that horrible line my dad handed me each time I acted ungrateful: "At least you have both your arms and both your legs…" It suddenly didn’t seem so crazy.

The most amazing part was seeing the brain – all the brain parts with all those brain part names you learn in school (cerebellum, I think?) and the line dividing the right and left hemispheres… all right there for us to look at. We are already looking forward to using this as some sort of annoying parental line: "We know you have a brain. We saw it. Go do your homework."

Also incredible – the heart. All its four chambers. Beating away. Valves opening and closing. They put it into slow motion to get the best possible picture. Absolutely incredible. My favorite, favorite sight.

Most endearing – his foot. A clear view of the perfect little bones of the foot. We just keep turning and asking each other, several times a day, "Did you see that foot?" And then, of course, Wes has to start going on about all the tiny little shoes he wants to buy for that little foot. Gotta love him. It always comes down to shopping.

We came away with several pictures of his profile – in the one above he is facing upward and has his hand up near his face. She also gave us the boy proof picture. He gave us an incredibly clear view of his penis. He is my child, after all. Crotch shots are not something we feel any shame over.

He was actually amazingly cooperative throughout. The Very Nice Tech would say, "Now we need to get blah blah view of the blah blah." And then she’d put the wand down and he would have turned in exactly the way she needed him to. He was moving around throughout, but mostly out of our view – she’d take a shot, freeze it to do her measurements, and when she’d go back to the "live" view he would be in a slightly different position. That made me feel so much better, since I couldn’t feel any of his movements and this made me realize that he is always moving and I just don’t know it yet. Plus, I had this idea that he never moved at ultrasounds but I think this showed me I just didn’t know what I was talking about. We did get to see a few of those heartmelting moments of him moving his little arms around.

They were using a new machine, or a special loaner or something, and there was some special guy there to teach all the techs how to use it. So after she did all the measurements, she went to get him and a bunch of other techs came in, too. There were a whole bunch of people in the room trying to learn about the 3D ability of the machine, all staring at the screen and talking about what buttons to push, as though I was not there. I really didn’t mind since it meant that they kept doing more views of TK. I got excited to see his face in 3D, but we also learned that it is not always clear technology. They got great shots of his torso, but even though the tech tried a few times after everyone left, she couldn’t get a face shot. The profile above is much better than what came up in 3D, which was basically a blob.

The last bit was the tech going to get the doctor to review her pictures (though she kindly told us that everything was perfect before she went – love a tech who will do that!). It was the Russian guy from my amnio, and when I mentioned that he’d done that he chuckled, "And you are still speaking to me!" Indeed. Anyway, he also had an intern, so we got to hear a nice narrative of what our pictures were. He also kept pointing out, for her benefit, where it would have been possible to see blah blah if something HAD been wrong – like, "Here is where you would see blah blah in the case of hydrocephaly, but this one is perfect, of course." That was nice.

It was extremely reassuring. I am now considering tackling the registering for birth classes because of the immense reassurance. Any NYC people around have opinions on Re*lbirth versus R*osevelt Hospital? I am having trouble deciding. General consensus is that all birth classes are basically useless but I am going to take one anyway, since I know I will have an eleventh hour panic attack if I don’t. The non-hospital place offers a class on Birth With Epidural that sounds perfect but the place itself is very crunchy touchy feely non-intervention. So I am nervous that even though they bill the class as being about epidurals and pain management techniques before you get it (or if you are not able to), I am worried that there might be a hint of judgement just by virtue of where the class is offered. That said, I love the idea of being in a room with a bunch of other people who are planning to use pain relief – I don’t need any more mommy judgement than I already get in my neighborhood.