In Awe of a Miracle

I have never witnessed anything cooler than seeing our baby at my 20-week ultrasound.  The baby actually looked like a baby and even I could follow along and decipher the various shots and angles of actual limbs and organs.  The first thing the sonographer looked for was the gender, and it didn’t take her long to find out that it was a boy!  She commented that “he’s not shy” and “I’m glad you wanted to know the gender because that would have been hard to conceal!” Alex and I were laughing for the next 5 minutes.  She also couldn’t believe how active this little guy was.  He kept moving around and making it difficult for her to get good views of the organs and bones that she needed to measure.  It took about an hour in all as she methodically went through from head to toe (literally) getting views of each body part.  She spent the most time examining the heart.  At the time, the entire heart was the size of a pea, yet she was able to see 16 valves and even with a certain view, she was able to track the blood flow in and out.  She illuminated the oxygenated and deoxygenated blood so we could also see the red and blue lines indicating a perfectly healthy heart.  She used the same view to track the blood flow in the brain.  From this ultrasound we could already see the perfectly formed fingers and toes, and mouth and nasal cavity.  She measured each of his arms and legs and estimated he already weighed about 14 ounces.

The large amount of movement worked to our favor.  She tried to give us a 3D view of the baby at the end of the ultrasound so we could catch a glimpse of what he looks like.  I was hoping we would be able to use this feature of the sonogram machine.  At first, she couldn’t get a good read.  The baby has to be still long enough for the machine to perform a “sweep” and get a picture of the baby.  I thought we wouldn’t be able to see him at all, but she then said that there was another option: 4D.  She switched the mode on the machine and we were suddenly able to see our baby in 3D and in motion!  In an instant I got a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.  There he was!  The cutest thing I had ever seen.  He was curled up right against the side of the uterine wall, rubbing his eyes.  We could see his facial features, his arms and legs and tiny hands.  He started moving again and this time, batting at the umbilical cord as if he were annoyed with it being in his way.  We didn’t get much time to watch him, but long enough to get some still shots from freeze framing the video feed, and long enough for me to be completely overcome by what I was witnessing.  I had just started to feel him moving around—I had just gotten to the point where my normal clothes were just impossibly snug.  I had only known I was pregnant for 3 1/2 months!  In such a short time, 2 cells had grown into an unmistakably human-looking baby.  It is truly miraculous.  It is truly the work of an Almighty Creator.  I am so saddened by the number of abortions in our country.  I can’t help but believe that if mothers saw what I saw, they would not choose to terminate their pregnancies.  Even though the pictures are sort of blurry and distorted, when I saw that little face, I immediately fell in love with that baby.  I am now even more eager to see him in person in a few more months!