Oh, Boy!

It's official; we're having a boy-child. We found out midweek during a 4D scan at Fancy University Hospital in Major Urban Center. Before going in Marci thought we should write our guesses down on slips of paper and hold onto them until we find out. The new US equipment is sophisticated to a degree that you not only find out all the traditional info, but can actually see the face of your soon-to-be (in our case) son in detail, in motion. We were lucky and could actually see him smile!

What amazes me is that until quite recently, no humans have had an opportunity to glimpse that quiet internal world in quite this way. It was really like visiting another planet. While we were interested in gender, which Kim (the tech) identified almost immediatey, and his little face, which was overwhelming to see, she quickly went about the business of identifying many other structures and systems. Each long bone was identified, then cranium, orbits, and vertabrae. She checked out his lungs, bladder, stomach, kidneys, and spent a lot of time identifying and imaging each structure of his brain and heart. Kim remarked "nice cerebral cortex," which I guess is the kid's first complement. The heart imaging particularly fascinated me, as they studied each valve and chamber, in motion.

Kim couldn't get every single image she wanted, so she had Marci turn to her side and lie still for a bit, figuring he would likely reposition himself. She returned a short time later, and, sure enough, he had flipped over and she got a few more images for our doctor. We assumed we would have to wait until we spoke to Dr. W. for an official evaluation, but Kim said one of the FUH (see above) doctors would be in shortly to talk to us, and do some additional scanning.

In the meantime, two (rather cute, honestly) residents stopped in and asked if they could do some imaging while we waited. One appeared to be a more senior res who was introducing the other to use of the equipment. After some time, Dr. H. greeted us and she began a mini-lesson for the residents. Is this breech or transverse? Why isn't this the best way to lateral scan the aorta? See how crappy the image of the heart is when I do this? That's because the waves don't pass through bone. I like a doctor who says "crappy."

She eventually took over and got the remaining angles she needed, and also printed some additional "portraits" we could take with us.

On Friday, we went to see Dr. W. again. We were due to see him next week, anyway, but Marci had been spotting a bit, so we were concerned about that. I also wanted to know if there was any risk in our dining on raw meat for the 4th of July. I had read these awful things about "toxo," and wanted to make sure things were cool.

He examined Marci's cervix and determined that everything was fine in terms of the spotting, so we felt relieved about that. I asked about our neighbor's attempt to kill us, and he said the incidence of aquiring something nasty that way are, in his words, "rare, rare, rare, rare, rare." He went on to say that, despite all the anxiety-producing information out there, microbes aren't really waiting to "pounce" at the first instance of eating a Wrong Thing. "That's not really the way it works," he said.

I'm glad he disabused me of that idea, because that was pretty much the exact model I had in my head.

We're seeing him again this Friday, so that he can further discuss the ultrasound with us.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that Marci and I traded our folded slips of paper shortly after our scan. They each said "boy."