It's Got a Brain...and a Face!

The first words uttered in the dark, tiny room said it all.
“My goodness” and “Holy crap”.

Those were the instant, first-words-out-of-our mouths as soon as the picture of a 13.2-week old baby popped up on the 50-inch TV screen one second after the tech applied the ultrasound to Melissa’s belly.

Head to the left, facing you. The two big dark spots are brain,
the lighter ones to the left are eyes. Nose in the middle!

Of course, Melissa was slightly more concerned with her surroundings. My “Holy Crap” came out before I even had a chance to catch it. Which means we were lucky it wasn’t something a little more colorful.

We spent the next 15 minutes mesmerized by the fact that it actually had a brain. Weird, yes, I know. We could make out feet, hands (which seemed quite content to spend a lot of time in the mouth) and a face. Yes, it has a nose!

We saw the heartbeat, which the tech said was right where it should be at 160 beats per minute. That apparently runs in the family since Melissa and I weren’t far behind at this point.

She turned the sound up and we could hear it super clearly. Very cool. There was even the little heartbeat wave thing along the bottom of the screen, so you could see how consistent it was.

The whole point of the visit was to get measurements of the flap of skin at the base of the baby’s neck. This flap is part of the lymphatic system and, by getting a baseline today, when we go back in five weeks to do it again, the doctor will be able to determine if the baby is predisposed (or will be born with) certain diseases, and/or ailments, such as Down’s Syndrome. She also gave blood, which will be compared to more blood in 5 weeks, which helps with the test.

Foot!!

But everything looked good today. The doctor didn’t even bother to come in and see her, which the nurse said was good news because that means he thought everything looked all right.

The tech wanted the baby to flip around a little bit so she could get a good profile, but it was being stubborn. When Melissa contracted her stomach muscles to try to convince it to move, the baby turned all 1980’s rock-n-roll and started moving both arms in a raise-the-roof, the-walls-are-caving-in kind of motion.

A couple minutes later, it flipped around to the right position.

It may have a brain but, apparently, it’s still trying to figure out how to use it! That’s definitely a Readling family trait…