Thankfully, I have pretty much never been to the hospital or any other kind of emergency care center for an injury or accident.  This is good news, of course, but it also means that I have very rarely experienced the fascinating imaging technology that is part of modern medicine.

There was that time I fell out of my bed when I was three or four years old and had to have my wrist x-rayed, but at that point I wasn’t marveling much beyond having something to bring in for show-and-tell on “X” day.

Last week all that changed.  We went for my 20-week ultrasound (at 22 weeks, oops!) and saw our little Peanut for the second time ever.  This time, it looked much more like the little human person that it is, and it was just amazing.  We saw all the chambers of its heart; we saw its kidneys with blue and red lines superimposed, showing the flow of blood in its veins and arteries; we saw what looked to me like very strong arm and leg bones (which I figured were strong because I’ve felt them poking me!); and we saw a bunch of close-ups of its nose and mouth.

Honestly, I didn’t cry—I did during the first ultrasound, when we nicknamed it the Peanut.  This time I was absolutely beside myself with the visual of this new little person that I can’t wait to get to know and to see up close.  It’s expected, I suppose, but I can’t wait to see which of its features look like John’s and which look like mine.  The first person ever to be a combination of us both!  What a profound and beautiful thing.

We were told afterward that anatomically, everything looked good.  This would have been the chance to try to see if it’s a boy or a girl, but we didn’t want to know, so that’s still a mystery.  John thinks it’s a girl based on the view of its face we saw, but I think all babies have very delicate features, so there’s not enough in the profile to determine either way.  But here, you can see for yourself:

This is an image of the right side of its head, in profile.  One of its hands is just in front of its nose and mouth.  (Okay, I can’t help it.  Have you seen the episode of Friends where Rachel can’t find her baby in the ultrasound?  Hilarious.)

If you can learn anything about your baby’s personality from an ultrasound, then we recognized a certain amount of stubbornness in its not changing positions— or taking its legs down from over its head—to let the incredibly sweet and personable ultrasound tech get a good picture of one side of its head/brain.  Other than that, it behaved pretty well during our session.  What was surprising was that our baby seems to have taken an early interest in bodybuilding.  Check out those guns, right?

I love these pictures, and I’ve even framed one to put in our room.  The silly thing is when I walk by it, I’ll say, “Hi, Peanut,” as if I’m seeing someone I haven’t seen in a while, someone whom I don’t carry around with me all day.  Really, I know, I’m greeting a photo.  But I guess we’ll just have to add that to the list of silly things being a mom makes you do.  And I’m pretty okay with that.