Do Babies Have Butt Cheeks?

Four grainy little pictures changed my life instantly and dramatically last week.
I’ve known since February that my wife is pregnant, but it didn’t seem really real until Wednesday when radio waves bounced around her uterus to produce the first images of our first baby.
Prior to the ultrasound, the only confirmation I had that Carolina was pregnant was two home pregnancy tests, positive blood tests at the doctor’s office, her daily bout with morning, afternoon and evening sickness, and her slowly expanding waistline (note to self: this will be the only time I’ll ever be allowed to say these words in print). The mountain of evidence was enough to justify a trip to the pregnancy section at Barnes and Noble and a couple of casual walk-throughs at Babies ’R’ Us, but it was still a little hard to grasp that I was actually going to be a father.
Friends who’ve been procreating for years loaned us their pregnancy books, which we had been using to track the weekly progress of Van De Voorde 2.0. Referring to the series of pencil sketches depicting what’s happening in there, I’ve been able to see my child grow from a mass of cells to some kind of popcorn shrimp-looking thing to something that resembles a real human in an amazingly short period of time.
The books always compare the baby’s size to a fruit or vegetable and for some reason that started to get on my nerves. This week your baby is the size of a lima bean. Now your baby could fit comfortably in a walnut. In week 10 your baby is about the size of a large lemon.
I guess it’s more tasteful than saying, “your fetus is now the size of a pile of oily rags,” or “the child weighs about the same as a 30 gigabyte I-pod,” but I wanted something more tangible. I got that Wednesday.
Not being from a rodeo family, it was uncomfortable for me to see my wife in stirrups. Then the ultrasound technician came into the room, waving around the probe that would be used to take my baby’s picture.
I had seen ultrasounds on TV where the doctor comes in the room, spreads clear jelly all over some woman’s big old stomach, then rubs a device that looks like a computer mouse in the jelly. I wasn’t expecting a probe.
Oh, but that magical probe. I forgave it its trespasses almost immediately because of the amazing pictures it produced. I watched on the screen as it made its way through a sort of winding tunnel to a dark opening and there it was: my baby. It was just laying there in that curled up way, exactly like the pencil pictures in the book.
Then, whether it was the presence of the probe or the sugar of Carolina’s sweet tea kicking in, something fantastic happened. Our baby started moving and performing for us. At first its legs were crossed at the ankles, like a good little lady or gentleman. Then the baby’s hands started moving. I swore it looked like it was sucking its thumb. It twisted, it rolled and bent over and mooned us. I was amazed at its little butt cheeks.
Then the technician turned on the sound. I had seen the baby’s heart beating earlier, but hearing the fast swishing noise of its actual heartbeat created this instant connection between me and the fuzzy black and white image on the screen.
Unfortunately, the ultrasound technician wouldn’t let us sit in the room and watch our baby forever. I had heard Tom Cruise bought Katie Holmes an ultrasound machine for their house. I thought it was crazy before last week, but now I understand.
Eventually the probe was removed and the machine was turned off, but we did get four grainy little printouts of our baby in a variety of poses. I also have a 20 second video where I can hear the heartbeat swishing anytime I want. I watch it a lot.