My ultrasound technician was Wayne. He looked like a combination of Wayne Knight - Newman from Seinfeld - and a computer programmer, but better than that sounds. The quality of pictures on the ultrasound machine was ten times better than the ultrasound I'd had the day before in my obstetrician's office. Plus they could zoom in super close on just a small part of the babies. If I'd known that, I would have had Mark come along to watch because I got to see the twins swimming around in my tummy for about 45 minutes. I could easily make out the nose, chin, and restless hands of Baby B. It's possible I teared up and asked for a tissue.
You know how if you're just floating in a pool and someone jumps in, the wave hits you and your body just kind of floats over that hump of water? Baby B would be floating and then his whole body would move like that, as though the amniotic fluid was moving from one end of his sac to the other. Unfortunately the pictures never do justice to what you see live on the ultrasound machine.
Thankfully Baby B was already in a profile position because Wayne needed that in order to make the nuchal translucency measurement using the ultrasound. Baby A on the other hand was not cooperative at all. It looked directly at the camera the whole time, sometimes putting both hands behind it's head as though it was either mocking us or doing the classic model pose. Straight on, Baby A looked like one of the alien skeletons from the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
In fact the ultrasound picture for Baby A was terrible. I don't even know what I'm looking at here:
Wayne adjusted the table I was laying on so that my head was at a lower angle. He said that moving the mom often spurs the baby to turn over. But that wasn't enough. Neither was it enough when Wayne jiggled my abdomen slightly with the ultrasound sensor, nor when he told me to laugh. He reclined the table so even more blood was rushing to my head and said if that didn't do the trick I'd have to walk around the room. Thankfully Baby A decided to turn over from its long nap.
(Later when I told Mark this, he was sad that we woke up Baby A. I said, "Trust me, Baby A's doing enough sleeping.")
Wayne took so many pictures that he had to roll the length of printed ultrasound pictures in big loops around his arm. Apparently the doctor kept them all because I only got to take home these two. The one of Baby B was pretty good at least (compared to Baby A anyway).
That's Baby B's hand floating above its body. I thought Baby B looked like Mark. (Hopefully that doesn't mean Baby A looks like me.)Baby A?
Speaking of alien babies, my sister thought it was really weird-looking late in pregnancy when still-incubating Laurel would turn and you could see the clear outline of elbow/bottom/whathaveyou making a bump outward from my abdomen.
ReplyDeleteI should ask her if it's less weird to her now since she's had two kids of her own, but she's often dubious of my questions. (I swear they aren't all weird, just some of them. Okay, maybe most of them.)
What's with the chick in the see-through shirt?
ReplyDeleteThat picture is more accurate than you know. When those babies are 6 months and doing gymnastics in your belly, you'll wonder if you have a chest burster about to break through. I feel like I'm supposed to bond with my baby when it's kicking and think it's wonderful, but mostly it just kind of creeps me out.
ReplyDeleteRachel, that was one of the best pictures I could find illustrating hands behind head model pose.
ReplyDeletechildEngineer, I love your phrase "chest burster." That's awesome.
Baby A is clearly ET.
ReplyDeleteKate, I almost titled the post "Am I having ET's Love Child?" I agree with you.
ReplyDelete