Harlow
Grant was anxious. I had never seen him like this. He kept watching me nervously and smiling like he had something big he wanted to tell me. It was completely odd behavior for him.
It was distracting me that I wasn’t the one acting like a nervous ninny this time. When we had listened to the baby’s heartbeat the first time, I barely had been able to contain myself that day before the appointment. But this day, the day we finally got to see our baby and find out if it was a boy or a girl, it was Grant who couldn’t sit still.
I had gone through an ultrasound before, but it wasn’t one like this one. The first one had been very basic, so they could see the baby and hear the heartbeat internally. This time, it would be a 3-D machine that would allow us to actually see the baby’s facial features. The nurse walked into the small room where we were waiting, followed by the doctor.
“You two ready?” he asked with a bright smile on his face.
“Yes,” I replied, but Grant didn’t say anything. He seemed tense. I reached up and rubbed his arm to try to ease his strained expression. This wasn’t going to hurt me or the baby.
“Good, let’s see if we can find out what we’re having here,” the doctor said as he sat down on a stool. “Normally, the nurse does this, but I want to check some things while you’re here. I brought her along in case I forget something,” he explained.
I turned my attention back to Grant, whose complete focus was on the currently blank screen.
“You OK?” I asked. He dropped his gaze to mine.
“Yeah, I’m good. Are you?” he asked, suddenly realizing he hadn’t checked on me in the past few minutes while we were waiting. He was more than overprotective. Since my belly had started to show, he had gotten a little crazy with the hovering thing.
The doctor moved the device over my stomach and nodded his head toward the screen. “Here we go,” he said as an image of our baby began to appear.
Grant’s hand gripped mine tighter as the screen very clearly showed two little feet stuck up in the air.
I couldn’t form words as the doctor chuckled. “Well, that was easy to spot. She’s making it very easy.”
She.
That one word was more powerful than I could have imagined.
She.
I sniffled and blinked rapidly, trying hard to clear my vision so I could see her.
“Look there, she’s found her fingers, and she likes them. You may have a thumb sucker,” the doctor said as he showed us our little girl sucking three fingers into her mouth.
I was unable to keep the part-laughter, part-sob from escaping.
“And it looks like she has all her fingers and toes. Her heartbeat still sounds really strong,” the doctor assured us. I hadn’t even noticed the sound—I was so taken in by just watching her—but it was there in its perfect, pumping little rhythm.
“Did you feel that?” the doctor asked me.
I didn’t want to look away from the screen. “What?” I asked.
“A strong fluttering feeling . . . there. Did you feel it?”
I had felt it. I had been feeling it for the past couple of weeks. I had thought it was bad gas.
“Yes,” I said, watching as she kicked seconds after I felt the fluttering feeling.
“The 3-D isn’t real time. It’s delayed. So you’re seeing her kick a few seconds after she does it,” the doctor explained.
“When can I feel it?” Grant asked, speaking up for the first time. I tore my eyes from our daughter to see him watching the screen in complete fascination.
“Give it a couple weeks, and you’ll feel it,” the doctor assured Grant.
For the next fifteen minutes, we sat there watching our little girl wiggle and go from sucking her fingers to her thumb. She also liked to stick her foot up to touch her head. She was perfect.
And I had thought I couldn’t love her more. How very wrong I was.