Progeny

Last week, Julia and I went in for her 20-week ultrasound. I’d write more here up top, but it would only delay some people’s ability to get to the pictures quickly, so I’ll leave my yammering to the bottom, where it can be safely ignored. One note, though: you can click on the images below for a larger version, which I suppose is suitable for framing or printing onto coffee mugs.

Okay, maybe a little interstitial yammering between pictures. Now I know that baby photos are supposed to be cute and all (even if we all secretly know that babies don’t get really cute until a few months after they’ve been born — not my baby, of course, just everyone else’s). But frankly, this shot gives me the heebie-jeebies. All I can really make out is the eye. That soul-piercing, unblinking eye. Clearly, Grendel is staring at me and asking why I have dared to disturb his* peaceful slumber with these pestering ultrasounds. Is that his* pelvis over to the left, or is it shoulders? Okay, the more I type in this caption, the more weirded-out I get. Next picture.

Ah, that’s more like it. A nice, cute foot. Now, we’re no ultrasound experts, but Julia and I both thought this may have shown a little 20% bonus in the metatarsal region, if you will — that is, a sixth toe. Again, I’m no pedopodiatrist. And what if he** does have a few extra li’l piggies? Like they say, “as long as he has 10 fingers and 10+ toes, I’ll be happy.”

Now for the good stuff! He** clearly has inherited his* father’s monstrously large head, and as can be plainly seen, is the cutest child ever. And that’s not just my opinion. I asked the ultrasound technician if, in fact, this was the cutest baby she’d ever seen. Really, I did. “Yes,” she said. And ultrasound technicians cannot lie. It’s part of the Hippocratic Oath.

More of that profile you know you just can’t get enough of. Plus a nice shot of the spine. The spine was definitely one of the most obvious features in the whole process, which is often a confusing mess of static punctuated with adorable little motions. His* mouth is open, apparently saying some sort of “ah” sound, perhaps the word “Mozart”.

I’m starting Grendel’s musical education as early as possible, with strict emphasis on the Classical period. Which is why I was horrified one day to walk in on Julia listening to Debussy. “No child of mine,” I said, “is going to grow up thinking this Impressionist cacophony is ‘music’. If you want him* to grow up to be anything but a mouth-breather, we must play Mozart!” Okay, I’m lying to make these captions more interesting. If we ever become parents like that, please slap us.

Go on, Grendel, stretch it out! Clearly, our little genius has been learning a little yoga of his* own while Julia’s been at prenatal-yoga classes. I fully expect him* to be born being able to touch his* toes with ease. Fine, all babies can easily touch their toes, but ours will do so with grace and panache. No matter how many toes he** has.

I saved my favorite for last. For while — as my friends Aaron and Morgan noted about their own ultrasound — Grendel does bear a passing resemblance to Skeletor, he** is also clearly waving, as if to say, “Y’all come back now, hear?” Grendel being the progeny of two native Texans, it is not unexpected that he** would phrase it thus, and it should be seen as a sign of his* mastery of multiple dialects instead of a product of poor grammatical education. And if it is the latter, I blame Debussy.

And now, some notes from a nerd father. Have you read the book Flatland? It’s an 1884 novella that both satirizes Victorian culture and explains dimensions (i.e. 2-D, 3-D) with surprising clarity. I know, most of you are long gone now — “Ooh, geometry and Victorian satire? I’m done reading this entry.” Go on, then. Perhaps you’d prefer to listen to Clair de Lune?

Anyhow, the story largely takes place in a two-dimensional world (that is, Flatland) inhabited by various shapes. At some point, a sphere comes along and introduces one of the denizens of Flatland to Spaceland — that is, the three-dimensional world that contains Flatland, but is, of course, much taller.

Now if you’re not very good at visualizing such things, you may want to find a copy of the book to read for yourself, as it is good at explaining them. But you may be able to imagine how odd a sphere would be in a 2-D world. As it passes through the plane of Flatland, it starts off as a point, then becomes a small circle, which grows larger and then smaller, and then back to a point. All of which is naturally unnerving to a Flatlander, as the sphere appears to come from and go to nowhere while passing through. Not only that, but the sphere can see the inside of everything in Flatland, including its people.

Anyhow, all of this came to mind as I was watching Julia’s ultrasound. Because the device ultimately displays a 2-D slice of Julia’s uterus, and this is what you see above. Of course, Julia’s uterus (and the child therein) is three-dimensional, so as Grendel moved around (or as the operator moved the wand), you would in effect see him* passing through this plane, often creating unsettling images.

For, just as the operator had arranged things so that we were peering at Grendel’s face, he** would lurch forward, and we’d be staring at the inside of his* brain. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen in normal life. In fact, God willing, that will be the only time I stare inside his* or anybody else’s head.

So that’s what was on my mind while I was peering into Grendel’s.

*Or her, whatever. Don’t make me type his/her everywhere.

**Or she. Again, pronominal precision at this point is just frustrating.

Since the dawn of time, mankind has sought to see into the future, to know what will be.

Of course, in the past, this largely consisted of people, all named Og, making guesses about whether a given rock, if let go, would in fact fall to the ground. Modern physics largely put to rest these raucous, prognosticative debates.

But that was then. This is now, more than ever, and nowadays, increasingly advanced microprocessors (the brains of the computer), with wires only a dozen nanometers thick¹, enable us to make increasingly more precise, detailed, and, frankly, freaky predictions about the future.

It was this power I wished to harness when I took our baby’s ultrasound image to the Advanced Prognosticative Imaging Lab at the hospital. “Doctor,” I said, “my child — what of his or her future?”

“Easy,” he said, fiddling with some dials and presenting me with this image:

Whoops! Turns out, the doctor had made a few incorrect settings, accidentally predicting only the very near future for our child, and possibly having the wrong setting for the “species” button. Not sure. But after a few more minutes of flipping switches, he arrived at this computer-simulated age progression for our child (unfortunately, the simulatrix cannot predict gender, so I had him click the button for “boy”):

Isn’t technology something?

In other news, I’ve now been an uncle for a year, possibly more (depending on when you read this and in what hemisphere — I believe in Australia it is a Sunday). And yet, rather than celebrate my accomplishments as the brother-in-law of the child’s mother, most of the celebrations thus far seem focused on my nephew. Fine. But has he demonstrated this level of Photoshop prowess, I ask? Nevertheless, a happy birthday to young David.

Oh, and those wishing to download an entirely different ultrasound image than the one I posted last time may enjoy this entirely antler-free scan.

¹That is, one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair, or one-hundredth the width of mitochondria^2
2Known as the “powerhouses of the cell”

Medical technology is amazing. J went to the doctor a few weeks ago and came home with what appears to be some sort of radar image, presumably some sort of personalized micro-forecast of her own weather for the next few months:

Now, I’m no meteorologist, so I have no idea what this is all about. But given that there appears to be a small weather system inside J, it may explain why she was feeling a bit odd for the past few months.

Those of you who know more than I do about this subject may feel free to consult a larger version of the image above, free of the colorful overlays, for your own meteorological consulation.