First Glimpse
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Thursday, July 24, 2008 7:05 PM
On Tuesday I had an ultrasound to pin down the age of our tiny unborn baby. There was some mystery surrounding which month he or she was conceived, so the ultrasound was necessary to determine whether I’m due in February or March.
Because of some complications in the first trimester of my pregnancy with Camilla, I had a series of ultrasounds during that time to make sure that she was still alive. (You can imagine my enormous sighs of relief every time her still-living image appeared on the screen.) Because of that, I’ve got a pretty good idea what an embryonic person looks like on an ultrasound screen through the first trimester: five weeks looks like a pea, six weeks looks like a wiggly pea, eight weeks looks like a gummy bear, and by twelve weeks the little one is starting to look like the baby you’ll meet six-ish months later. (The picture above is of Camilla at about that age.)
With this ultrasound I knew I would see either a gummy-bear look-alike (meaning conception occurred in June) or a looking-more-like-a-baby twelve-weeker (meaning conception occurred in May). I was guessing May, and expecting that I’d see a little baby moving around in there, so when the twelve-weeker appeared on the screen I was somewhat prepared to see him.
But still. There is nothing that can completely prepare you for the first glimpse, however blurry, of your own child, brand-new and yet already infinitely precious. I should have remembered, but it took my breath away. I stared, entranced by those tiny hands and that tiny profile, for all the minutes until the midwife finally pulled the image off the screen.
Camilla’s conception occurred after thirty cycles of trying to conceive, and we were shocked and grateful, and I couldn’t imagine that anything in my future would ever feel quite so miraculous as her conception did. I, however, was wrong. This baby, although not as long-awaited, seems to me every bit as much a miracle as his or her older sister is. That God could create a whole new person, unique and exquisite, and just give him to us, just for FREE like that… it blows my mind, still, every time I think about it. No matter how many children we end up having, I imagine that it always will.
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