Stirrups and Sonograms

Today Pete saw more of me than I have ever seen of myself. Today Pete watched me get a Pap Smear. I knew he would. I knew there was no way he was going to stand by my head or blur his eyes and make nervous conversation. I told him exactly what was going to happen while we were waiting for the midwife.

"Guess where this metal beak looking thing goes," I challenged him, raising one eyebrow. Pete rolled his eyes. "It's pretty obvious where that goes."

"Well, I bet you don't know what that does," I said, pointing to a large machine-type object. "What does that do?" Pete asked solemnly. I readjusted myself on the butcher paper and smoothed out my gown. "Oh, oh you just wait." I had no idea what that did.

Amy came in and introduced herself; we chatted for about twenty minutes before she put the gloves on. I told her that Pete has a curious nature, and she offered to give him a front row show.

"See that?" I heard her say to Pete after the metal thing went where it obviously goes. "That's the cervix. That's what's going to dilate to ten centimeters." She made a wide gesture and I said, "Really? That big?" She looked at her hands and said, "Well, no, more like this," and shortened her hands to indicate a space that looked wide enough for a Grade A jumbo egg to fit through.

*

Pete's head disappeared for a moment. "That's it, right there?" He had no idea what he was looking at, I'm sure. As soon as the exam was over Amy said, "Now I'm just going to feel around a little..." and suddenly her gloved hand was up there. Up, up, up there. "Yeah, I'd say that's about a ten week uterus," she said. Pete swallowed. It echoed.

Amy finished and left the room and I got dressed. "What did you think?" I asked Pete. He nodded a few times. "Fascinating," he said. "It was something." His eyes were a little wider than normal and he didn't seem to be blinking.

A few minutes later we followed Amy to a larger room with dim lighting and impressive machinery. Amy hadn't been able to find the heartbeat with the Doppler, so she wanted to get a quick peek with the sonogram. She put some jelly on my tummy, pressed something cold against my skin; my heart flickered with the screen. There was my baby's head resting in a cradle of shadows; there were my baby's arms and legs flailing in liquid, computerized motion. "I see it!" Pete said, marveling at its head and appendages. I tried to hold still, but every time the little bean on the screen waved, I giggled. "It's a beautiful baby," Amy said, satisfied with the heartbeat and the measurements.

I forgot all of my reservations about high frequency waves--I wished that I could just sit there with my beautiful baby all evening, waving and giggling. I see you, I told the baby through telepathic powers that I've developed over the last ten weeks. You don't know it, but I see you, and even before I saw you, I loved you.

"Okay, I'm convinced," Pete said proudly, and the screen went dark.

(This is just a stock picture--I haven't scanned mine yet. Picture something like this, only 100x cuter.)