Sunday, October 14, 2007

The Questions of the 21st century

I've always readily admitted to being a computer nerd and I thoroughly enjoy cataloging everything online (MySpace/Facebook, blogs, and especially pictures), so I've started to consider if we'll create an online "identity" for our kid. There's just something about being able to have pictures and info about your life readily available in an organized and easily viewable format that I really like. Despite the fact that I appreciate the shoe boxes of pictures that my parents kept of me, I just don't really see myself looking through them all that often. Jenni's still a little hesitant with the idea, but I'm just fascinated by the ease of communication and connectivity that the services like email and Facebook provide. But our kids are probably doomed to have at least a little computer nerd in them, so I imagine that things will eventually go that way whether we like it or not.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Score One for the Good Guys

Well, I guess that it's "officially official" now. Jenni and I went in to have our/her (I'm not sure what the right vernacular is) first ultrasound and it was a fun/exciting/scary experience. It was pretty crazy to finally see the little guy/girl and was really cool to be able to see the little heart beating (I've always been fascinated by the human body and such). But it was also a little overwhelming to think that one day in the not too distant future, Jenni and I will be responsible for this little person's survival and well being. We haven't even really started yet, but I've already started to get a TINY glimpse of how humbling/sobering/educational it must be to be a parent. Hopefully, Jenni and I won't screw the kid up too much and will really enjoy the experience along the way.

But enough of the "mushy" stuff, and onto the interesting parts of the picture. The black part of the image is the gestational sac and the little circle in the middle is the yolk sac (something that I didn't even realize existed in human pregnancies, but the doctor said that it will simply be absorbed by the woman's body or expelled during delivery so it serves no real purpose). The white blob above the yolk sac is the baby. The head is the larger area just above the yolk sac and the black dot is the beginning of the brain cavity (you could see the brain a LOT better in one of the other angles, but they didn't give us a photo of that). The rest of the body is sticking up and to the left, so you can see the one of the arm buds sticking up from the top in the middle of the body and you can see both of the leg buds out near the end. So it's kind of like the shape of a little teddy bear.

It's just over 1.4 cm long (just over a half of an inch) and the doctor said that everything looks great, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that everything will continue as expected.