I went to the AHEC health fair, took the tests and answered their questions. They told me to lose a bit of weight and add a bit of exercise.
I got the message, I started walking around the health fair looking at the displays. One offered a free 4-D ultrasound for a mom-to-be. New technology just when we have a new baby on the way. Nothing ventured, nothing gained: I filled in my daughter’s name, dropped the paper in the basket and she won. My daughter had already planned to be in the area visiting. She just had to squeeze in time for the 4-D ultrasound. Radiologist Kelly Cook suggested a late night appointment.
Very late. To go, I put aside my comfortable pajamas for street clothes – anything to catch a glimpse of the newest granddaughter.
It was so late the dark, empty parking lot had no welcoming lights when we pulled in at 10:30 p.m. My daughter and I looked in vain for our rendezvous vehicle: a white Enterprise. It was a strange time to be coming to the AHEC offices, but who quibbles about timing when they can get a free experience in the latest pre-natal technology?
We waited in the silent darkness until the cell phone rang announcing Kelly Cook. She rounded the corner and hopped out of her vehicle with a warm smile that almost dissipated the silence of the night.
Cook smiled and chatted with my daughter as she escorted us into the deserted, vintage building. On the elevator she mentioned that late at night she has heard nurses laughing and talking down the deserted corridor.
“I stopped, listened and called out but no one answered,” she said. “I looked two or three times. Finally, I just called and wished the sisters well and went on,” Cook said. “We call them ‘the sisters’ when we can hear the voices but never see anyone,” she explained.
Voices in the night, a deserted parking lot –– not the most fortuitous beginning to a happy adventure, nor my favorite time of the day for an adventure. Only the dimmest of lights welcomed us into the room with the 4-D ultrasound equipment. My daughter hopped up on the examining table and exposed her growing stomach for the goo that helps the machine read the sound waves. The 4-D ultrasound provides the dimension of movement to the 3-D images of the child still growing in the womb.
At first only the sonar’s semi-circle of black and white images appeared. I puzzled over the blops as Cook pointed out body parts. Then she did something to the machine and the black and white turned to gold tones of lumps and valleys and a baby’s face popped onto the screen.
“Ohh, she looks just like Caroline,” my daughter gushed as she stared at the child’s first picture.
“We can’t get a really good picture because she has her face mashed up against you,” Cook said as she wiggled the wand trying to find the optimal picture.
The screen reverted to black and white, “There’s the mouth,” she said. I looked and saw a disembodied mouth opening and shutting. Cook typed ‘mouth’ onto the frozen screen.
She switched back to the bronze toned 3-D image, “Look, the baby is licking her arm.”
“They don’t open their eyes yet, do they?” my daughter asked staring at the screen.
“Oh, yes they do! And it looks kind of spooky when they do,” Cook said as she froze the screen and took another picture.
Little fingers and cheeks appeared and disappeared in an electronic game of peek-a-boo as Cook took pictures.
Finally Cook printed-out a copy of the pictures she had taken, handed it and a DVD to my daughter, “You can get prints from that. These prints will fade in strong light.”
With a fistful of pictures in hand, my daughter and I made our way back down the quiet corridors of third floor AHEC, down the elevator and out the door. We thanked Cook for taking time to fit us into her busy schedule on the weekend my daughter had planned to visit.
Quietly closing the car doors, we drove home through the sleeping city to enjoy a final mother-daughter weekend before the newest baby arrives and we begin discovering all the ways she looks like here sister, her mom, or even me, her old grandma who needs more exercise and less weight.