Only one word for it - Amazing!

When I was pregnant with Daughter in 1982-93, we thought it was a big deal to be able to have our bellies smeared with really cold jelly and have the doctor run a little plastic gizmo around our circumference to hear the baby's heartbeat. (I was going to describe the little gizmo as a computer mouse - then I remembered that we didn't have the computer mouse back then. Gizmo will have to do). Anyway, the sonogram sounded like something out of a World War II movie, minus the sonar beeps. Listening to the baby's heartbeat - Amazing!

Ultra-sound was just coming into its own and was only used if there were suspicions about the position or health of the baby or to monitor the mother in some way. All was (thankfully) normal, so this technology that's used as a matter of course now wasn't used on me. I have no ultrasound pictures of Baby Girl in my womb.

Let's go back even before the sonogram stage. When I first got an inkling that I maybe, possibly, might be pregnant, I had to make a doctor's appointment to find out yea or nay. No peeing on an over-the-counter stick - nope, I had to go to the doctor to pee on a stick to find out. I know - The Ancient of Days. And I'm talking 1982.

Fast-forward to 2009. Daughter and her hubby found out she was pregnant in the privacy of their own home, courtesy of a pregnancy kit available to one and all at the local CVS or Walgreen's. They had ultra-sound pictures of the baby within a month. A couple of months later, another picture revealed that the baby is a boy. And when I went home to Atlanta for Thanksgiving, Daughter, Hubby, and I got to see live, 3D images of the little guy - the shape of his head, his nose and chin and little hands.

And those 3D images of Grandboy were amazing! Amazing in the same way that 26 years earlier the sound of his mama's heartbeat was amazing. It's hard to imagine what technology will offer to Grandboy's generation. But it will be, I'm sure, amazing.