Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Pear Seed

"The secrets that sweep me away" writes Cynthia Ozick, "are generally secrets of inheritance: how the pear seed becomes a pear tree, for instance, rather than a polar bear."

I was reminded of this yesterday when after having sat rain-soaked in an admitting room for an hour and a half, fearing that C. would miss the whole thing because of a meeting, I was finally led back to the ultrasound room.

"This will be warm," the technician said and squeezed cold gel onto my belly. She pressed. The screen looked as empty as an unmade bed. "Hmm, fibroid."

"Is that bad?"

"It's fine," and pressed again. Then, finally: the baby. Two arms, two legs, a tiny profile, doing flips. It wasn't a plum or a lilac bush or a polar bear, it was, indeed a baby.

"Is that the head?" C. asked, and he stood there holding my hand as we marveled at what is and what will be.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm excited! We need some ultrasound pics!

little miss mel said...

yippee!!! love the u/s pics. Yes, do share if you're sharing. :)

congrats!

Anonymous said...

What a fantastic time you must be having. It seems like it was just days ago that we were in a very similar place, but C was the topic of our talk.
Much love for all 3.
FIL

Townes Elwood Keeth said...

Early pics of baby Callihan please...

Nicole Callihan said...

Hmm...if I could just figure out how to get the scanner working.

And, by the way, in the picture they gave us to take home, the baby actually looks _more_ like a pear seed than a human so I should maybe wait a bit...