Tempura baby

Adam, baby, and I spent an hour last night with an OB/GYN in the plush suburb of Be'er Sheba called Omer. Its where most of the professors and doctors live and it feels a bit like southern California with big stucco houses, green lawns, and big cars. All the same, we went there to visit Dr. Maymon, one of Adam's professors in the reproductive unit in school for a private ultra-sound. Let me explain a bit....

Israel does more genetic testing than any other country. Reason: lots of inter-marriage in the Bedouin community, and closely related gene pools in the Ashkenazi Jewish populations. Both communities are strongly urged to do genetic counseling and testing BEFORE marriage. Either way, all OB/GYNS require this special, 3D, ultrasound at 20 weeks of gestation. These factors make Israel, especially the southern part where we live, a fascinating place to study genetics. Or so I am told by all our geeky medical student friends.

We were not so hip to do this since we are minimalists when it comes to intervening in this pregnancy, but its the only ultra-sound our midwife, Mindy, requires. Additionally, this test isn't covered by insurance. Ironically, most of our prenatal, delivery, and postnatal care within the mainstream system (blood tests, ultrasounds) isn't covered by insurance although we bought the special "pregnancy package". When we complain about this additional, significant cost we are often presented with the suggestion that we should just become citizens of Israel. Then all of our problems would be solved, right? Ha, not quite. Anyway, I am getting away from the story.

So, off we went to Omer last night.

We arrived at the residence of Dr. Maymon, with his office behind his home. It was certainly the most western office we've encountered here so far: bookshelves with lots of medical books, pictures on the wall of babies he delivered, and a coffee machine! In the back room, with nice soft lighting, was this amazing ultrasound machine complete with flat screen TV on the wall facing the table the patient lies on so she can watch the whole thing in full-on technicolor and 3D.

The test was about an hour long, and we did not find out the sex of the little one. Gentle reader, you will have to keep tuning in to find that out. But we found out just about everything else. If our baby were a trading card, here would be her/his stats:

97% for weight according to gestational age
It has lips, eye lenses, and a nose (that looks like Adam's)
It has two kidneys
It has all four limbs that are all well above 50% for length according to gestational age
The fetal position during the exam was vertex (its head was on my left side)
The spine was anterior (towards the top)
The umbilical cord is inserted in the middle of the placenta (where it should be)
There is the right amount of amniotic fluid
It has ten fingers and ten toes
It weighs a bit more than 1 pound

What we learned about our baby from watching it on the screen: it doesn't like to be seen, it kept hiding its face and turning away from the belly camera; it is SUPER long, could be an Olympic swimmer or NBA star; and it is super mobile. That explains my incredibly sore belly. We also saw it scratch its face; so cool.

So where this leaves us. Mindy is happy as it seems our little one is seemingly very healthy so we are free to move forward with planning for our water birth. We still have a very elusive due date. According to some measurements from this test, the baby is at 20 weeks and 5 days of development. Then according to others, like the length of its leg bones, its at 22 weeks and 5 days. We are confident it will arrive just when it means to, and not a moment before. But we are sorry for those of you who are trying to plan travel to be here as it could be as early as September 22, or as late as October 5. All we know is, it will come to meet us when it chooses. And we will do our best to wait, patiently and gracefully.

Here are some pictures of our deep-fried baby (my sister says the pics look like the baby is being batter fried, I tend to agree). These are likely to be the last images we see of our little one before we meet her/him in the flesh. Enjoy!