A Picture Worth a Thousand Euphemistic Responses
I used to know what to expect from new parents armed with baby pictures. My role was well-defined; I was primed to coo. The nebulous “How sweet!” was my standby, and, for the truly challenging countenance, I switched to my value-neutral backup: “Would you just look at that little nose!” (or “mouth,” or whichever feature seemed safest). No matter how much the infant in question resembled a tiny flying monkey from Oz, I had a proven repertoire.
But pregnancy in the ‘90s means that the first baby photos are taken long before the baby is ever born, via ultrasound. Now proud parents-to-be present you with their sonograms and leave you struggling for something cogent to say about a picture that might just as well be a satellite view of Neptune.
Social convention precludes the technically accurate observation, “Nice womb,” so you’re reduced to pointing in pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey fashion toward the triangular gray blur and venturing gamely, “Is that the baby?”
“No, that’s the baby,” the prospective father answers, pointing to a completely different, though equally hazy, spot.
But now pregnancy has equipped me with my own arsenal of baffling Polaroids, and I must admit that the view is just as daunting from the other side.
We’ve all seen health-segment footage of the procedure--the mother-to-be always smiling as she reclines with a modest portion of her visibly pregnant belly exposed to the gentle caress of the ultrasound probe.
So there I was, ready to float in on my diaphanous maternal cloud and bare my navel in serene, Madonna-esque (like the Virgin) fashion. Instead, the experience took a more Madonna-esque (“Like a Virgin”) turn.
What I didn’t know was that an ultrasound can be performed a mere six weeks into pregnancy. More significantly, I did not know that such an early exam may necessitate “transvaginal” imaging--a procedure done while your heels cool in the stirrups. Small wonder you never see this variation on the evening news.
Then you receive your own cache of blob-in-a-blur portraits, and now you have to start holding up the other end of the sonogram discussion--an ordeal that becomes more treacherous as time goes by. This is because by 12 weeks or so, with proper guidance and a complete suspension of common sense, it becomes possible to make out tiny skull and ribs, fingers and femurs. With some imagination, you can make out a whole lot more.
My husband, a University of Michigan alum, swears that the sonogram provides incontrovertible proof that this, our first child, is wearing a Wolverine helmet.
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Most observations are more firmly rooted in reality. For instance, once the baby is at least marginally humanoid, someone is bound to exclaim, “Oh, look! There’s its precious little face!” (You’ll recognize this as a timely twist on the aforementioned, “Would you just look at that little nose!”)
But what if what they’re actually gazing at is the baby’s precious little rump? With ultrasound etiquette lagging behind ultrasound technology, you have to rely on instinct. Generally speaking, it’s better to let the comment go rather than risk having a child prematurely dubbed, “Buttface.”
You also need to be ready to field questions like, “What’s that on the right?” You’ll want to intercede with “my spleen” before your partner has a chance to declare, “That’s her vagina.”
While “spleen” is completely erroneous, it proves to be a good, all-purpose response. Everyone knows people have spleens, so you have the advantage of sounding plausible. On the other hand, nobody’s quite sure where the spleen is or what it looks like. You thus divert attention from the uncomfortable fact that you are passing around snapshots of your reproductive parts.
Your baby’s dignity, unfortunately, is up for grabs, particularly when an enthusiastic ultrasound technician has highlighted your son’s fetal equipment with arrows and the euphemistic label, “BOY.” In retrospect, it makes you realize just how lucky you were that all your folks had were those cheesecake shots of you on the bearskin rug.
