13 months

i meant to do this at its one year mark, but somehow got really confused with the dates and so now it's a little bit more. so 13 months ago this week we laid eyes on the bug for the first time ever. he was actually more bug-like at that moment, before he even was the bug yet, than ever since. he was 1 cm long and pretty much just a 5 week old clump of cells (they calculate gestation based on your last period, 2 weeks before conception, so even though i was 7 weeks pregnant, he was only 5 weeks "old")
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this first trip to the OB portion of my OBGYN also came with the added bonus of experiencing an INTERNAL ultrasound. naturally i was mortified by the whole process, but it was a good initiation into the world of pregnancy/childbirth. a world filled with stirrups, lube, bright lights and the probing fingers and eyes of many health care professionals whose names i will never know. g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s.

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since this was our first child, and since this embryo looked nothing like an actual baby, this moment wasn't super emotional for us. i was VERY relieved that there was only one baby (jesse was a little disappointed...wtf!) and glad that everything that could look good at 7 weeks and 1 day pregnant did look good. pretty much we just saw this image and got our due date (which of course i had already used the interwebs to calculate for me, so it was just confirmation that 6/1 was the day). he was too tiny to listen to the heartbeat yet, too new for us to even wrap our minds around the idea that this was becoming a baby. our baby. i remember thinking i was a bad mom for not crying with joy or something, but i just couldn't really get there. he was just a bean:

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the first ever photo of judah. the ball a the top of the picture is not his head, its the yolk sac. he doesn't have it anymore.
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no, the cool thing with this ultrasound didn't happen that day. it happened about a month after judah was born. my hormones were back under control, my entire repro' zone was back in one piece, we were learning each others' schedules and routines and i felt like we were hitting our stride with the little guy. there was much less, "holy shit, we're supposed to keep this creature alive using only our SKILLS...we have no skills!!!" and much more, "sweet moses, we are in love with this little man more than we ever thought possible."

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one month ex-utero

i had kept the hard copy of this ultrasound in the way-back of my daily planner. i hadn't really looked at it since before our 16 week ultrasound told us he was a boy and gave us much better photos to look at.

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well i was thumbing through a month after birth and the page flipped open and i saw this first ultrasound. i was overcome. it was like a physical reaction; like someone slapped me across the face with a big fat hand full of love.

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in the instant of my eyes falling on that very first picture i realized that that tiny little pod--that was pretty much just an invited parasite back at 7 weeks--and whom i felt no attachment to (beyond the umbilical cord) WAS my judah! even back then! that little group of cells that had only existed for 4-5 weeks was 100% the same little guy as this son that i love so much. that the adorable, fully functional, snuggly baby laying beside me had 8 months earlier been a 1 centimeter long black and white blob. i cannot really describe how powerful this process was, to go back and retroactively love that little embryo so much. to realize the miracle of it all.

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i knew intellectually that i had a tiny organism growing inside of me and that it was freaking amazing. that, starting from scratch and using 2 sets of blueprints, a person was going to be created using only what it found in my body as the building blocks. i knew this and i cared about the little thing and hoped and wondered at it all and tried to stay in awe of the process. but i had no frame of reference for anything other than the biological miracle of humanufacturing a little stranger.

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but to look back and realize the journey my little guy took, from bean to bug was downright flooring, and i couldn't get there until i knew just what the little bug was actually going to mean to me here on the outside. it was all of a sudden understanding that an oak tree that provides shade and food and shelter, and contains such power and might and beauty, all that the oak tree would and could ever become was once contained in the tiny seed of an acorn. what a mind job. it makes me respect seeds and the promise they contain. (i promise this isn't a veiled attempt at an abortion post).

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a to-scale comparison (i used a ruler and my screen) of 2 pictures taken of judah on october 15th
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i know that now when i see the early ultrasounds of any of our future children that i WILL be moved and emotional. i will know that mr./miss teeny mcblobbins in the photo is really a tiny grain that will grow into so much and give me so much. that there are undiscovered pieces of my own heart bound up in that little acorn, places and depths of love that i could never know or access on my own. and i will know how cool it is that all this love and hope that is in me was once a tiny acorn that had invaded my mom. and back and back and back all the way back to the one who knew me as a far off descendant of the first speck and DID realize what i would become and loved me madly even then and authored this story that i find myself in.