Just over a year ago I was filled with an unparalleled anticipation for what I was about to see on a screen…I had viewed the moment in films and TV shows where a couple witnesses their unborn child for the first time in an ultrasound image. It seemed like it would be such an exciting moment and I couldn’t wait to experience it. Pink lines on a stick covered with pee didn’t really do it for me but a live video feed might offer a sharp dose of the reality of “the situation” (as we referred to it). I have a habit as I think many do of projecting this image of an ideal future once a particular thing happens (like finding your “soul mate”). I wonder if this comes from the resolved/’happily ever after’ narrative that we’ve become so accustom to in countless films. This time the image was of me fathering my child and being filled with the love, wonder and sense of purpose this relationship would bring. I thought that when I saw the little blob with a pulsing heart it would be like meeting my child for the first time and it would mark the beginning of this vision.

The technician slid the device across my partner’s stomach. All we could see were abstract shapes. He pointed out the ‘yolk sack’ and zoomed in. A nervous wait. We had looked up images on the internet of what a foetus should look like in an 8 week scan but I couldn’t really see a resemblance. The technician told her “you’re definitely pregnant” but dated it at 5 weeks 2 days and couldn’t yet detect a heart beat. He said we shouldn’t panic as people get the dates wrong all the time but we had done our research online and were sure it should have been 8 weeks. He told us to come back in 3 weeks. Those weeks were consumed with a horrible ambiguity I hadn’t experienced before. It was like going from pure elation to being cast out to a cold, dark sea alone. We had in the previous weeks meticulously devised a plan of how to tell everyone the good news and in what order. We were anticipating their shock and excitement and a super social period of bonding with our families. We had to put these plans aside and were instead lost and alone trying to squash a sense of dread. The experience was so alienating. I had never seen this represented before on a screen and never heard it talked about. Of all days it was ‘Mothers Day’ she lost the baby.

The disappointment and grief of this had pulled us apart but as we “came back together” we were a little irresponsible! The next morning she referred to her phone app and realised it was “in the window of possibility.” On the due date of the baby we lost, she woke me up with the news. As the weeks went by there was no anticipation, not much of anything. I just pushed down all the possible emotions and reminded myself of the statistics; 1 in 5 chance of miscarriage. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up when I hadn’t recovered from the pain of last time. I was so nervous at the first scan but when the technician placed the ultrasound on her belly I almost immediately saw and heard the heart beat. Wow!!! The moment pierced my thick skin and hit me in the chest. My heart almost began to pump in unison with our child’s at 179 bpm. I was still struggling with the uncertainty but a flutter of hope got me to the next scan. I was nervous as hell repeating to myself: “Just need to see the heart beat…” The image appeared and I was glued to the screen. I could see the spine but was looking for the heart. I needed movement. Then suddenly its legs and arms kicked out and it was my heart that forgot what it was supposed to be doing. “Oh my God” (not OMG!) “Oh my God.” It was freakin amazing. I was so immersed in that screen for the next 15 minutes I practically inhabited it like it was virtual reality. I doubt I blinked as I noted every little movement, every bone, every digit.

The ‘Screenage’ header image is from the next scan. It was one of my favourite cause it looks like it’s giving a little fist pump which is what I was doing while watching it. This time around I feel much more in touch with reality which I actually prefer in a way. Things are looking good. She’s 26 weeks, bloated and there’s definitely a little human (or limbed alien) moving around in there! – Why is it that we keep thinking of it as an alien – is it because of the movie franchise? My partner thinks so.

A picture of the little alien is below. It looks like an image you’d see in the credit sequence of ‘The X Files’. I imagine if Scully and Mulder finally had a baby it would look like this!