The baby turned out to be so photogenic, so in love with the camera, that we lined ourselves up for another ultrasound session. The baby is now about thirteen weeks old, and we'd been led to believe that this would be the time we'd be able to see the gender of the baby, so it could stop being ``Baby'' and start being ``William'' or ``Kelly''. (``Ute'', I've decided, is bisexual--that is to say, a good name for a girl or a boy. But Dawn won't let me call anyone ``Ute''.)
In any case, we were lied to. After waiting mere minutes in the waiting room again--this time we even showed up an hour early for our appointment, and yet I was still only able to read a couple of pages (I found out the weight of Madonna's baby, at least)--we entered the Ultrasound Room and asked our friendly operator if we'd get to find out the sex this time. She shook her head sadly--thirteen weeks is still too soon. Maybe by the twentieth week, she told us.
Despite these disappointing beginnings, this turned out to be an interesting ultrasound. I take back all the bad things I wrote about ultrasounds earlier. This time it actually looked kind of like a baby. Also, no vaginal ultrasound was required this time--Dawn just got besquirted with the cold goop on her belly.

I have to admit, though, that this still photo doesn't do the ultrasound experience justice. As we watched the ultrasound screen, Dawn and I could see the baby moving, which made it look a lot more like a baby than perhaps it does here. We watched the baby wiggle and wave its arms as the ultrasound woman pointed out features for us. I particularly liked this sonogram because in this one, if you look closely and use your imagination, you can see the baby's hand up near its face.
``This is the body,'' she said, pointing to the screen. ``And here are the legs--he's kicking. And what a profile, eh? Here's his hand, and--oh, I hate to tell you this, but your baby is a thumb-sucker!''
Dawn immediately turned on me. ``Did you suck your thumb?''
``I don't know,'' I answered. ``I don't remember.'' It's always me, isn't it?
(It turned out later, when Dawn called my mother to ask about it, that when I was younger I didn't suck my thumb, at least not any more than normal. Dawn, however, used to suck her fingers--her index and middle fingers simultaneously--and so is a much more likely candidate for the cause of the baby's digit-sucking. On the other hand, I bite my fingernails habitually, so perhaps that's what the baby is up to--except that the little critter doesn't have fingernails or teeth with which to bite them. I also chew the inside of my mouth at times--I'm just a morass of nervous habits--so maybe the baby is gumming the inside of their mouth. Theories, theories. Maybe it just doesn't really matter.)
The technician took her time, mushing the ultrasound contraption around on Dawn's burgeoning belly. Squish squish. She took several screenshots of the baby in various positions while the baby squirmed. This made me wonder something.
``I wonder,'' I said, wondering out loud, ``if the baby can feel the ultrasound.''
``No,'' the technician assured us. ``At least,'' she added, ``I've never had a baby come back and complain.''


This ultrasound appointment was not all fun and games, unfortunately. The real reason for it was to check on Dawn's corpus luteum cyst to see if it had gone away, or at least gotten smaller. It hadn't.
The doctor called us back after we had gotten home from our visit. What she told us was quite simple: We should return for another ultrasound in a couple of weeks. If the cyst still hasn't gotten any smaller, then Dawn will need an operation to have it removed. If we don't get it removed now, then later on in the pregnancy it might rupture and Dawn would need to get an operation anyway, only it would be farther along in the pregnancy and therefore not as easy.
So that's it. There doesn't seem to be anything else we can do but wait and see. We are both of us naturally concerned, but since worrying won't help, there seems to be little reason to do so. But we are a little worried anyway.
We can't help it. There's a little baby in there--we know, we've seen the pictures.