Vega Rose Swift.

Upon waking on Saturday morning Annie had reconsidered her position on not knowing the sex of the baby to: "I must know the sex of my baby".  I have to agree that when so many people do get to find out the sex of their baby, it is hard to take when someone tells you that you can't.  So given that I was desperate to know (and I'm a sucker for an unhappy wifey), I thought I may as well see if it was possible to get a private scan.

I gave a call to our local private scanning place and asked what sort of notice they normally need for a gender scan.  When told that the normal wait is 2 weeks I was quite worried that: (a) it would be an unbearable amount of tension if waiting 2 weeks and (b) how on earth do you tell an upset pregnant lady that she has to wait that long. Fortunately she said that someone had cancelled at 10:30 on Sunday 27th May (thank you whoever you are).

Unfortunately I get a little apprehensive when I'm in a position where I know something big is going to happen and constantly bombard Annie with "Do you think they'll see on this attempt?",  "What if they can't tell on this attempt, and they can't tell on the next one?", "how likely is it the baby will be in the right position 2 days later?".  I imagine this gets a little testing at times.

Roll on the next morning (and Annie waking me up at 3am and talking to me for half an hour, mostly out of excitement) and my Mum confirms that she'll be able to make it over to Ashford to take advantage of the fact that you're allowed visitors in the scan.  We drove down the scanning studio - nice and early - and sat around waiting outside.  The 2 ladies that run the place turned up nice and promptly and led us upstairs to the studio, which is a nice mix of professional and personal.

We were led into the scanning room and Annie hopped straight up onto the bed, "Dad" and "Nan" were directed to their seats (I get a special one cuz I'm so important :D).  The equipment looked a lot more flash than the NHS stuff (as I suppose it would if your business is to make money out of it).  The technician got going and within about 30-40 seconds announced that it was a girl, producing a huge Cheshire cat grin on Annie's face.  As well as the unabated joy of finding out that I was going to be a father to a baby girl, it was also nice to be shown the bladder, kidneys and heart of the baby as well (which is something we were not afforded in our NHS scan).

The next part was the "4D" scan (which I always thought was misleading; as in my experience 4D is the sort of thing you get at Disneyland where there's a film shown in 3D and when there is an earthquake on the screen, your seat rumbles.  In the world of scanning a 4D scan is basically a moving 3D scan).

When presented with other peoples 3D pictures, I never quite understood the appeal and pretty much thought that it was no more special than a regular 2D scan.  However when they switch the scanner over to 3D and you can see the contours of your baby's face, when they open their eyes and mouth and if they grab their foot with their hands and put it near their head (all of the above), a 3D scan is pretty magic and makes you feel that much closer to your unborn child.

Baby Vega having a yawn and
having a stretch.

So although I am disappointed that we didn't get to find out the sex of our baby at our anomaly scan - despite the fact that you can obviously find out the sex when the baby is in breech position (I think the sonographer was just miserable and didn't make the effort) - it was great to see the baby again, in 3D, and be shown all the body parts, find out the gender and to do it all in a friendly, welcoming and relaxing environment.  I would definitely recommend a gender scan, if you can.  And if you live near Ashford I would definitely recommend Baby Scan Studio.  I should also thank my Mum (again) for volunteering to pay for it as it really has made us very, very happy bunnies.  Thanks Mum.

Our perfect little girl, asleep.

So I give you Baby Vega.  She's my daughter and I love her!