'U Tube'

In my defense, let me say this: I cried the first time I heard the heartbeat. I knew from books that the ultrasound technician should be able to detect a beat by nine weeks. Eager to check off that milestone, I headed to my appointment. I expected to feel just relief. But when the amplified sound filled the room, a strong 160 beats a minute - boom boom, boom boom - my heart seized.

PHOTO BY JENNIFER PODIS / COX NEWS SERVICE A traditional two-dimensional ultrasound image (left) is compared to an image from the latest ultrasound technology that shows motion. The pictures are from a video provided by the 4-D ultrasound system's maker, GE Medical Systems, and show two different angles taken at the same time.

Alive.
Inside me?
Thank God!
And then, love. And tears.

So please bear this in mind when I confess my first thought upon laying eyes on a 3-D image of my unborn child a few months later:

"Stop resting your face in your hands! You're going to get acne!"

Really, is that the kind of thing a motherto be should be concerned about?

How quickly we ricochet between the important and the superficial.

There, in a keepsake ultrasound photo, is our baby, a nameless, genderless - at least as far as my husband and I know - unborn child pressing the palm of its hand against its cheek. We can see little fingers curled under and facial skin pulled taut beneath.

So peaceful. Daydreaming, perhaps. Or a little bored. Or maybe just practicing pushing and pulling with its new appendage.

Who knows?

There's an alien quality to these images only the most sentimental mother will ignore. A 5-month-old unborn baby looks so human and so strange at the same time.

And my second thought on closer inspection: It looks like a boy.

Forgive me in advance, sweetheart, if you are a girl.

These 3-D photos reveal amazing details, unlike the flat, grainy images expectant parents are used to seeing. But they do not provide an exact likeness of what a baby will look like at birth. The amniotic fluid creates distortion. And there's the simple fact that, at 20 weeks pregnant - when our ultrasound technician surprised us with a 3-D print-out - there are months of "cooking" to come.

So, if you're a boy, then your intuitive mother was right.

And if you're a girl, well then, you just weren't finished yet.

Which brings me to my final thought, one that bubbled up in my hormonal head only after a few days of staring, google-eyed, at the image: Baby, where is your chin?

I didn't dare speak this out loud. And yet, it kept nagging.

Maybe it's the angle? Maybe it's the imperfect technology?

Or maybe - gasp! - my baby has no chin?

Impossible. I have a chin. My husband has a chin. In fact, caricatures of him always exaggerate the chin. And everyone - and I mentally checked off each person on both sides of our family - has a chin.

A few days later, I mention to a friend how funny these 3-D images are. So human, and yet, so alien, I repeat to her.

She must have picked up on my tone.

"I know," she said. "I didn't think my baby had a chin when I saw the photos. But babies' chins fill out after they're born."

Oh sweet relief! I'm not the only one.

And then utter guilt for thinking such a trivial thing.

Not that I don't have deeper concerns: Who is this person growing inside me? Will my baby recognize me as its mother? Will I recognize myself as one?

In some ways, though, technology has given me reassurance: There's no denying my heart burst when I first heard the heartbeat. So come pimples or clear complexion, chin or no chin, this little baby already has made me crazy with love.

I don't need a fancy photograph to tell me that.