Busy day! So much so that I logged less than two hours of actual work time. Whatever; I’m on an hourly contract and the client has never complained about the number of hours I work per week, so I have to assume he’s happy with my somewhat-less-than-40 hours of weekly work.

What specifically was busy, you ask? The morning began with an ob/gyn appointment at 11. I have to say that I’m really enjoying the German standard for prenatal care; not only it the doctor very welcoming and willing to explain things in English, there’s been an ultrasound literally every time we’ve been to him so far. I don’t even want to know what this standard of care would have cost in the US; I’m pretty sure it would have been out of our budget.

Here’s the thing about the ultrasounds: they haven’t actually been all that exciting, as yet. At first there was a tiny blob; the doctor said that things looked good, and I just had to take his word. Later, there was a slightly larger blob with a pulsing bit that was the heartbeat. Great news! Still not that exciting.

Today, though. Today was different. Today, seconds after he started the machine, suddenly there was a kid! A little baby, in profile, clearly pictured on the ultrasound. Head, abdomen, arms, legs, umbilical cord; all clearly defined and looking good. Moreover--and I’d never expected this, though in retrospect, I’m not sure why not--the kid was moving. Not particularly purposefully, but still; the arms and legs were drifting gently. When one arm did this near the beginning; I couldn’t help but interpret it as a wave hello. My intellect can insist as strongly as it wants that it was a coincidence, that as great as this kid is, it wasn’t consciously greeting us; my emotions are convinced that the kid knew (somehow) that we were watching and wanted to say hi.

There were other facts of interest about the visit, other things about the day, but that’s been the only thing I’ve really focused on today. Olive is 31 millimeters from crown to rump today, and waved hi to us. I don’t know how you’d feel, but to me, that’s magical.

We also had the first meeting with our midwife. She’s young, probably a bit younger than us, and doesn’t yet have kids of her own. She also seems both knowledgeable and nice, and had a good rapport with Christina. She’s not supremely self-confident yet: she must have asked if we had any questions at least four times during the meeting. Still, that’s probably a good thing as far as working well with the two of us.

Lots of things happened today. There was some Christmas shopping that I really had no heart for; I saw the new Star Wars movie (Rogue One) and I haven’t even begun to decide how it affected me.

Today I saw my child as a child for the first time, and it waved at me.

That, in a very literal sense, made my day.