How much is too much information about your baby?

The age difference between my first and third son is six years, but that time span may as well be decades when it comes to technology. When pregnant with my first son, ultrasounds were available, but not necessarily standard. By the time my third son was born, 3D ultrasounds were just becoming the rage. Now they’re the standard.

Thanks to technology, we can learn more than the sex of our babies before they are born. We can run tests for almost anything and I have a friend who’s baby had heart surgery – in utero. (I know! It was unbelievable to go through that with her.) With many women being older as they have their first child, technology plays a key role in these high-risk pregnancies. Technology is definitely changing what we know while pregnant and is a useful, valuable tool to ensure the health and safety of moms and babies.

What does the future hold?

This makes me wonder what information will be available 10 or 20 years from now? My mom couldn’t believe when she saw a photo of my third son as he sucked his thumb while still in my womb. A 3D ultra-sound photo of my future-niece was passed around the Thanksgiving table while we all “saw” her for the first time. Will I be able to skype with my first grandchild before they are even born? Will I be able to virtually tickle their feet or pat them on the head? I’m sure by the time I’m going to be a grandmother, a 3D ultra-sound will be as outdated as a typewriter is to a computer.

Have you ever used baby morphing (or face-morphing) technology? Numerous sites claim you can know what your baby will look like if you upload a photo of you and your partner and allow the technology to mix your features together. Someday will we be able to take a 3D ultrasound photo and use age-advancement and photo-morphing technology to see what your child will look like at six, eight, or sixteen – all before you even hold that baby in your arms? We might be closer than we think.

Is technology always a good thing?

I’m not so sure I will want this information, to tell you the truth. Of course, if the health of the mother or child is an issue (as with my friend who underwent heart surgery) knowledge is power and technology should be used. But when it’s just because we can’t stand to wait, I’m not sure it’s as important. Just because we can know, doesn’t always mean that we should.

We didn’t find out the sex for our first two boys and people couldn’t believe we could stand to wait. I’ll never forget the surprise of meeting my sons for the first time and hearing, “It’s a boy!” in the delivery room. We would’ve kept the sex of our third son a secret if we hadn’t been moving and wanted to know if we should bother to move all the boy clothes from one house to another. Turns out, we moved all the clothes because we had boy number three on the way.

As a result of knowing the sex of my third child, I felt different about my pregnancy. I called my “bump” “he” and “him.” On the day of the delivery we didn’t have two names ready, we only had one. And when he was born I felt elated to meet him, but I already felt like I knew him, in a way I hadn’t known his brothers before him. It wasn’t good or bad, it was just…different. Our relationship as mother and son had already begun while he grew inside me.

How much did you find out during your pregnancy? How much do you think we will know in the future and do you think it will be too much?

When Eileen isn’t playing “What Will My Baby Look Like?” with her favorite celebrities, she’s working as the Chief Mom Connector of Mom Central. You can read about other games she likes to play on her personal blog at calandroclan.com and connect with her on twitter at @MomCentralChat and @calandro5.