This afternoon we're off for an ultrasound of Ubul. This will allow the doctor to tell us the baby has two arms, two legs, two eyes and that everything is where it should be. In Hong Kong the norm is for people to be told the sex of their child. We are traditionalists - we will find out when Ubul decides it's time to join us. But these ultrasounds are great, they allow you to know that your baby is healthy and your doctor's Ferrari repayments will be met. You go into a darkened room, where a machine sits humming quietly. The doc applies a gel and proceeds to poke around to try and find the baby. Eventually the screen turns from one shade of static to another and the doc exclaims "there it is!" He proceeds to tell you that he can see fingers, there's the head, oh look, it's sucking its thumb. It is polite in these circumstances to go along with the doctor, even though you've got no idea if he's telling the truth. Indeed it may well be a replay of the static from the video player you can't quite tune. You'll never know the difference.

In Hong Kong you have an ultrasound every time you visit the doctor. Now I'm vaguely aware of the science of ultrasound: it sends a ping and looks at the echo. But surely sending this many pings is going over the top? I don't want my baby saying "ping, ping, ping" every 30 seconds like on those submarine movies. In Australia for both JC and PB we had a couple of scans and that was it. From what I recall in history classes many generations have been born without constant ultrasounds. So methinks this is a scam to make these machines really pay their way. Looking at them they can't be cheap. They've got so many buttons and dials. They can print pictures or even record the ultrasound on videotape. Although like wedding photos, no-one is going to look at that video once it has been made. Unless they're trying to tune the VCR.

So these machines can print out photos of static and maybe your baby. The really advanced (read the extortionately expensive) ones can now give you a 3 dimensional image of the baby. This is not good. There is a reason why babies stay inside a womb for 9 months. Because they don't look human for most of the time. The stages are: tiny pin-prick; amoeba; little tadpole; bigger tadpole; alien; alien sucking thumb; fish; frog and finally baby. These are not meant to be seen. However that's not the worst part. People ask for these 3-D prints so they can put them on their fridge. I can think of no better diet technique than putting a half-formed 3-D image of a foetus on a fridge door. And when guests come you just know they're not going to raid the fridge that's got that on the door. Best thing to do is to make sure the guests know it's there by showing them as soon as they walk in. That way they won't want to eat anything, and you can just scatter a few stale biscuits instead safe in the knowledge that soon your guests will make their excuses and leave.

So we'll be asking for the 3-D print today. Anyone want to come to our place?