Does your Unborn baby have your lips or dad’s nose? Incredible new technology shows you before baby is born!

Seeing your baby for the first time is a magical experience like nothing else. With today’s technology, expectant moms and dads now have the ability to see their little bundle of joy up close and personal before the actual delivery (and not just with the standard black and white ultrasounds that can sometimes be hard to make sense of).

You’ve probably seen the commercials with the crisp images of adorable cherubic baby faces peering at you in advertisements for 3D/4D ultrasounds, so I wanted to see if they were really worth the cost and if the pictures are really that good.

I chose an elective 3D/4D sonogram at InSight Imaging (located in Monroeville, Pa.) and Henry Clark was the attending RDSM, (Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographer) and she is also the owner with over 10 years of experience in Obstetrics.

Insight Imaging has been in business for over four years and has performed over 5,000 sonograms. If you aren’t familiar with the difference between 3D and 4D, 4D is shorthand for "four-dimensional:" The fourth dimension being time. As far as ultrasound is concerned, 4D Ultrasound is the latest ultrasound technology and takes three-dimensional ultrasound images and adds the element of time to the process.

The result: Live action images of your unborn child or of any internal anatomy.

The imaging room was spacious and was painted in warm, soothing colors, and I instantly felt relaxed. I went with my husband, but the room is large enough to accommodate a whole group of people, so moms and dads are encouraged to bring other children, grandparents, friends, etc.

We had made the decision to not find out the gender, so Henry focused on the upper portion of the baby’s body while doing the ultrasound but being that the images are so clear and unmistakable you could probably know without a doubt the gender of your baby if you so desired.

I was amazed at how detailed the ultrasound was and how well we could make out the features of our baby. We could see the eyes, nose, lips, etc. in extreme detail, and it was truly an emotional experience.

You could see baby wink, smile, yawn, etc. Our baby was more interested in stretching and “eating” his/her hands and feet during the ultrasound, so the photos weren’t as clear as they could have been, because the baby was pressed up against me, making it a little more challenging for Henry to snap the clearest images possible, but we were still very impressed.

She spent over 30 minutes with us, and it is a completely different experience from the standard diagnostic ultrasound new moms get earlier in their pregnancies. I had this done at 29 weeks, and they recommend doing the 4D ultrasound anytime after 26 weeks with the ideal time being between the 27th and 34th week of pregnancy.

Insight Imaging requires that you have already had a diagnostic ultrasound through your doctor’s office before they will perform their services, as this ultrasound will have checked for the fetal anomalies or other pregnancy related issues.

The cost for the 3D/4D ultrasound session run from $225-$275, but they are having a special right now from $189-$225, and I thought this cost was reasonable.

Insurance doesn’t cover this type of service since it’s not “medically necessary."

We received a DVD of the session, a handful of color and black and white prints of the baby, a photo CD of all the images snapped during the session (making it super easy to email to friends and family) and a fun “mommy bag” filled with product samples, coupons, discounts, etc.

In the waiting room there were photo albums of baby ultrasound photos side by side with photos after they were born and the ultrasound photos were right on! The features looked exactly the same, and it was incredible to see how amazingly clear and spot on the ultrasound really was.

I’m so excited to meet our new baby, and I really felt like this was a unique bonding experience to help us connect with our little one before he/she officially arrives into the world.

For more information visit Insight4Imaging.com.

-- Written by 412 Mom Kim Connolly