A dad-to-be in the U.K. just received a pretty amazing gift: an ultrasound scan of his baby that he’s able to experience, as a blind man.
Nathan Edge and his partner Emma Fotheringham, who live in Mansfield, England, are expecting a baby in May. They recently had their standard 12-week ultrasound scan.
“When we got home, we shared the scans with our family, and everybody was getting excited about seeing the baby for the first time,” Edge, 26, told Today. “Being blind rarely ever gets me down — I’ve come to terms with it very well — but suddenly it hit me, ‘I’ll never be able to see this scan.’”
So Fotheringham, also 26, got to work. She recruited a friend of theirs, Deb Fisher, who Edge first met at an event for a guide dog charity, to embroider a tactile version of the baby scan. The goal was for the new dad to be able to experience it through touch.
Fisher “said she had never embroidered before but would love to try and embroider all of our scans for Nathan to enable us to experience the joy of our baby boy growing together,” Fotheringham told People. “I couldn’t believe someone could be so kind and thoughtful and knew it would be something very special for Nathan.”
Edge called the gesture “incredible.”
“For the first time, as a blind dad-to-be, I’m able to build a picture of our baby scan through touch,” he wrote on Twitter. “Can’t describe how amazing this is.”
Before receiving the embroidery, Edge had tried to imagine his baby based on the descriptions he heard from other people, he told Today. This was much better.
“Now I’m able to build a proper picture of my baby. It’s just amazing. I could have gone my whole life never knowing what that scan looked like.”
It took Fisher a few weeks to complete the piece. Her process involved contacting a midwife to find out which parts of the scan were the most significant.
“There was lots of stitching and unstitching,” she told People.
Fotheringham had trouble keeping the gift a secret from her partner, she said, in a YouTube video the couple uploaded.
“Somehow you ended up being in on this for weeks without telling me,” Edge said. “I don’t know how you managed that.”
“I very nearly did,” she replied.
The sweet responses they’ve received on social media have been very welcome, the couple told People.
“It has made a lot of people smile,” Edge said. “Especially after the year we have all had, it’s nice.”