Embroidered ultrasound image allows blind dad to ‘see’ his baby

First-time dad-to-be Nathan Edge wanted to feel happy about his girlfriend’s first ultrasound in November. As expected, everything went just fine at the appointment, and Edge and his girlfriend, Emma Fotheringham, walked away with a new ultrasound photo of the baby to share with their family and friends in the U.K., where they live.

That’s when a touch of sadness crept into his heart.

“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.’”

Edge tweeted a photo of the scan, not realizing that a friend was plotting a way to let him see the scan through touch.

Mutual friend Deb Fisher reached out to Fotheringham with an idea.

“She said she was so happy for us both but sad that Nathan was unable to see our baby grow on our scan photos,” Fotheringham told Metro UK. “She 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.”

The image required different thicknesses of thread and multiple layers to create a tactile, three-dimensional image that Edge, who has been visually impaired since he was 6 and lost his vision completely at 18, would be able to feel. It took Fisher a few weeks to complete it, and Fotheringham kept it secret until she could give it to him as an early Christmas present.

Edge tweeted a photo of the embroidered image, writing, “for the first time as a blind dad to be, I’m able to build a picture of our baby scan through touch”:

“I was shocked,” Edge told ITV. “I didn’t think anything like that was possible, let alone it coming from a friend who just had the idea. First of all, that shock, that amazement, that actually now, just like everybody else, I’m included in this special part of the journey.”

As with all pregnancies, time is moving pretty quickly, and the couple recently shared their 20-week ultrasound scan.

And, yes, Fisher is already hard at work on the next embroidery project.

We wish the couple all the best in 2021 with their new addition to the family!