Pro-life Resources

Personalizing the Unborn

First 9 Months: Bringing an Unborn Child's Story to the Internet

By Liz Townsend

First 9 Months combines a family's celebration of a precious new baby with powerful images of an unborn child's development. The web site, at www.pregnancy calendar.com/first9months/, shows the potential of the Internet to bring the pro-life message of the humanity of the unborn to a vast worldwide audience.

Joseph Moore, a professional web site designer in Nashville, Tennessee, developed the site for his daughter Emma Katherine, telling her story from conception until her birth on January 13, 1999. Moore includes classic photographs taken of babies in utero with pictures from Emma's ultrasound, music, and text.

"It started out as an online newsletter for our friends and family around the country," Moore told NRL News. "When I found out my wife was pregnant, I was devouring information about the baby's development. I posted the information on the Internet little bit by little bit over the nine months of the pregnancy."

Moore said that the site is a "really honest and personal account" of his and Deanna's experiences during the pregnancy, including complications that arose during the pregnancy and Emma's safe but early delivery. Emma is now a healthy soon-to-be one-year-old, Moore said, "walking and trying to talk."

Moore begins Emma's story with the news from his wife Deanna that she was pregnant. Deanna showed him a "white plastic stick with some cryptic dashes on it. 'Does this mean what I think it means?' 'Yes, silly, we're going to have a baby.'" Moore writes that he became "fascinated with the still undetectable development of our creation," and the text and photos that follow offer "a peek into the world inside the womb."

The baby's development is shown from day 0, with the very first cell division that began Emma's journey towards birth. Each major milestone is discussed and illustrated, from implantation in the uterus, through the embryonic stage where the cells begin to differentiate, through the second month, when "our baby develops every organ & structure needed by a full adult," Moore writes. "From now on nothing new develops - - existing organs simply increase in size and functionality."

After this, each month shows the baby continuing to grow and make her presence known to her parents. Moore writes of Deanna's morning sickness, which caused her to be hospitalized because of dehydration, and the remarkable feeling when she can feel the baby moving inside her. Discovering through ultrasound that the baby is a girl, the Moores decide to name her Emma, which they discover means "full of energy." Joseph Moore writes that Deanna "would argue that it means future kickboxing champion."

Still pictures from Emma's first video, her ultrasound at 18 weeks, show her tiny little feet, a side view of Emma sucking her thumb, her perfect face staring straight at the ultrasound wand, and even her heart beating steady and strong.

By the eighth month Emma responds to stimulus from outside her mother's womb, letting Deanna know when she wants a change in position and even making her opinion known when Deanna eats certain foods. "Both women in my life regularly demand Baskin Robbins," Moore writes.

When Deanna's blood pressure was found to be high, her doctor decided to induce Emma's delivery a week early. Emma was born at 1:47 p.m. January 13, weighing a healthy seven pounds, 13 ounces.

The remarkable photographs used in the site illustrate each milestone with amazing detail. From the tiny arm buds of the four-week-old unborn baby to the sweet sleeping face of the eight-month-old, these pictures show undeniably human beings, waiting only for time to help them develop the lung power and immune system needed to survive in the world.

Other than the family photos, these images are all in the public domain, Moore explained. "Most are medical photographs that were available for reproduction on the web site," he said.

The site became very popular quickly, with over three million visitors in a short time. It is now hosted by iVillage.com, a large Internet network geared toward women.

Moore said that he hopes First 9 Months will remain on iVillage permanently. "My next project is finding volunteers to translate the text into other languages," he said. "That's one of the biggest requests we get."

First 9 Months beautifully illustrates the core of the pro-life movement: that unborn children are human beings and their residence in their mothers' wombs is a precious and beautiful time that needs to be protected, not violated. "Since this is a personal account, our pro-life values do come through," according to Moore, "but the site wasn't meant for advocacy. It was a labor of love."