First Look
The very first hello. We find her heartbeat, count how many are in there, and then let you simply sit with the sound for as long as you like. For so many women, this is the appointment where they finally exhale.
Las Cruces, New Mexico
The first time you hear her,
everything softens.
Elective 3D, 4D and HDlive ultrasound in a room that feels like a living room rather than a laboratory. Low lights, a soft sofa, no clock where you can see it, and all the time in the world to sit with the sound of your baby’s heart.
RDMS registered sonographer
GE Voluson E10 with HDlive
11,400 mothers since 2011
152 BPM
Her heart, right now
14
Years behind the probe
11,400
Mothers since 2011
4.9
From 612 reviews
5
Babies of my own
Welcome, sweet mama
You are not a chart number here.
So many women meet their baby for the first time in a dim little room with paper on the table and someone’s clock ticking behind them. Ten minutes, a curled printout, and back out to the parking lot, trying to explain to your mother what you just saw.
Baby Beats was made to be the gentle opposite of that. There is a sofa that seats six, so your mother-in-law and your three-year-old both get to come. There is a big screen on the wall so nobody has to lean in and squint. There is no clock anywhere in your line of sight.
And when she turns her face away — because she will, they always do — we bring you something cold and sweet, walk you slowly down the hall, and simply try again. That is not an extra. That is just how we do things.
- Bring as many people as your heart would like. Little ones are truly welcome.
- Every image and clip is on your phone before you reach the car.
- Same-week appointments most weeks, and Thursday evenings until eight.
- 15% off everything, always, for our military families.
Our sessions
A session for every part of the waiting
From the eight-week heartbeat that finally lets you breathe, to the thirty-week portrait that lives on your mother’s refrigerator for a decade.
Reassurance Peek
For the quiet weeks in between, when the next appointment feels very far away. Her heartbeat, her movement, a first little profile. Come as often as your heart needs to. We will never ask you to explain why.
Pink or Blue?
No blood draw, no waiting on a laboratory, no envelope from a stranger. We find the answer on the screen while you watch — or, if you would rather not know yet, we seal it away and hand it to whoever is baking the cake.
Hello, Soon!
Our 3D, 4D and HDlive portrait session — the one where you see her little nose, and somebody in the room whispers “that is your chin,” and somebody else starts quietly crying. A full half hour, never rushed.
The Reveal Studio
The whole room, for a whole hour, with everyone you love inside it. Powder cannons, a balloon box, a backdrop already styled and waiting, and a second camera on everybody’s faces. You bring the people; we make sure nobody spoils it.
The Homecoming
For the parent who is far from home. A private, gentle video link so he is in the room with you, on his clock rather than ours. If the only window in his day is half past four in the morning, that is when I will open the door.
How a visit goes
Four gentle steps, and none of them are stressful
Tell me where you are
Send a note or call. Tell me roughly how far along you are — a guess is perfectly fine — and when you tend to be free. I answer within a business day, always.
We choose the loveliest week
Timing is most of the beauty. I will tell you honestly if waiting another ten days would give you a far sweeter picture, even though it means you come to me later.
Bring everyone you love
Arrive a few minutes early, get comfortable, put your feet up. Warm gel, low lights, a big screen, and whatever music you would like playing.
Take all of it home
Your images and clips arrive on your phone before you reach the car. Prints and keepsakes are waiting at the counter on your way out.
What we scan with
A soft room, and very serious equipment.
A gentle room does not have to mean gentle standards. The studio runs a GE Voluson E10 with HDlive Studio — the very same platform used in maternal-fetal medicine practices — alongside a Samsung HERA W10 in our second suite, which genuinely helps with twins and with an anterior placenta.
- HDlive with a movable light source. I relight her little face while you watch, which is the difference between a grey plaster mask and a real shadow beneath her nose.
- Radiance System Architecture for a wider dynamic range — what actually separates her cheek from the placenta lying behind it.
- Curved 2–8 MHz and matrix 4D probes, harmonic imaging and speckle reduction, tuned to you rather than left on a factory preset.
- 4K capture straight from the machine to your private gallery. Never a phone pointed at a monitor.
- Every study quietly over-read by a board-certified Maternal-Fetal Medicine physician within 72 hours.
Keeping her safe is the whole job
I hold to the ALARA principle — as low as reasonably achievable. Thermal and mechanical indices stay visible on my screen for the entire session, thermal index stays below 0.7, and Doppler is used sparingly and never over her brain or heart in the first trimester. I limit how long I linger anywhere, and I log total exposure time every visit. I would always rather finish early than press for one more picture.
Our promises to you
Six things you will never have to argue about
Every one of these is written on the wall beside the front desk, so you can simply point at it if we ever forget.
The See-Your-Baby Promise
If she is face-down, curled up, or simply not in the mood, we bring you back at no charge and try again. As many times as it takes. In fourteen years I have never once sent a mother home for good.
A heartbeat, or it is free
On any First Look session, if we cannot show you her heartbeat, you do not pay. Not a deposit, not a part of it. Nothing at all.
Every image is yours
All of them, at full resolution, with no watermark and no per-print menu. Your gallery link never expires, and if you lose it in nine years I will find it and send it again.
The price you were told
The number you are quoted is the number you pay. We do not charge by the minute, we do not charge for guests, and nobody who works here earns commission on anything.
Military families come first
15% off everything, always. If orders move your date, your date moves with them — no fee, no conversation, and we will happily open on a Sunday if that is the last day you have before you go.
Honest about what this is
This is an elective keepsake session, for bonding and for joy — never a diagnostic exam. And if I ever see something that belongs in front of your own provider, I will tell you gently, privately, and help you get there.
From our mamas
What women say afterwards
My husband was in Qatar. Marta scanned me at five in the morning so he could be on the screen, and then she stayed on the call afterwards while he cried and I cried and neither of us could say a word. I will never be able to repay that.
Our girl had her arm over her face the entire time. Marta brought us back twice, never once charged us a penny more, and that third set of pictures is framed in three houses now.
After two losses I could not breathe in a waiting room anymore. I asked for the earliest heartbeat scan they had. She turned the screen towards me, put the sound on, and just let me sit there for twenty minutes. She never rushed me once.
& Boutique
The little shop on your way out
Half of this place is a scanning suite. The other half is the room you walk through to reach it — heartbeat bears, chunky knit blankets, swaddles, sibling tees, tiny bonnets with ears, and keepsake frames already waiting for the picture you are about to take. Everything is in-store only, priced the way small-town shops used to be.
A note from the woman holding the probe
I have five children. I have also been an Air Force wife for most of my adult life, which means I have been the woman at her twenty-week appointment alone, holding a phone up over her belly so that a man in a tent could see a screen he could not really see.
I opened Baby Beats because I did not believe it had to be that way. Not the rushing. Not the eleven-minute slot. Not the little printout going soft in your purse.
You only get one pregnancy at a time, and only a small handful of them in a whole life. So come in, bring your mother, bring the toddler who will absolutely touch everything. I will keep the lights low and take as long as it takes.
Marta Gibbs
RDMS · Founder · Mama of five
Shall we go and meet her?
Tell me roughly how far along you are and when you are free. I read every message myself, and I answer within one business day.