Seeing her unborn son was reassuring and exciting, she said. "When you're pregnant, you conjure up all these things that could go wrong." She adds, "When you see all the fingers and toes, it does calm your nerves."

Not to mention seeing her son smile in the womb, which was a great experience.

Now Roberson and her husband, Cam, have opened their own business to help other couples experience the wonder of seeing their baby before birth.

3DBabyVu uses the technology developed by General Electric to capture 2-D images like a regular ultrasound and instantaneously reconstruct the images as 3-D and live motion pictures that are transferred to film, video and DVD.

Registered diagnostic medical sonographers perform the ultrasound and determine the baby's weight, due date, heart rate, position in the womb and sex.

Roberson said they do require all clients to obtain a diagnostical ultrasound from their physician beforehand, but the company does have a radiologist on staff who reviews the reports.

"[3-D ultrasounds] are more for entertainment purposes," Roberson said. "Every now and then we watch them with their eyes open."

The 3-D ultrasounds also provide limited diagnostic information.

Roberson adds that locating the business in a house rather than in a hospital and allowing women to bring anyone they want to bring with them to watch are some of the benefits of being outside the clinical environment.

"The more people, the more fun it is," she said, adding that one woman brought 14 family members. "We want people to be comfortable."

With 2-D images, Roberson said parents often don't see what the technician points out.

"With 2-D, the sex can be nebulous," Cam Roberson said. "With 3-D, there's no doubt."

Willow Glen resident Jon Clark watched his wife Heather's 3-D ultrasound of their fraternal twins at 31 weeks into her pregnancy.

"I'm overwhelmed and speechless," he said. "It was neat to see how they looked like us. This is just one more piece of the puzzle that said I'm going to be a dad."

For 39-year-old Willow Glen resident Leticia Alvarez-Cowan, the 3-D ultrasound had "double benefits."

"You get to look at your beautiful baby, and it does augment the medical information," she said.

Because of her age, she has had frequent ultrasounds at the UC-San Francisco medical center to check for birth defects, but she didn't know the baby's sex for certain.

When she had a sonogram at 3DBabyVu, it confirmed she was having a girl.

Her husband, Greg Smestad, said he found it entertaining when he saw the expression on the baby's face change in response to him as he spoke to her during the sonogram. As a scientist, he said he was also impressed with technology that could determine the due date and measure the baby's bones.

Alvarez-Cowan said she was "mesmerized, trying to figure out who [her child] looks like."

Willow Glen resident Maile Figone said she liked being able to share the pregnancy experience with her husband and 8-year-old son.

"My son asked a lot of questions, and the technician was very well-informed," she said.

For more information, call 408.445. BABY or visit http://www.3DbabyVu.com. The office is located at 1912 Lincoln Ave.