Some of us may be familiar with a picture called “The Baby Hand,” taken on Aug. 19, 1999, by photojournalist Michael Clancy for USA Today, which first published the picture. Clancy was assigned to document a spina bifida operation performed in utero on a 21-week unborn baby named Samuel Armas by Dr. Joseph Bruner, a surgeon at Nashville’s Vanderbuilt University Medical Center.

Samuel was born on Dec. 2, 1999, weighing 5 pounds 11 ounces–four weeks premature. By all indications, he appeared healthy. Today, he’s a “chattering, brown-eyed 3½-year-old.”

The picture and its story have been circulated on the internet so often that some question whether they are authentic. They are.

Clancy describes the famous picture this way: “Samuel thrusts his tiny hand out of the surgical opening of his mother’s uterus. As the doctor lifts his hand, Samuel reacts to the touch and squeezes the doctor’s finger. As if testing for strength, the doctor shakes the tiny fist. Samuel held firm. At that moment, I took this ‘Fetal Hand Grasp’ photo.”