He's played a fighter pilot, sports agent and samurai onscreen—but is Tom Cruise now preparing to imitate an obstetrician in real life? In an interview taped Oct. 30 with Barbara Walters for her upcoming special Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2005, which airs Nov. 29 on ABC, Cruise revealed his latest purchase for his expectant fiancée Katie Holmes. "I bought a sonogram machine," Cruise told Walters. "I am gonna donate it to a hospital when we are done." Added Walters: "Wait, you are going to do your own sonogram?" "Yes," said Cruise, laughing.

The devices, which use ultrasound waves to allow a peek at a fetus's development, can cost anywhere from $15,000 to over $200,000. (Cruise's rep declined to comment on the purchase.) So does Tom know if their camera-ready kid is a boy or a girl? "No, I don't," he said. "Barbara, I would tell you. I would say, I know if it's a boy or a girl and I'm not telling you.' " Walters asked, "So what do you see?" Said Cruise: "A little baby."

It's wait and see for wedding plans too, according to Cruise. "We are gonna get married next summer or early fall," he told Walters. "We don't have a date set yet." Walters volunteered to catch the bouquet. But before Babs can dive for the flowers, Cruise has work to do. He and Holmes recently left for Shanghai, where he'll spend a couple of weeks on location to film scenes for Mission: Impossible 3, due out next May.

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IS IT SAFE? Sonograms pose little to no risk, doctors say, if a trained technician is wielding the wand. But an unsupervised layperson could turn the ultrasound waves up dangerously high, says Yale ob-gyn professor Dr. Joshua A. Copel. (Cruise hasn't said if he has medical staff helping.) Undergoing multiple sonograms is "fine," adds UCLA ob-gyn prof Alan DeCherney, but bottom line: "It's a medical procedure."