It was better news today considering what we had been told earlier this week. The scan shows that the kidneys have no new cysts on them, they still appear to be working, and most importantly they haven’t squished up against the lungs preventing them from developing properly. Given that the lungs are pretty much fully formed this means that sprog 2′s first week survival chances are greatly improved. The kidneys are still on the large size causing his belly to be in the 95th percentile size-wise but this is again an improvement and should the next couple of scans be in line with this one then he could be delivered normally and not by c-sect as we had previously planned.

So, check out this piccy:

I’ve drawn a couple of red arrows at what I believe are the cysts… they show up as dark spots on the kidneys where dark spots shouldn’t be. Other than the dodgy kidneys though, everything else is on track for the end of May. Here are the rest of the images we were given today:

Some of you may already be aware of this, some not.. but there is a bit of a complication with sprog #2. I’m not a medical buff so will try and explain this as I understand it, so this post may end up with a few edits once Helena and Diarra have read it! During the 20 week scan the ultra-sound-scan-ologist lady noticed sprog #2 (now known as ‘Kidney’)'s kidneys were brighter than they should have been. So we were referred to a special unit at the University Hospital in Cardiff who have been doing 4-weekly scans to keep their eye on things. At the last scan almost 4 weeks ago they discovered cysts on Kidney’s kidneys, and that his kidneys were enlarged as a consequence. Today we went to visit the kidney specialist at the hospital who explained some of the finer details. Basically they can’t tell for sure what the exact problem is or the extent of his issues until he is born – when they’ll keep an eye on his blood pressure and regularly scan him…. but the most likely candidate for his troubles is a form of polycystic kidney disease. The initial concern once he has popped out will be with his lungs – the kidneys are enlarged and could squish up his lungs a bit causing breathing issues. Should that not be a problem then the next concern will be kidney failure and dialysis so he’ll have a close eye kept on him. Bloody typical Shingler boy causing problems as usual!

Another scan of baby #2. This time some good images of his face.

Yes, sprog #2 is going to be a boy. We found out earlier at the 20 week scan and it was a good job really that we wanted to know cuz the ultrasound lady slipped up a bit by saying ‘he’ a lot, then backtracking saying “ooh I always call the baby a he when I scan, did you want to know the sex?”. Anyway, we have four photos.. all looking slightly similar!