REMEMBER TO REMEMBER

I briefly talked about baby Kaiser's kidney's on Instagram but wanted to document it here to remember all the details and kind of document everything we went through. I was so excited the day that we went in for our 20 week anatomy scan at Valley OB with the midwives. I was also terrified. I knew the seriousness behind the scan and it was something I couldn't help but worry about. Well we finally made it to the appointment and the ultra sound tech began the scan. It's always so fun to see your baby on the screen. It's weird because even though your baby is growing inside of you she seems so far away sometimes. She was kicking and swallowing and had her legs above her head. The tech began going over every single little part of baby Kaiser, and confirmed she was a girl not only once, but 3 times. Haha. Good thing because we had most of her nursery picked out already! 

Anywho, she went over her brain, looked perfect. Her heart, her lungs, her stomach, and then her kidney's. But she was quiet when she got to her kidneys. She didn't say much. The other organs she'd say something along the lines of, "Looks good," or "Looks perfect," etc, etc. I immediately got concerned. I was actually freaking out inside but trying to remain calm. She continued on the with the scan and kept going back to her kidneys, zooming, measuring. Then would move on, go back to her kidneys, zoom, measure. I knew something wasn't right. After she finished the scan she said in the most casual way, "Well it looks like her kidneys are dilated. I'm going to grab the doctor and have him take a look at them." Closes the door. Like WHAT THE HELL. Does that even mean lady! So many emotions flooded over me at that moment. Was she going to be a hospital baby? Would her kidneys ever work normal? Was does dilated kidneys even mean? Why is this happening. 

The doctor came in and had a calm and peaceful demeanor. He said, well your baby looks beautiful, but it does look like her kidneys are slightly dilated. (still freaking out because I have no idea WTF that means). We like for kidneys to be under 4cm and your babies are about 6cm. We are going to need to send you to our specialist next door here in the next few weeks and they will do another anatomy scan and make sure that we didn't miss anything and confirm everything else looks good. My heart was broken. I know that sounds so silly but all you want to hear on that scan is, well looks like your baby is perfect! And don't get me wrong, she'd be absolutely perfect no matter what and we would love her unconditionally no matter what but it just wasn't something I was expecting going into that appointment. We scheduled our follow up specialist appointment for about 3 weeks out from that day and the waiting game began. 

I'm not going to lie that was the longest 3 weeks of my life. I had good days and bad days. They had explained to us that with kidney problems in babies that it can be an indicator of a chromosomal problems but they can't confirm that through an ultra sound. They encouraged getting genetic testing done. Adam and I decided that we didn't want to get genetic testing done because it didn't really matter to us. We would love baby Kaiser no matter what and that was just something that didn't matter to us. 

Well the 3 weeks finally came and we were headed to our first specialist appointment. We had a tech come in and do another scan. She didn't say anything the entire time. Other than baby had a super cute little profile and she was in a funny position. She said that the doctor would come in, review everything and let us know. (longest ultra sound of my life) Even though it was so fun to see baby again. The doctor finally came in and said that our baby looked absolutely perfect but her kidneys were still dilated. I was sad leaving that appointment. I finally asked her all the questions I was dying to know the answers to. Which were these - for any other mama's going through the same thing: 

Q: What does dilated kidneys even mean? 

A: Basically it is when fluid from her bladder is being flushed back into the kidneys. Because the pressure of the bladder and kidneys can be different than the pressure in the amniotic sack it can cause a reflux of urine to the kidneys. 

Q: Compared to other similar cases - how sever is our baby's? 

A: Your baby's is only slightly dilated. It could be mush worse. (This was a huge relief to us. The first positive thing we felt like was coming out of this situation)

Q: Is this something you typically see resolve itself? 

A: Yes - in a lot of cases we see this resolve itself, in about 3% of cases the kidney's do worsen. 

Q: What is the worst case scenario if her kidney's do worse? 

A: She will need to get a follow up ultra sound right after she's born and that will tell us whether or not she needs to be operated on. If she does need to be operated on, it would be a very small non-invasive operation. (this was a HUGE relief - I felt so much closure knowing she was going to be okay no matter what!) 

I'm glad that we had all these questions prepared before the ultra sound because your mind kind of goes blank and starts spinning when you run into a little bump in the road. It was also so nice to know that her kidneys were functioning and looked healthy they were just filled with some excess fluid. When I first found out about them - I just was filled with thoughts about having to have a hospital baby, constantly being monitored, kidney surgeries, replacements, etc. I mean, it's only natural to think of the absolute worst case scenario right? 

We left the appointment with quite a bit more hope and were instructed to come back at 32 weeks and see how baby was doing. So we scheduled that appointment and the waiting game began. Like before, I had good days and bad days. I tried to remain as confident and positive as I could but I'm not going to try and pretend there weren't days that I thought of all the worse case scenarios. It's so weird how you just instinctively become so protective and worried about this tiny little human growing inside of you. You only want the best for them and want them to be as healthy as possible. 

Well 32 weeks came up real fast (last week for us) and we walked into the appointment. By this time I was confident that baby Kaiser's kidney's did what they needed to do and were going to be perfect. Sure enough, we received the wonderful news that her kidneys looks absolutely beautiful and had gone back down to the size that they wanted them to be to begin with. It was a huge relief and the doctor was so supportive and kind! Baby was measuring perfect too and was 4 lbs. 2 oz. which was actually measuring a teeney bit big for her gestational age which is great! Maybe she'll come a little early ;) We'll see! Or maybe she'll be huge, haha either way, we're real excited to meet her. 

I just wanted to put this out there because at the time I felt so alone and wondered if anyone else had gone through this same thing. Luckily, my good friend said that her son had the same thing happen and everything ended up being fine and that kept us feeling positive. But had I had some other support or someone to talk to I would have felt so much better! Maybe this can help some other mama out there feel hopeful and know that this is actually quite common among developing babies! 

Another word of advise is to remain positive - practice positive affirmations and stay off the internet! The worst thing you can do is start looking up google forums, wikipedia and everything else like that. 

Well, that's all for now kids. Haha. Like I said earlier, I've kind of documented everything throughout this pregnancy here and this is just another part of my pregnancy journal.