She's Got a Skull!

We had our follow-up ultrasound at Barnes Hospital last Thursday. They found that the baby's kidney ducts are still a little enlarged - right now they are one millimeter bigger than they should be. They still say that most of the time this turns out to be "within normal variation" which means that she is just a baby who happens to have slightly larger ducts, and it's not a problem. Sometimes, though, it might mean that there is some slight blockage in the ducts. If that's the case, they will have us give her antibiotics after birth to prevent an infection, and they will just keep an eye on her for a while. In the worst scenario, they might have to perform minor surgery to remove the blockage in the ducts. We are having another ultrasound in October where they will check the kidney system again to see if it's still an issue. It's most likely not a problem, and if it is, it's a minor problem.

While we were there, a med student asked us to participate in a study she is conducting, and we agreed. She was looking for women having normal pregnancies to act as controls in a study using 3D ultrasound to diagnose intrauterine growth retardation. What that meant is that we had a 3D ultrasound where they spent fifteen minutes examining my placenta for their study, then gave us a couple of 3D shots of the baby's face. Since the baby is still pretty young (while we were there, they told us she only weighs 1 lb, 1 oz right now), the pictures come out pretty skeletal. She doesn't have a lot of fat right now, so the 3D scans capture bone at this stage. We are going back for a follow-up to the study at 28 weeks, and those pictures should look more baby-like and less skeleton-like. But we were happy to see she has a fine skeleton!!

These are the pictures of our little Skeletor:



Can you see the resemblance?





I like the second one best because she's at least a smiling skeleton!

We are also happy to report that we successfully acquired this used crib and changing table through a local St. Louis "for sale" email list I'm on:



The crib is the kind that converts into a toddler bed, then you can use it as a headboard for a full-size bed, or use it as a daybed or loveseat. Now we just need to find the time to move the stuff out of the room that's going to be the nursey!