Well, Sarah was back to school today - welcome for all of us, I think. She enjoys school (as my mother says, at some point they lose that - or at least have to pretend they don't like it, so it's nice while it lasts), so that's good. We had our first trampoline class on Tuesday, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Strangely (or perhaps it's not strange) most of the kids in the class are boys - the one other girl is also called Sarah. Still, the important thing is that she had fun, so that's good. She's still not a big joiner, so it's clear that she really likes trampoline, as she's willing to put up with the fact that there are other people she doesn't know there. Olivia's first "Tots Tap & Ballet" class was today - I didn't stay to watch past the first 5 minutes or so, so I'm not sure what they did, but the bit I did see was very cute - they all held hands and went around in a circle for a while, then did some jumping & clapping. I'm sure it's all very basic, but they are really sweet to watch. Most of the girls had some type of ballet costume on, so I suppose I'll have to let Olivia wear her dressing up costume next week. If she stays interested, perhaps we'll buy her a leotard and tutu or something for Christmas.

Busy week last week, though I'm not entirely sure what all we ended up doing that kept us so busy - doesn't matter, of course, as long as the tempers don't get too bad, and we've escaped that reasonably well. I hope it keeps up as I had a call from the school this morning to say that there are problems with the boiler in the wing of the school where Sarah's classroom is, so the little ones (nursery and reception) won't be going back to school until Thursday (instead of tomorrow). So, two more days to fill, yippee... At least the other activities all start up again this week, like Olivia's playgroup and my yoga class. Sarah's new after school activity - trampolining - will start tomorrow, and Olivia's new activity - Tots Tap & Ballet - starts Thursday, so there are some treats for them, which should help keep them sweet. I can't wait to see the ballet class - it's 2.5 to 4 yr olds, so should be unbelievably cute, even though they don't (I don't think) wear "proper" ballet clothes, as it's just a casual, fun-type class, rather than a professional type one.

Olivia had her birthday on Thursday, so is now 3 - hard to believe - and her little party (a "purple party" was requested) on Saturday, both of which went well. The party only had a few children, so it wasn't really that big a deal - not like Sarah's, which required a lot more organisation and effort, as there were about 15 kids. I think next year, we'll do at least one of the parties somewhere other than our own house. Probably it will be Sarah's party as the kids will be older & need more thorough entertainment. There may also be more of them, as she'll want to invite everyone in her class (well, maybe not everyone, but it might be close). If we decide to hire a hall or something like that, she probably can do that. We'll see. Luckily, we won't have to plan it for a while yet. :)

We seem to have survived the first day of half term with no incidents and not too much boredom, despite appalling weather. I guess the real test will be later in the week, Thursday & Friday. Of course, Thursday is Olivia's birthday and a friend of Sarah's from her old school is coming for lunch & to play in the afternoon, so they have that to look forward to, which should help. And it is only a week, though I'm sure that by the end of it, we'll feel as though it's been a lot longer than that. That's one of the really nice things about school - they do keep them so occupied that not only are they not bored, but they are tired when they get home and quite happy to be entertained in a simple way, rather than an elaborate one.

We're off shortly to go around to Thalia's house and watch her new video (Sleeping Beauty - should be a big hit as it has both faeries and a princess in it). We've got a new video for half term as well, but we're saving that until we really need it...

Well, for the first time this week it's not actually raining, so we walked across to school this morning - makes a nice change from the traffic, though it's getting a bit nippy. Sarah was very excited to be able to see her breath, though. Whatever works - I'm glad that something so simple can interest them!

Today should be a lovely day in general though - I haven't got anything I need to do until this evening, so I get an entire day of hanging around and entertaining Olivia (who is, at the moment, watching Monsters Inc for the 50th time - she adores it). I might even get some sewing done, which would be nice. I also hope to make a pumpkin pie, which is more of a task than it might otherwise be, as you can't find tinned pumpkin easily in this country, so I'm making it from scratch, starting with the 3 kilo pumpkin ("small pumpkin" it says on the label) on my counter. We'll see how that goes.

On another note, my friend Neela tells me that the free-ness of museums in London is actually due to the hard work of the former culture secretary, Chris Smith (I think my association with Ken is simply that it was something he strongly supported). Being a firm believer in giving credit where it's' due - well, good on ya, Chris. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,495517,00.html)

Took the girls up to the Natural History Museum today, which I think they enjoyed, overall. One of the nice things that Ken Livingstone (Mayor of London) has done recently is make a number of the major London museums free, including the NHM and the Science Museum. Which is great, as with little kids, their attention span is about an hour and a half, so you don't really want to have to pay £8 per adult to get in in the first place.
We went through at the dinosaur gallery, which was packed, of course. Sarah was a bit scared of the animated T Rex at the end (she didn't want to look at it) but Olivia tried to scare it by roaring back. I think that's probably a my kids in a nutshell, right there. Be interesting to see what the next one's like! Then we had lunch (they have a really good picnic area in the basement, which is great, as you can bring better food than you get in their restaurants/cafes and much cheaper) and then had a look at the Creepy Crawlies (which they both enjoyed - much more up Sarah's alley, I think) and a brief tour of the Earth Galleries, though they were beginning to get cranky, so we didn't stay long. But the nice thing is that now that it's free, we can do it again without worrying about only seeing one or two things each time. Same with the Science Museum, and when they are a bit older, some of the other ones. And of course, it means I'll get a chance to see the museums, which I haven't really done here.

OK, well. Now we've been to see the experts and their boss. (And I've encountered the most amazingly convulted route to a car park I've ever seen, but that's another story entirely). And the consensus is that what originally appeared to be a dilated kidney is actually a collection of fluid (a urine bubble) at the outside of some kidney tissue, which is not fully developed. At some point during the development of that kidney & the vessels associated with it, a blockage (most likely) occurred, and it resulted in the malformation of the kidney. It was, at some point, at least, producing some urine (hence the bubble), but probably isn't functioning much anymore, if at all.

What does this mean? Well, there's no danger to the baby in utero (provided nothing happens with the other kidney, which is highly unlikely), and it's not even an emergency once he's born. The urine bubble should disperse itself gradually without intervention. At some point after he is born, they'll do some scans, possibly some x-rays, maybe some other diagnostic tests, with the purpose of seeing if the right kidney has any function at all, if it does, how much, and if there's any chance of it presenting a danger to the baby, in terms of infection or interference with other functions. It's possible that if they decide it poses a risk, they'll want to remove it eventually. The head of the department (the uber-specialist) says that he thinks that it's unlikely that the baby will have much functionality in the right kidney, but it's not something they can tell for certain until after he's born.

So, that's that. Apparently, it's officially known as a "dysplastic kidney" with some "perinephric fluid collection, likely to be a urinoma". In people speak, that's a kidney that's malformed, with a urine (or possibly other fluid, but most likely urine) bubble next to it. Anyway. They'll do a follow up scan in about 6 weeks time, just to check on stuff, and towards the end of the pregnancy we'll get to meet some of the paediatric urology specialists, who will be the ones dealing with him once he's born.

It's still not really a cause for worry (and anyway, there's nothing we can do about it now). I think that's about all they said, except that there's no way of telling for certain precisely when or why the problem occurred. But there's no reason to think that anything will happen with the left - this does not make it more likely that the left will have problems.

And the other good news is that there's nothing wrong with anything else - the rest of the baby - heart, brain, limbs, genitalia, and so on and so on are all perfectly normal - this is just one of those little glitches that sometimes happen. While it's somewhat frustrating to know about it now and therefore have it hanging over you, it's actually a good thing that they know about it before he's born, as they can then make sure that there is no potential for further damage, problems, infection, and so on. Without this kind of scanning, this kind of problem might not show up until much later, perhaps as a series of chronic urinary infections or something, which could potentially damage the other kidney, so knowing in advance that they'll need to check the right kidney & keep an eye on it and/or remove it if it looks like it might be a problem is a positive thing. Best to be prepared, as any boy scout will tell you :)

Well, I went to see the obstetrician today, who rescanned and gave her opinion. The right kidney is definitely dilated, quite a lot, and she thinks the right ureter is dilated (swollen) as well. Left is fine, bladder is fine. This means that the obstruction is somewhere below the bladder, in the ureter vessel somewhere (apparently). Because of the amount of dilation, it is almost certain that the problem will not resolve itself before birth, and will need to be treated post-natally. So, when he's born, they'll check him out to see what's next. Scan him them and see how enlarged the kidney is, and so on. He'll go on antibiotics as a prophylactic, as the danger lies not so much from the actual obstruction (or urine reflux, if that's what it is - the urine flowing backwards) but from potential infection to the kidney. Repeated or consistent infection can mean permanent kidney damage. The likelihood is that they will be able to resolve the obstruction or reflux (which I think tends to simply fix itself) within the first few years of his life - the problems tend to go away as the child grows. As the absolute worst case scenario, he could lose the function of that kidney. However, should that happen, and it's only the worst case scenario, it wouldn't affect his quality of life, as humans are perfectly able to function with only one kidney. (People donate them to relatives with problems, for instance.)


Anyway, as he'll need to be seen postnatally, they are referring me on yet again, to a specialist, at a different hospital. (But at least we have a national health service). In cases where you'll need to see someone after the birth, they like for you to go in and meet them beforehand, and so on. So that's tomorrow. I don't imagine they'll tell me much that we don't know already, though they may be able to give some more precise idea of what the risk levels are. I shall post more later, but it's not something to be too worried about, so if you are reading this, don't worry. :)

It's hard to decide whether to tell everyone or not tell everyone - I've obviously told some people, and it's not a secret or anything, but then again, one does get tired of having the same conversations over and over. And if people are friends but not close friends, well, you don't really want them to worry. But on the other hand, if one is thinking about it all the time oneself...

So, yesterday we had the 20 week development scan (at 22 weeks, but still), which was interesting. The good news is that he's a boy (which should make an interesting change) and that most of him seems to be just fine. The less good news is that he has a small problem with his right kidney, in that it's retaining more fluid than it should be. Apparently, this ("renal pelvic dilation" or "foetal hydronephrosis") is not uncommon, especially in boys. They don't treat it antenatally (at least, not if it's unilateral - not sure what they do if it's bilateral), and in fact, it goes away before birth in around half of the cases. The most common cause is a blockage in the ureter, which can be caused by a number of different things, including a simple kink in the vessel or a mild infection. So, anyway, I've got another scan tomorrow, this time with an actual obstetrician (which in Britain is unusual - mostly you deal with your midwife or GP) who will advise how frequently we need to check it out during the rest of the pregnancy and so on. I do hope she doesn't say that I have to have a scan every couple of weeks - talk about tedious. And we won't even get into the issue of trying to park at the blasted hospital...

Anyway, the really hard thing now will be trying to find a name that we like which hasn't been used by an immediate family member already and goes with our surname (i.e. nothing that starts (or ends) with "n" or has lots of "f" or "th" sounds) - suggestions more than welcome, though I can't imagine you'll come up with anything reasonable that's not in one of our many borrowed name books. Still, we've got a while to go, so I imagine we'll manage something, eventually. I'm beginning to understand what drives people to invent names for their kids - not that I'd do that, but I can see the temptation.

Went swimming yesterday - I'm trying to make that a regular Friday morning thing. It works quite well, as Olivia is in playgroup from 9.30 to 12, but as the general swimming is only open from 10.30, I don't get to have quite as leisurely a time as I might like. Still, if you get there right at 10.30, it's less crowded, too, which makes it easier to swim lengths, before the pool fills up with people pissing about. There are quite a few local schools where the kids come to have swimming lessons once a week, so they often use half the pool for that, which means they don't have lanes set up for lane swimmers, so it can get really crowded. I'd love to be able to swim during the serious swimming time, but unfortunately, that's 7-9 or something, so it's not really possible to do, with dealing with the kids in the morning. But at least I didn't have to worry about swimming around people, which does happen sometimes.

When we used to belong to the David Lloyd Centre (expensive gym) the one good thing was that in the winter, they put a tent/marquee/whatever over the outdoor pool and let the adults swim in it - open until about 11pm (no lifeguard though). I used to go sometimes at night, for instance after my pottery class, and was usually the only person in the pool, with maybe one other. When it was really cold, the steam would rise off the water and give everything a misty effect - really otherworldly, and very relaxing to just be able to swim without worrying about navigating around other people. The indoor pool there was useless, though, so it's no great loss to go somewhere else, in general.

Not a lot to say today, just musing on how "stuff" seems to eat up your time. It's not like I even have a lot to show for it, much of the time. I don't mind, per se, it's just funny how you get to the end of a day and think "ok, what have I accomplished today" and you can't come up with anything. Still, it's better than working (this is my new motto for life). :)