Our obstetrician called this morning with some results from last week's ultrasound. She began by stating first and foremost that she thinks our baby is absolutely fine -- that all other measurements on the ultrasound are perfectly normal. However, there is one small abnormality that she needed to inform us of. The baby has "isolated renal pyelectasis," which basically means that he has a mild enlargement of his left kidney, 7 mm. She said it is an incredibly common finding in 1 to 2% of chromosomally normal babies -- it's only because of such good ultrasound equipment that they are even able to detect it so early, or at all. There isn't anything that we can or should do now; she doesn't recommend any further genetic testing though she gave us the contact information for a genetic counselor should we want to talk to them further. But she reiterated several times that she thinks he is just fine, and is going to be just fine, but that anything over 4 mm requires her to notify us, and anything over 10 mm is significant.
She said they will follow up with an ultrasound on the baby himself after he is born to monitor that kidney. It could be fine at that point, or he may eventually outgrow it, as the majority of these do go away on their own.
She did say that this is common in children with Down Syndrome, but it's only one of many other symptoms in children with Down Syndrome, none of which are showing up for us or Ellis at this point, and she reiterated several times that she does not think our baby has Down Syndrome. She said she can't guarantee that 100%, but she really doesn't think that's the case. Almost certainly this is just a normal finding. She said if we were going on my age alone, I would have a 1 in 428 chance of having a baby with Down Syndrome. But my blood work, called a quad screen, was normal, so there is a 1 in 24,000 chance of having a baby with Down Syndrome based on the results of that -- and everything else in the ultrasound looked normal.
She sent us some information on e-mail, but we actually think the two links to the online info. below are better, especially the first one:
I think we both felt better after talking with my parents tonight. I knew I had frequent kidney infections as a child, but couldn't remember the official diagnosis. It was urinary reflux -- which is one of a couple of possible outcomes of our little guy's situation. In that case, we feel relieved, knowing that my situation was handled with antibiotics to prevent infection and eventually I did, in fact, outgrow it. Hopefully Ellis won't have to fight anything worse than that.
We don't want to blow this out of proportion, but it is something we are concerned about. Please say an extra prayer for him tonight.
1 comment:
I know anything besides "He's 100% A-OK!" is a scary thing to hear. But it sounds like it really is unlikely that it's serious, and we will certainly say lots of prayers for him to be safe and healthy! There are pros and cons to all this advanced technology, huh? At least the pros do outweigh the cons. Love you guys. <3
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