Scantastic!

Friday 13th dawned with a sense of apprehension, excitement and downright terror at what the scan would show. But of course, we needn't have worried! There was our baby, up on the big screen for us all to see, with that reassuring flicker of a heartbeat rhythmically pulsing away. We breathed a huge sigh of relief. All was well.

Then the sonographer hit us with some unexpected news: "The bladder is looking quite a bit larger than it should be at this stage."

I felt myself take a sharp intake of breath, then revealed to her that exactly the same thing had occurred at my son's 12 week scan. They had noticed a prominent bladder and that, combined with the fact they could clearly see he was a boy, gave them grounds to suspect a case of PUV - Posterior Urethral Valves. In layman's terms, this is basically a blockage of the urethra close to the bladder, which affects boys exclusively. It requires careful monotoring during pregnancy and very often a small operation for the child.

"Does that mean it's a boy?" I asked, tentatively - only to be told it was far too early to tell the flavour yet. Why can't they just be honest? I'd only just told her that they were able to tell the sex of my son at 12 weeks and here she was trying to fob me off.

My son's enlarged bladder had fortunately gone back to normal by 16 weeks, and so the sonographer asked me to return in a week's time to have another scan with the consultant. She took the measurements for the combined screening for Down's Syndrome, and told me the results would be sent to me early next week if low risk, with a phone call if we were considered high risk.

Fast forward a week, to my second scan at 13 weeks. We saw an extremely lively baby up on the screen, and much to our relief the consultant confirmed that the bladder looked perfectly normal. To be on the safe side, we have to go back in 3 weeks time to be scanned yet again! I can tell I'm going to have to get a season pass for the hospital car park .....