Tag: parenting

The magic rays of ultrasound are helping doctors all over the world to find and troubleshoot health problems. While Olga was pregnant, she was ultrasounded a lot. Maxim, inside her, was studied extensively too. Luckily they had no problems.

Today we took Maxim for his first standalone dedicate ultrasound examination. The head, the heart, the liver and abdominal area were inspected pretty fast. Leg joints followed too. Than he was overturned and layed on his belly (something he really doesn’t like). Dr.Simos inspected his kidneys.

He was spending more time on kidneys than he on the entire body. That started to get me worried. While looking at the screen he asked how many ultrasound examinations were done on the baby while Olga was pregnant. That was a really obvious sound that something is wrong. I started sweating.

Sweating in the silence is not the most pleasant thing to do. When noone speaks and nothing happens, it is not so easy to distract myself from the sweaty thoughts. And the more thoughts I had, the more sweaty I got. Jez. I just hate times like that.

Few minutes later, Dr.Simos confirmed my fears to some degree. Not everything is in place. He spent so much more time on the kidneys because he couldn’t find the right one. When he said that I alsmot lost my conscious. Fortunately, he found it. It is there and is doing fine. It’s just that it is lower than it should be.

Maxim’s left kidney is in place. But his right kidney is few centimeters lower and is hidden in his upper pelvis. Dr.Simos assured us that it is not a big problem and that we shouldn’t worry. The best thing about it is that we discovered it early. We will have to pay closer attention to it. If everything goes good, Maxim will never feel anything wrong about it. Otherwise he might be getting pains in his stomach, back, and digestion problems caused by the kidney pressing on the other organs and veins and everything.

In order to make sure that the situation is really non-dangerous we will have to be examined by a neuropatologist nephrologist. The good news are that it is possible to do in Cyprus. The bad news are that there is only one clinic where we can do it. It is in Nicosia. We will have to make an appointment, but because of the queue there it won’t be earlier than June or July. Of this year.

Anyway, I feel pretty confused now. On one hand, I am totally devastated by the news. I really want Maxim to have everything best and perfect and lowered kidney is kind of screwing around with my plans and wishes. On the other hand, I am glad that there will be more investigations, that these are possible around here, and tha the doctor was pretty calm about the whole thing.

Obviously I’ll be doing lots of Googling in the meantime. But this is in the future. Presently, I can only thank those people who made ultrasound such common, cheap, and powerful technology. Thank you.

Update: with all the worries I forgot to mention that Maxim is gaining more in the weight department than he is doing in the size department. He weights 5140 grams now, which is to say he passed 5 kilograms mark. His size remains the same.

Update: thanks to Lev who helped to clear the confusion with the doctors.

Maxim has discovered a new play for himself. It looks like he is riding a motorcycle, find the perfect motorcycle for you at Shoppok! . When I lay him down on his back to change his diper, he would stretch both of his hands up, perpendicular to the surface of the table. Than he bends his legs and squeezes his fingers into fists. He than twists his right fist exactly the way he would do it on a motorcycle when using accelerator handle.

His hands move a little and often together, while everything else is motionless. Very much like with a real motorbike indeed. Only the sound is missing, but, I’m sure, he’ll get to it pretty soon.

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We’ve put Maxim through a behavioural test today. Don’t get scared yet, we didn’t do anything even remotely cruel to him.

Olga and I went to visit Vladimir. A small celebration of his birthday and a showing of Maxim to Vladimir’s parents were our goals. Obviously, we took Maxim with us.

He was behaving surprisingly well. At first we were a little bit worried about how he would handle himself, since he is misbehaving (wakes up too often, doesn’t take the breast properly, spits the milk – these sort of things) during the last couple of days. But with every moment we were getting more and more confident.

Maxim fell asleep in the car. And he basically slept through the next couple of hours. Than he woke up. I took him in my hands and calmed him down a bit. Than put him back and he slept for yet another hour. After that he asked for food. Very politely I must say. Olga fed him. Maxim went back to sleep.

Isn’t he one cute baby that can be carried around parties? Sure he is. Now we’ll have to confirm his behaviour with more going out.

Today Maxim invented a new game. Actually, I don’t know if it is completely new, but he didn’t have any communications with other kids and noone who came to our house taught him it, thus I assume that he invented it. It is called “Catch a Poo”.

The game is simple, but is a lot of fun and helps to develop prediction skills. Two teams can play, which can be one person or more each. One team, which was represented by Maxim today, lays on the changing table and holding legs up tries to poo everything it can. The other team, which was represented by me, has one diper which must be used to catch all the poo. For more fun it is recommended to switch off the lights and play in the dark. For even more fun it is recommended for the Poo team to have diarrhea.

It has been a while since I did any sporting activities, so I lost completely. 2:0. In the first round Maxim managed to poo his bed, all the blankets, his clothes, and a stock supply of dipers. In the secod round he confirmed his victory by drawing a line on the floor, marking the termometer and destroying a bunch of wipes.

Even though I am sad because of the loss, I have to admit that he was really spectacular. He was so powerful and fast that I alsmot went to look for my Physics textbook. I wanted to check that he is not braking any rules or anything.

I also felt better when I saw how happy Maxim was about his win. He was smiling all the way, waving his hands and legs and shouting “Agu! Agu! Aaaa! Agu” cheerfully.