16kgs heavier than 8 months ago!

And I had to bend forward to take this photo!

Well, I certainly feel more settled and emotionally stable since the last post. There were numerous times I had to channel Erin Brockovich in my dealings with big companies that seemed to want to punish me for being aligned to them. I had one good outcome where a bank had treated me so appallingly over the last 2 months they wrote off a $250 fee I was officially entitled to pay. The other win came in the mail today from Opt*s who noticed our phone connection was not established within the limits of their promised deadline (no-kidding) and so $14.52 is going to hit our bank account sometime soon. Whoo hoo.

On the positive side of things, I put on 4kgs last week! As part of Cam's pre-chemo diet he is best to eat as many carbs, fats, calories and alcohol he can manage before the 15th April. Since we're seeing a bit of eachother lately, chocolate banana bread seems like the most obvious thing to form 3 square meals a day. The whole family spent the weekend in York and we ate up big the whole time. It was our last family hoorah before we introduce a new kid to the equation.

We had a visit to the Paediatric Urologist this morning. You have to have a certain beside manner if you are a Paediatric Surgeon so we were really pleased to get an explanation of Lil' Bebe's kidney condition in language for 3 year olds. The news is all good;

• The condition was not pronounced at 20 weeks so it's most likely the kidney's function is retrievable.
• Immediately after birth the Lil' thing will need antibiotics to see if that reduces the inflamation.
• They'll do a dye test and ultrasound on Day 3 of life in the outside world. This will determine where there is a blockage or malfunction.
• Depending on this result, we may be having a hospital stay at 6 months for an operation to correct it.

I was elated that the surgeon spoke to me with hand-drawn pictures and Michael was completely satisfied with statistics and numbers in the diagnosis. All in all there is a 98% chance the Lil' thing will be as good as gold at the end of the intervention. We are very grateful although I can imagine watching your baby have a general anaesthetic and a few pipes going into their body is not an easy experience.

We're off the the Ikea megastore tonight to get the last of the absolute baby essentials. If I go into labour tomorrow, I'm sorted. Got the bag packed with juice and chocolates and new PJs and a birth plan that says "1. Breath 2. Breath 3.Breath". I'm hoping to go as natural as I can. When the obstetrician scanned me on Monday I noticed the small print on the ultrasound that gestimated 7lb5oz already. He confirmed that this is going to be a big baby and so I came home and started reading about caesareans!! We'll take it as it comes but it probably means we won't be waiting too much longer after the 1st May to give the baby some more space to play in!