Plain Language

I came accross this site today and even though it is not Canadian (can't find one that is!), it best sums up MCDK

http://www.kidney.org.uk/kids/mcdk/

This diagram also helped - Via http://www.charliesmom.blog.com/

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what MCDK looks like, please look at Figure 1A. You can see the normal kidney on the right compared to a Multicystic Dysplastic Kidney on the left.  As you can see it looks very much like a pile of grapes.
From all that I have read (it has been A LOT) athat you actually only NEED half of one kidney to survive so having one FULL kidney is more than enough to have a normal healthy life… but we knew that right?

What I did read (which is hopeful, but we are trying to be realistic as well) was that there is always a possibility of a misdiagnoses when it comes to fetal MCDK. It is hard to be 100% certain while the baby is still inside of me and it cannot be confirmed until after the baby is born.
So what COULD it be? Why are there cysts showing up on his ultrasounds?
Please see Figure 1B. This is the outline of the internal kidney.  You see the 8 red pockets? It is possible that if the renal vein, renal artery or ureter are blocked or pinched, that those red pockets may become inflamed and LOOK like MCDK.  The women's who writes Charlie's Mom's blog (who I credit for most of my sanity) said that he has seen it once or twice and even though its a long shot it is still a possibility.