The birth of our daughter was the most amazing life event that I have experienced. The idea that two people can create a new life, though extremely common, is still hard for my mind to comprehend. The first 24 hours of your child's life provide you with so many emotions and change the way you look at life. After your wife has carried your child for nine months, completed the birthing process, and you get through that first night, you think your set. Then the pediatrician arrives for the babies first check up. The nerves set in....you wait and watch while someone that you have never met will determine the health of your offspring. Silence, chills, fear...he begins to speak...she has a heart murmur.http://kidshealth.org/kid/health_problems/heart/heart_murmurs.html You and your spouse look at each other, what? How can that be? What does that mean? How bad is it? The questions keep rolling, meanwhile the only answer you get is a referral. He tells us that everything else with baby Grace is fine, but that the pediatric cardiologist will be in later to determine what type of murmur she has.
The doctor then left the room, Maggie and I just looked at each other. How could this be? Why us? What are we going to do? We looked into our daughters eyes and the tears starting to flow. My wife cried more than me, which is not the way it usually is. I guess I was trying to be the strong one for her, but it wasn't working. I was scared to death!
The cardiologist arrived about a half an hour later, he checked her out and determined that she had a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD). http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/heart/vsd.html Basically, a VSD is a hole between the dividing wall of the two pumping chambers of the heart. Just by listening he could tell that the hole was small to moderate. He explained that most VSD's this size will close up over time, but sometimes surgery is required. We would need to monitor her closely to watch for signs of heart failure. Just what every new parent wants to do. Heavy breathing, sweating, poor weight gain could all mean that her heart was working too hard. He then scheduled an echo cardiogram for 2 days later. Maggie and I felt relieved, to a certain extent at least. Our feelings went up and down more than the yo yo on steroids. We realized that we were extremely lucky. So many children are born with much more serious conditions, however, we still feared for the worse.
The echo cardiogram confirmed what the doctor had thought, it was a medium sized VSD and we would need to monitor our child's weight very closely for the next several months. It was very stressful, we had to watch for signs of heart failure in our newborn baby, without having anything to compare normal baby activity to. It became frustrating at times, every odd sound, every loud breath, every day of poor eating, we would question ourselves. It made for some sleepless nights and countless discussions.
I can now say that we had our 4 month check up with the cardiologist and he told us that she is doing well and the hole is closing on its own. He explained that the major concerns are over, but it will always be in the back of my mind. Our daughter will still have several doctors appointments this year and more tests will be run, but our hope is that the hole will close completely and we will be able to put this issue to rest for good!
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