Hole in my heart

On Thursday we went to Tate's 1-year cardiologist checkup. When he was born he had an irregular heartbeat, which was what landed him in the NICU. While he was there they did a lot of other testing and discovered that one side of his heart is bigger than the other. We were told that babies do normally have a bigger side, but the side of his heart that is bigger is the opposite of what they'd expect to see. The doctor said it could indicate some sort of problem during his development, but he seemed OK. He wore a recording monitor for 24 hours when he was about 3 weeks old, and afterward Brad got a call from the hospital with the message that all was OK and that we'd need to come back for a checkup when Tate was a year old.

So when we went back we really just thought this was a "better safe than sorry" recheck just to make sure everything was still OK. We were surprised to learn that he has a hole in his heart. Two small holes, actually, that they somehow didn't see last year. I guess they saw something then, but it wasn't clear they were holes like it is now and it wasn't communicated to us. The doctor said that as heart defects go this is on the less serious end of things, but she still didn't give us that reassuring "don't worry" speech I was hoping for. So what happens now is that they will check him again in a year. The hope is that the holes will close by themselves. If not, they will have to do surgery. There are lots of "ifs," and we're just praying that they close on their own in the next couple of years. It made me feel better that Brad was chatting last night with our niece who had a similar condition and she said her hole did close on its own. I'm trying to keep things in perspective since in the greater scheme of things there are a lot worse things that can happen to a baby, and if it doesn't fix itself it can be fixed. Of course, I'm his mom and I'm me, so I'm sure I'll still worry.

I talked to my parents yesterday and my mom, bless her heart, tried to put a positive spin on it. She insists that we use more positive wording if something has a negative connotation. We didn't have a "retirement party" for my Dad since I guess that made it seem like he was old and going to sit around in his chair. We had a "graduation party" since he was done teaching/counseling and was now onto the next phase of his life (which does seem to involve some degree of chair sitting). My grandma's service wasn't a funeral or memorial service, but a "celebration of life." And she didn't die, she had a "soul graduation." So when I told her about Tate's heart she said, "Oh, we don't call it a defect. He's not defective!" I told her actually we DO call it a defect, since the medical term is Atrial Septal Defect, but I have to agree. He's not defective--he's just perfect.