Panic At The... Clinic?

What a ride, ladies and gents. What. A. Ride.

Several weeks ago, Husbeast and I went in for our 18-ish week ultrasound. Squall looked normal; nuchal translucency was within normal parameters; we verified that yes, he is indeed a boy, and we found all ten fingers and toes. What we also found was that Squall’s umbilical cord is one artery shy of the norm. Babies are supposed to have two arteries and one vein in the umbilicus. The doctor said that his heart looked great though, and he was growing a little ahead of the expectation, so they weren’t terribly worried. They did order a fetal echocardiogram for four weeks out, however, to make absolutely certain that his heart was healthy.

Fast forward to last Friday. I took the day off for multiple doctor’s appointments, both for me and for Lil Man. As Husbeast couldn’t go and my stepmother has been baby crazy ever since I announced that we were pregnant, I invited her to go along and see the baby on screen.

The pediatric cardiologist doing the ultrasound was not talkative; excusing his silence before the scan even began by saying that he needed to concentrate. We didn’t fuss much. As it turns out, however, Squall has a small hole between the lower two chambers of his heart. The doctor explained that it’s not something that concerns him, but we will need to monitor it because one of three things could happen:

1.)    It could resolve itself (heal up) before Squall is born,

2.)    It could resolve itself during Squall’s childhood, or

3.)    It could get bigger, resulting in the need for surgery.

I played it relatively cool, but texted Husbeast, my dad and my besty (Mama.) They all showed appropriate concern, but unfortunately I left Mama hanging, as we were called in to my normal OB appointment right after I sent the texts. She may have flipped out a bit and left work to come take care of me. This worked out to my advantage, as I had helpers on the dresser I’ve been slowly refurbishing for Squall; and Lil Man’s Auntie and Gramma were able to accompany us to his appointment that afternoon.

We went to pick Lil Man up from school after lunch, and took him to the pediatric endocrinologist at The Big Hospital to learn how to do his first shot of Testosterone. He’s always been afraid of needles (though he’s been working on that lately), and I was worried he’d have trouble, but he powered right through it after a few deep breaths and did a GREAT job! We were very proud of him. We took him out to dinner at a local Chinese joint that also makes pretty decent sushi and parted upon our return to my place.

Once everyone was gone, I began to freak out. The baby. Has a hole. In his heart. Sure, that COULD mean nothing, or it could mean that he’ll be whisked away for major surgery the moment he’s born. The thought was torture. Husbeast was reassuring as always, but I just couldn’t get out of my own head about it.

About a week later, I confessed to a former coworker-turned-friend that I was having trouble coping with this news (which I had not, until that point, shared with her). She gently rebuked me for not having mentioned it sooner; that her son had been born with TWO holes in his heart, and that they had resolved themselves within weeks of the baby’s birth. I breathed again. Granted, that’s anecdotal, but then I called my OB’s office to ask if flying was a risk to the baby. I had to fly to Pittsburgh for work, and wanted to make sure I didn’t need to cancel the trip in light of this news. She reassured me that while Squall is still in utero, he’d be fine. She also mentioned that if the doctors were truly concerned about him, I’d already be making plans to deliver in Boston, so that Squall would have the country’s best doctors on standby the moment he was born.

I have since contented myself by making progress – albeit slow progress – on preparing for Squall’s arrival. I’ve received a crib and built it; and done a bit of work on the “Baby Closet;” and I have a comfy rocking recliner sitting in the van waiting to be brought upstairs, where I can both rock and comfortably feed him when he arrives. And as I mentioned; I’ve been slowly working on stripping decades of paint off an old dresser to refinish as a bureau and changing table.