Our Date with the Cardiologist*

When Lucas was born, aside from things like his cord being wrapped around his neck, swallowing massive amounts of meconium and having to be on anti-biotics right away, his heart rate was also a tad lower than what the doctors and nurses wanted to see in those first couple of days. While we were still in the hospital, he had an EKG ran on him (scary, but not really). It came back fine, but we were advised to follow up with a children's cardiologist just to make sure everything was ok.

We had an appointment with Duke Children's here in town, but I screwed up and got him enrolled on Tricare prior to our appointment, and because Duke wasn't "in network" we didn't actually get to be seen. It was annoying. BUT, we were finally able to get into another doctor, and last week we got little man checked out.

Safe to say, everything is good to go.

They ran another EKG on him just to make sure that everything was ok from that perspective, and it all came back perfect. Although, trying to keep an almost six month old baby absolutely still for a short period of time was difficult. It took both M & I and lots of shhsshhh'ing to make it happen. It was determined that Lucas has a very teeny tiny heart murmur -- not at all surprising considering I have/had one as well as almost everybody else in my family. His is so tiny, the Cardiologist said, that most GOOD doctors wouldn't even be able to hear it. They did an ultrasound on his heart just to double check & verify that everything was ok (it was -- a perfect little heart, they said!) and then sent us on our way.

Not before little man decided to take a nap on the table, much to the pleasure (and humor) of the ultrasound technician. 

If you don't know much about heart murmur's, I don't really know how to explain them other than it's a "whooshing" sound that the heart makes. From my understanding, they can definitely be worse than what Lucas's is (and what mine always was) so we are lucky from that perspective. I lived a perfectly normal, healthy & active life growing up so this will not impact him in any way.

And because his is so minor, no follow up or course of action is needed. It's just something that we are aware of, something that is in his records and we now go about our merry little way.


We are so grateful that things were not more serious, but never for a second doubted that they wouldn't be.Everybody loved Lucas at the Cardiology Office and I never get tired of hearing how healthy, happy and adorable my child is. It definitely makes for some proud moments. And there really was nothing cuter than the little guy passed out on the ultrasound table.