Keep Calm and Carry On

I know these posters have been circulating the blog world for a while now. Definitely old news. But they are so timely for me right now.

A boisterous toddler + an infant = a lot of craziness, even on a good day.

Ever the thrifty DIY-er, I scrawled the message on the chalk wall in my dining room:

Keep Calm and Carry ON

Yes. It helps.

...

Monday morning, River had his 2-month check up with the pediatrician (2 months...can you believe it?).

His doctor detected a heart murmur and sent us to UAMS Children's Center in Lowell the next day for an echocardiogram.

The procedure took nearly two hours, and even though it wasn't painful or even uncomfortable for him, River was not happy about it. The technician was awesome. Very understanding of the stress it was causing for both River and me. We took two breaks to calm the little guy down, but then eventually just had to let him scream himself to sleep. After that, the rest was a breeze.

They sent the scans down to the pediatric cardiologist at Children's Hospital in Little Rock, who sent the results to River's pediatrician, who, in turn, called us Wednesday afternoon.

River has two holes in his heart. The atrial septal defect is super common, and almost always self-heals. The ventricular septal defect isn't all that unusual either, although these ones don't always close on their own.

We have an appointment with the pediatric cardiologist (who comes up to UAMS from Little Rock) at the end of August.

They tell me not to worry. That, other than the heart defects, he is thriving (He now weighs 11 lbs, 2 oz, and is 23" in length...which puts him right in the 50th percentile).

The fact that we aren't meeting with the cardiologist until late August is reassuring. Obviously, they don't think it's too pressing of an issue.

But, still. It's hard to hold him, feel his heart beating, and not think about what's going on in there.

Keep Calm and Carry On, Dorothy. Keep Calm and Carry On. Amen.

...

As a side note, I finally went upstairs with the intention of grabbing our camera charger, only to discover that it is missing a component. We can't find it, so a replacement is on its way. It should get here maybe today or tomorrow. We're long overdue for some picture updates...