We had an ultrasound done on McKennas heart to see where the murmur is coming from... just by chance they found that she has a stretched foramen ovale, which is common I guess in babies, but her's is more "generous" than others... that's a hole in the inner wall of the heart which separates the right chambers from the left.

But the actually murmur is coming from a valve (I believe the mitral?) that is a bit thick... it's not snapping closed and open as quickly as the others. She said it's the last valve the blood goes through on its way to the lungs to dump CO2...

Anyway, right now we're just going to watch it. In 1/3 of babies the valves loosen up with time and they're fine. In 1/3 of babies the valves get thicker, or I guess just less flexible and they have a more serious pulmonary stenosis, and 1/3 of babies have to have something done, which would start with inserting a catheter up through the leg, into the heart and blowing up a balloon inside the valve for 3-5 seconds to help it become more flexible. This evidently "cures" 85% of cases. But the doc is great, she said right now we don't want to mess with anything... as long as she's growing well and eating well then as she gets older the doc will see her every 4 years or so... in the meantime, she might be back in a couple more months... they took an EKG as well to get a baseline.

I'll keep everyone informed... we also have an appt with a plastic surgeon to look at her head... in case I didn't tell you all, her right ear and cheek are significantly more forward than the left side of her head and face. Front the front you can hardly tell, but if you look straight down at the top of her head you can really see it. They may have a cap she can wear that will help align her skull bones while they still have the ability to shift - of course the doc just might tell us to just wait and see if the natural rounding out of the brain and head will help things...

So the last day of work for me will be the 22nd of this month... I'm so excited!! I'm planning to get the house in shape and hopefully keep it that way!