July 9, 2010: Molly is 10 days old today. She has been an easy baby so far, but not worry free. At her one week check up our pediatrician heard a heart murmur. A heart murmur is not the defect in the heart, it is the sound of turbulence in the heart. He told us we needed to take her to see a specialist. So yesterday we were up at the CT Children's Medical Center in Hartford. She had an EKG and an ultrasound. We met with a fantastic pediatric cardiologist named Dr. Wu. She told us that Molly has a hole in her heart. The good news is that the hole is very small and in a good location in the very muscly lower portion of the heart. Dr. Wu told us that the hole should close up on its own with no medical intervention needed. We will see her again in 4 months, and then 6 months and then every year until she turns 5 to get the heart checked on. But the doctor also assured us that Molly would not have any restrictions on her lifestyle due to the heart abnormality, she can play sports or be a military fighter pilot if she wants to. So it was a scary day for me, but it ended up well and we are thankful it was not a bigger deal.
Besides that Molly seems to be doing well. She eats for about 10 minutes every 3 hours. She sleeps all day and is usually awake the most from 7-10 pm. She is fussy at that time and has taken to the paci. We've been feeding her somewhere between 10-11pm and going to bed. She has been sleeping in our bed right in the middle of us. She has been doing great at night, mostly just needing to be fed one time in the middle of the night and going back to sleep quickly. She wasn't doing that when we tried to have her in her own bassinet so we've kept her with us. I think it is still early enough that bad sleeping habits won't form yet and for the moment we are all getting good sleeps considering we have a newborn. I think this is crucial since we have two very energetic toddlers who need us at our best during the day. She's been spitting up some and had a few big throw ups. She breathes very noisily, almost seems to struggle to breathe. That makes me nervous but I guess it is normal enough not to worry our pediatrician. We've given her a few baths and her umbilical stump fell off two days ago. At her one week check up she was back to her birth weight of 8 pounds 3 ounces. Two days later at the hospital she weighed 8'14, but she did have a diaper on so I am not sure how much that weighed. Either way, she is gaining weight nicely. I'll get more pix up soon.