"She has no heart condition"

"She has no heart condition."

Those were beautiful words to my ears. We saw the same nurse practitioner and same pediatric cardiologist at our appointment Thursday at the Boston Children's Hospital extension in Weymouth that we saw when Sarah was six months old.

I can remember coming out of the bathroom after my first postpartum shower to find Dave intently listening to a doctor. This doctor turned out to be a pediatric cardiologist who was explaining to Dave with a diagram and plumbing analogies that a child's heart has three openings in utero that are supposed to close at birth. Our precious not-even-24-hours-old baby girl had an opening that wasn't closed. Seventy percent of the time it closes naturally during the first couple of weeks of life out of the uterus. Either way, she would have a normal quality of life.

Whoa. Talk about post-shower information overload! In some ways, I am glad it was my firstborn. I think that at the time I thought making visits to the cardiologist was normal. We went twice in Louisville and then the first visit up here when she was six months old. Each visit went well, and they were pleased with her progress, but wanted to see her one last time at 3 years old. "To see how cute she is," the cardiologist said.

I was so proud of Sarah (and a patient Josiah!) during this visit. First, a really kind nurse hooked Sarah up with thirteen stickers for an EKG. Sarah was nervous, but interactive and obedient. She then had her "arm hugged" when they took her blood pressure and her heart listened to twice. And when I say listened to I mean really listened, not just your average tour of the chest. They needed silence in the room (Josiah, of course, chose that moment to clap and squeal) and Sarah to be very still, and then they listened quite intently to just her heart.

The conclusion. There is a slight murmur to the rhythm of her heart beat, but the hole has closed. Praise the Lord! We are thankful for His healing hand.