It seems forever that I’ve had news to post regarding Mary Clare as a heart patient. Since our clinic visits were bumped up to every three months, I’ve had mixed emotions. I’m thrilled that Mary Clare has not had chest x-rays, blood draws, echos, long clinic visit days to Charleston etc,etc, but it can be a bit unnerving without those reassurances to tell us without a doubt that everything is A-okay. She seems to be doing exceptionally well and our next clinic visit is in May. She is still on Enalipril, a blood pressure medicine and her daily asprin.<\/p>\n
It has been simply wonderful to be able to post about our daily lives and Mary Clare’s milestones without having to report on her health. I almost feel like a “normal mom” for the first time since I found out I would be becoming a “heart mom.” At the same time, however, I feel a bit guilty because her heart condition isn’t on the forefront of my mind 24-7. I certainly worry about her daily, as does any mom with her children. Some moms worry most about nutrition, some about tall stairs, asthma, learning disabilities, etc. I just happen to worry most about Mary Clare’s heart. It doesn’t make my worry any more difficult or worse, just a bit different from most moms.<\/p>\n
When she cries too hard, I feel her chest for quick tiny heart beats. I’m not sure why, I don’t really know what her normal heart beat should feel like. When she is sleeping, I creep into her bedroom, lower the crib rail and position myself so that I’m almost lying beside her so that I can smell her sweet, precious breath. When we are all laughing, playing, caught up in the middle of toddler\/ baby chaos I quickly thank God for each and every moment I have with both of my girls, the good, the bad and<\/em> the ugly!! Our family isn’t really that different from anyone else’s, and for that bit of normalcy, I am so truly, truly thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It seems forever that I’ve had news to post regarding Mary Clare as a heart patient. Since our clinic visits were bumped up to every three months, I’ve had mixed emotions. I’m thrilled that Mary Clare has not had chest x-rays, blood draws, echos, long clinic visit days to Charleston etc,etc, but it can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}