We are attempting...

I'm trying to manage my computer time better so as not to neglect my wifely/motherly/homemakerly duties. We'll see if I can hack it!

This isn't gonna be the most uplifting post ever because I thought that maybe I should tell y'all a little something about me that most of you don't know.

Almost 3 years ago I was pregnant with my little angel/devil MMIT. She is a gem. However, about 3 months into the pregnancy I noticed my heart was doing some really funky things. I would just be laying down and all of a sudden my heart rate would jump like I was running the 100meter dash. I had a lot of light-headedness and dizzy spells. I'd get winded really easily and such, so at one of my regular appointments I asked my midwife about it and she and I decided I needed to just have a check up with a cardiologist.

8 weeks later- the soonest I could get in to the appointment... I found out a list of things:

1. I have a heart murmur
2. my heartbeat was WAY too high
3. my blood pressure was in the normal range

The blood pressure thing is what really threw them off. The EKG didn't really give any enlightenment to the situation so we schedule an echocardiogram. Another month of waiting. This was getting scary/ridiculous.

The echo enlightened us as to the problem, though... but maybe it would have been better for me not to know.

1. Yes, I did have a heart murmur (duh!)
2. I have an enlarged heart (cardiomyopathy)
3. My left ventricle is weak (causing the left side to have to work almost twice as hard, causing the excelerated heart beat.)

So, I was given 2 options...

1. terminate the pregnancy to stop the strain on my heart
2. go forward with the pregnancy but be under a drs care the whole time.

There were a lot of stipulations if I went with #2, which I obviously did.

No more details. Suffice it to say, I survived the delivery, and since then I have had to have yearly checkups with a yearly echocardiogram. I did pretty good until 2 weeks ago. My ejection fraction is not good. I have a leaky valve and my heart is still enlarged (more so than when I was pregnant). So I have had to start on medicine which makes me even more tired. Ugh! Like I wasn't tired already with my heart not working right.

We are surviving... I am surviving. Another appointment to come in 2 more weeks and we'll see how the medicine is doing. We probably won't see a change in my heart for at least 3-6 months, but as long as my blood pressure doesn't dip too low we are hopefully on the right track.

Sorry for the depressing crap. Just thought I'd get it off my chest.