Just Like Daddy

People have recently been commenting how much Max favors me.
I have always thought he looks just like me as a baby. We're talking doppelganger here.

Baby Me                                                        Baby Max 

Sometimes when those comments are made in Clay's presence, I see a brief wave of sadness wash across his face. I think he really wanted a little boy who would look just like him. And he still may! Little man is changing by the minute.

But there are many other things that Clay and Max have in common. For one, their laid-back personalities. (Yeah, did NOT get that from me!) Their intelligence (even though I'd like to claim some of it). And their loud sneezes. :)

 And now, a subaortic membrane.

When we went for Max's four month checkup two weeks ago, our pediatrician picked up on a faint heart murmur. Many children, he quickly explained, have heart murmurs. It could be nothing.

One of the reasons I love our pediatrician is because he is so calming. He has been practicing pediatrics longer than I've been alive, so he's seen a lot and is not easily alarmed. For a first-time mom like me, that is a HUGE deal. (Who knew I would have a tendency to freak out?) So when I heard him say that Max has a heart murmur - a very faint one at that - it did not alarm me. But the doctor recommended that we take Max to a cardiologist. Out of an abundance of caution, he said.

No biggie, I thought. We're just being cautious - and I'm all about being cautious.

So when I laid Max down on the examination table last week for the technician to do an EKG, I wasn't worried. Then he showed me a tiny little membrane already starting to grow across Max's aorta - just like his daddy.

The cardiologist wants to monitor this membrane and see what happens. So we'll go back in four months to do this all over again. In fact, we'll probably be going back for regular checkups for the next several years, hopefully with good results.

But if at some point they decide that Max needs to have open heart surgery to remove the membrane (which is a strong possibility), I am sure he will pull through it like a champ - just like his daddy did.