You're lying there, stripped down to your diaper, content. The pediatrician places the stethoscope on your chest and the room is still. You admire the contrast of a black cord on a pale wall. Then she tells us, "I hear a murmur in his heart and I think you should have a cardiologist check it out."
And it takes a few hours for that news to sink in. The irony hits right away, of course. From my doctor telling me you didn't have a heartbeat to your pediatrician telling me there was something wrong with that heartbeat, I realize that it's no small coincidence that I'm a bit heart-obsessed.
So your dad and I venture to the cardiologist one drizzling weekday morning. We wander through a maze of doctor's offices until we finally locate a bustling practice with children everywhere. I briefly think about all those little hearts that have just begun loving, and all those parent-hearts that are so close to breaking.
I quiet you during the sonogram with slow strokes to your cheek, and you look around the dark room. Every once in a while you gaze at the black and white image on the screen. And again the irony hits me - my little baby, with whose heart I was so obsessed with seeing during the 9 months of my pregnancy, is looking now at an image not much different than I saw of his own heart. We look at your heart together.
We dress you in the cardiologist's office while we wait for her to deliver the results. Before she even sits down she proclaims, "well, he's totally normal." We nod our heads because of course our baby is normal; of course his heart is in fine working condition.
It's not until later that I think to myself, "no, Mrs. Cardiologist, you have no idea how extraordinary this little heart is to me."
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