{I've Come along way}

I am realizing more and more that I have come a long way with me OCD. I am able to be myself. I have realized I have done so many things to please others and my anxiety has kept me back. I am always worried about the "what ifs" scenarios that it takes away from reality.

Last week, was pretty hard for me. I found out that my oldest daughter has a heart defect. My husband, Tom, has a brother and a nephew who have congenital heart defects and I have a deceased brother who had a heart defect at birth. He died about a week after he was born, this was the early eighties so technology isn't anything near it is now. My entire married life I have had this fear in the back of my mind that I would have a child with a heart defect. It can be hereditary, and since we both have brothers with defects, I just knew it was a HUGE possibility.

When my daughter was first born, the pediatrician in the hospital did inform me that she had a heart murmur. I knew that many newborns have murmurs because their valves haven't shut quite yet. Since then, no one has ever mentioned about her heart murmur. A couple of weeks ago, we took our children in to the after hours clinic because our children were really sick. The Dr asked us if we ever were told that she had a heart murmur.  She told us to see our pediatrician just to check on it. Her doctor referred us to the Cardiologist just to make sure it is an innocent heart murmur because of our family history.

We see the Cardiologist and he confirms that she has Aortic Valve Stenosis due to a valve that has two of the three leaflets fused together. She is fine for now, but will need surgery in adulthood. We will continue to see the Cardiologist to make sure it doesn't get worse.

I was so mad that this wasn't caught sooner. But really thinking about it, I am soooo glad that I didn't know about this for the last four years, I would have been a complete wreck with this news. This would have definitely spiked my OCD. I would have constant worry about my other children when I was pregnant with them. I feel so blessed that I didn't know until I was well enough to take this information in and process it. I seriously, could not have handled this even a year ago. I have come a long way. This is just one of many examples.