Meg, Meggie, Megan

Today is Meg's birthday--- 8 years old. I know I'm not the only parent who, on each child's birthday, remarks . . . "I can't believe I have had ______ for _____ years" Fill in the blanks, of course. I know we shouldn't label our kids, but I find myself often calling Megan my "silly kid". And I don't mean silly as in stupid or crazy or ridiculous, but silly as in she's my giggle girl. Meg loves to laugh and her hoarse little giggle has been with her since birth. She has always had sort of a crackly, low-pitched voice that probably stems from her reflux as a baby. Not only was Megan my giggle baby, she was also my throw-up baby and I wore the results of her reflux like a badge on my shoulder for her first two years.

When Meg was born, she was a tiny thing, 5 lbs 15 oz. I had her via elective c-section and was in the hospital for 3 days. On the last day, one of the nurses was doing an exam on Meggie and said that she was showing some blood pressure irregularities. She took her into the nursery and checked her pulse on both arms and both feet. Somehow, the differences in pulse, along with listening to her heart, indicated that Meg might have a heart defect. They scheduled her for an appointment with the cardiologist at Primary Childrens Hospital the next day at 7 am. They were going to do an echocardiogram and had to sedate Megan, so I was not supposed to feed her from midnight on. My newborn baby was starving, but I managed to keep her distracted until we arrived at the hospital. They had me strip her down and check her pulse and do an EKG (where they attach all those little stickers with wires all over her chest). Then we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. They didn't call us back for the echo until 10 am. I still remember walking the hallways with Meg wrapped up in a pink fleece blanket (still have it), trying to console her as she screamed and cried. The child was just 4 days old and was starving--- and it wasn't just that annoying baby cry, it was that newborn cry that just breaks your heart. When they finally did the echo, Meggie had exhausted herself and didn't even need to be sedated. I could have killed them for making me torture my daughter!! The entire time I walked the hallways, I kept seeing the bulletins boards covered with pictures and letters from other pediatric cardio patients and their families. I had 3 hours to freak myself out and imagine a future full of Primary Childrens Hospital visits and heart surgeries and pulling my sickly child in a red wagon through the hospital hallways (a site I saw multiple times while I was there).

The echo showed that Meg had a VSD-- a ventricular septal defect and a narrowing of the aorta. After freaking me out with the diagnosis and telling me to watch for gasping, grunting, wheezing, difficulty with breathing, or turning blue, they quickly dismissed me and told me to come back in 2 weeks. I walked out of the hospital telling myself that it must not be too serious if they sent us home so quickly, but the directions to watch for gasping and grunting (as signs of heart failure) left me a bit flustered. Meg was born a a gasper and grunter and a wheezer. She made all kinds of grunts and hoarse breathing noises, both awake and asleep. So those first few weeks, I kept vacillating between 'is this normal?' and 'is this heart failure?'. Meg, of course, turned out to be just fine. Her VSD didn't close until she was 3 years old, but it never caused her any problems either. We kept going back to Primarys every 6 months or so, but in 2002, she was cleared by the cardiologist and labeled 'absolutely normal' That's my girl.

Her gravely voice and noisiness stayed with her. I have video of her as a 1-week old, lying in her bassinet, making noises like a goat. She was so loud, that I had to move her into our closet and shut the door. Madelin slept in our bed with us until she was 4 months old; Meg was banished from my room within days. She smelled like sour milk most of the time (thanks to the reflux), but other than throwing up regularly, she didn't have any negative physical side effects from the reflux. She always slept well and still 'loves her bed' (Ask her-- she will still tell you the same!) I eventually got used to the sounds, but her wheezy breathing was audible to most everyone around her and caused me to take her to the doctor many times in those first two years. She was eventually diagnosed as reflux-related asthma, but none of the meds ever changed her breathing, so I just stopped bothering with the doctors visits. When we moved to St. George, the doctor there heard Meg breathing and asked me if that was normal for her. I told him yes and then he quite rudely replied,"Mrs. Weston, you have another daughter, you know what normal sounds like. This is not normal". OKkkaaaay. I didn't like that doctor, but I tried all the treatments and meds that this doctor suggested and nothing really made a difference. I let it all go and Meg has survived the last 5 years just fine; until writing this, I had forgotten about a lot of it.

Maybe she would have been the same anyway, but a pediatrician told me that part of Meg's gravely laugh and voice was due to the effects of reflux on her. Megan's laugh is just contagious-- I have heard so many times over the years "I hope she never loses that laugh". She hasn't yet. She still loves to be tickled and kissed and hugged and squeezed and all that stuff. She is so demonstrative and mostly shows her affection in actions, rather than words. I'm not the most 'touchy-feeley' person myself, neither is Mark. But with Meg, it is how she defines the world, and that's okay with us. Long after Janie stops sitting on my lap, it would not surprise me to have Meg come jump on me and give out super-squeezes that take the air out of my lungs. That's just Meg; and I love her.