Thanks for everyone who responded to the thread where I got my panties in a bunch over having to do the cardio consult in the first place. I guess there was a good measure of hormonal craziness and wounded pride mixed with my frustration.
It was sort of a comical experience. The doctor had wandered off into the adjacent hospital over the lunch break and did not return for his afternoon appointments. His 2 office ladies were frantically paging him, and there were 4 patients stacked up in his waiting room like grounded airplanes waiting for him to come back. My 2007 TIA hospital records, the ones the doc was supposed to review, were not there. One of the office ladies did all my preliminary stuff and an EKG (totally normal, of course) to pass the time. The other one had me sign a new records request and started working the phones to get my records sent over. Unfortunately, for the first 20 minutes, she was harassing the wrong hospital.
I finally saw the doctor about an hour and 15 minutes after my scheduled appointment time. He did not care one whit about my PFO but zeroed in on the bicuspid aortic valve. Since we had no records to look at, he decided he wanted to do an echocardiogram (an ultrasound, just higher than the ones to look at the baby) and check it out for himself. If I could wait while he saw another patient, he could do it that afternoon so I wouldn't have to come back. So I did, and he did. He was struggling with positioning because my belly has already made my heart shift position, and it was a little uncomfortable because I had to keep holding my breath over and over again. A few times I just couldn't hold it until he said "breathe normally" and wrecked the picture and then we had to try again. Ugh. And of course the whole time I'm wondering how many carloads of money this is going to cost me with my crappy HSA insurance. BUT: his verdict was, "Yes, you have a bicuspid aortic valve, but it is not leaking (no insufficiency) and it is not narrowed at all (no stenosis). It is not going to interfere with your delivery. If you get a c-section, you should take prophylactic antibiotics." (No biggie, I take them now whenever I have my teeth cleaned for the same reason.)
So as I hoped, I got a clean bill of health, which is great. Now I just hope I don't have a coronary when I get the bill. It was so late by the time we were done all I could think about was getting home to let the dogs out and feed them. I forgot all about checking out the Secret Midwife Cave until I was already home, darn it!
Re: Cardio Consult F/U
~~~BFP 10/9/12, EDD 6/17/13~~~
This!
<br /> My Ovulation Chart</a>
BFP 12/13/12 EDD 8/22/13 Lilah Ruby born 8/8/13