antibiotic before dental procedures, I was born with a VSD. My Mom, 41 yrs ago, was told that if the murmur went away that meant that the small hole had closed. They recommended it be checked regularly for the first 2 years. They also recommended that my Mom tell me the dangers of gaining a lot of weight at a time and losing it very quickly. (Well, so much for listening to that heads up from my Mom. I've since had 7 pregnancies all to term and gained an averae of 30-40 lbs each and everytime...lets just say the first 2 times around I lost the weight quickly after that..well I don;t think at 5'1" I'll ever see my 106 wedding day weight again...lol!) After age 2 the murmur went undetected. Several doctors told us the murmur was gone and so was the hole. NOT TRUE! During my pregnancy with Nathan at 40 years old I was very sick and tired the entire time. Docs blamed it on being 40 and preggie for the 7th time! They also said it was the result of "adjusting to pregnancy related hormones", when I was like 32 weeks along...OK?! Come to find at 20 wks gestation the extreme fatigue was my heart was enlarged and had fluid around 2 times the normal size! Poor lil Nate...his heart was by then 3 times the norm and had 3 times the fluid. THe docs recommended genetic testing and with the rate of uncertainty that the results would not be accurate we decided to forego the testing and accept God's gift (now x7). My family doc did an echo at 20 weeks for my heart and found the enlargement. By 32 weeks along my heart and Nate's were remarkably improved and by 34 weeks all signs of trouble for both of us was gone.(Praise God!) After delivery when I got a kidney infection (Nate was only 3 weeks old) I was hospitalized for 5 days (septic for 3 days..woudn't recommend that=), another echo was done. It was at that time they found my VSD was slightly bigger but not bog enough for surgery. SO, here I am with an 11 mo.old now diagnosed 18q- and w/hypotonia and pericardial effusion (now no enlargement for NAte just a pearl sized dot of fllluid left that they monitor w/echo every 6 mo, unless he gest sick enough to be hospitalized). As for my VSD, bigger than before, not big enough for surgery but for the first time in my life they tell me I should have been taking antibiotics pre-procedures for ALL of my life up to this point. Now that I am aware I do tke the antibiotics ahead of time and praise God I have not needed surgery for the kidney stones. Just need to wait until I can safely ween Nate to start the drugs to dissolve the stones (like 6 in the R kidney and 3 in the L). Any other parents out there w/later on in life findings lilke ours? God bless you and your family! Teresa Tim's wife, Mom to Tim, Jr. 20, Dan 18, Tricia 16, David 11, Drew 7, Hannah 4, Nathan (11 mo. 18q-) PA - USA ~unknown~ "If God brings me to it, He will bring me through it" http://geocities.com/zimmysnow9/Nathanandfamily.html Building ___ooOOoo__ Rainbows www.trisomyonline.org Families Helping Families On-line