As many of you may have heard by now, our daughter Kenzie was born Tuesday evening at 7:08 pm. She weighed in at 6 lbs. 12 oz. and 19" long. She cried immediately as she was delivered, and it was a strong, loud cry announcing her presence in the room. Everyone smiled and breathed a collective sigh of relief because this had been a very rough pregnancy on everyone!! They took her to the infant station to begin cleaning her off, taking measurements, etc. while the other doctors finished sewing up with Mommy. I noticed another doctor enter into the delivery room. Moments later he came over to me and introduced himself. He said that Kenzie was having a little trouble breathing and that she needed to spend the night in the NICU on a breathing machine called a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure machine) and he thought she would be back in the regular nursery by the morning. Kevin and I were a little surprised, but didn't think that much of it and of course wanted to make sure that our little girl was healthy and receiving the appropriate care. Plus, the doctor did not appear as if this was something to be overly concerned about, it was merely a precaution. They brought her to see me before she left...a little "baby burrito" that looked just like her sister Kailey.
The next morning, however, we received word that she would have to be on the CPAP machine a little while longer because she was still not able to maintain appropriate oxygen levels. They also had a chest x-ray that revealed some haziness in the lungs that was believed to be amniotic fluid. This is very common among C-section babies as the labor process is designed to expel this fluid during birth. It also appeared that, even though she was not considered to be a pre-term baby since she was delivered at 37 weeks and 3 days, her lungs were still underdeveloped. So, our little girl remained in the NICU. I was not able to visit her because I had the epidural and catheter. Neither Kevin nor I had even held Kenzie.
We finally received a visit from the neonatologist Wednesday afternoon and were told that the second chest x-ray revealed that Kenzie's lung had ruptured (this is called a nemothorax) and that air was collecting in her chest cavity that was putting pressure on the other healthy lung. The plan was to put in a breathing tube and put her on a respirator to take the pressure off her premature lungs, sedate her, perform a needle aspiration to remove the air with a needle from the chest cavity, supplement her with surfactant (a lipoprotien that our bodies produces naturally to help lubricate the air sacs), and insert an arterial catheter to eliminate the need to do heel sticks every time they needed to draw blood. I had never heard of a nemothorax before and Kevin and I were very scared.
The needle aspiration went very well, they withdrew 5-6 cc's of air from her chest cavity. They were going to perform more chest x-rays to monitor the air in the chest cavity and depending on how much accumulated, they may have to put in a chest tube to let the air escape as it collected. Many hours and x-rays later showed that air was no longer escaping, so a chest tube would not be necessary at that time. This was the first bit of good news that we had heard.
The next morning, however, we received word that she would have to be on the CPAP machine a little while longer because she was still not able to maintain appropriate oxygen levels. They also had a chest x-ray that revealed some haziness in the lungs that was believed to be amniotic fluid. This is very common among C-section babies as the labor process is designed to expel this fluid during birth. It also appeared that, even though she was not considered to be a pre-term baby since she was delivered at 37 weeks and 3 days, her lungs were still underdeveloped. So, our little girl remained in the NICU. I was not able to visit her because I had the epidural and catheter. Neither Kevin nor I had even held Kenzie.
We finally received a visit from the neonatologist Wednesday afternoon and were told that the second chest x-ray revealed that Kenzie's lung had ruptured (this is called a nemothorax) and that air was collecting in her chest cavity that was putting pressure on the other healthy lung. The plan was to put in a breathing tube and put her on a respirator to take the pressure off her premature lungs, sedate her, perform a needle aspiration to remove the air with a needle from the chest cavity, supplement her with surfactant (a lipoprotien that our bodies produces naturally to help lubricate the air sacs), and insert an arterial catheter to eliminate the need to do heel sticks every time they needed to draw blood. I had never heard of a nemothorax before and Kevin and I were very scared.
The needle aspiration went very well, they withdrew 5-6 cc's of air from her chest cavity. They were going to perform more chest x-rays to monitor the air in the chest cavity and depending on how much accumulated, they may have to put in a chest tube to let the air escape as it collected. Many hours and x-rays later showed that air was no longer escaping, so a chest tube would not be necessary at that time. This was the first bit of good news that we had heard.
you and little Kenzie are in our prayers!!
ReplyDelete~Laura