I’m home for a bit to shower, change clothes and look in on the cats (like they care). So I wanted to post a more detailed update of the last day and a half.
I should lead off by saying that if you saw the photos of Katie in the Special Care Nursery this morning, DO NOT let it freak you out. Soon after she was born, they noticed she had a breathing pattern they referred to as “grunting”. They took her up to the transitional nursery where they do all the usual post-birth stuff. After a while I got an update from a doctor who told me Katie had something called a “Pneumothorax“, which is air that has collected outside the lungs, making it harder for them to expand fully (the article explains this better than I can). The likely cause, for Katie, is the first deep breathes she took immediately after birth.
The doctor was pretty clear about the fact that this is not serious and not totally uncommon in newborns. There’s a chance that if it doesn’t get any worse, Katie will just work it out herself. And if not, they can easily remove the excess air with a needle. That said, they admitted her last night to the Special Care Nursery so they could continue to monitor and give her supplemental oxygen. So in the photos, I’m sure it looks a lot worse than it really is. She’s got an oxygen tube, a feeding tube and an IV for antibiotics. Everything else is just a monitor.
They took a couple more chest x-rays last night, but we’ve not yet spoken to a doctor today. When we visited about 10:30 this morning, she was visibly breathing better and sleeping very well. They’ll keep her at least 2 days, but as many as 6. That sucks, but it’s more important to make sure she has a clean bill of health. I’ll keep posting updates as we get them. Just trust me when I say….don’t panic 
I’ll continue the recap in the next post….