My wife and I didn’t know much about Winnie Palmer Hospital, or their standard of excellence. After delivering our healthy baby and our interactions with numerous employees who serve at Winnie Palmer, it became clear why this hospital is highly ranked in the nation. It is because of every caring decision that each employee makes that collectively becomes the face of Winnie Palmer to make the world better for patients and their families in need. It goes unspoken, every day we make decisions, some small and others big, and sometimes we don't know how our decisions dramatically impact the lives of others to make their experience at Winner Palmer memorable.

I want to share how one nurse named Hannah made selfless decisions to make the life of my wife, mother-in-law, myself, and our baby better. My wife was admitted to the hospital to be induced for labor. About twelve hours later, she was at 4cm dilations with painful contractions and was moved to the second floor of labor and delivery to receive her epidural. For the next seven hours, about every thirty minutes, Hannah kindly helped my wife change bed positions to help the dilations grow to 7cm. Her gracious bedside manners helped calm our anxiety, as she made us feel human and loved.

That afternoon my wife’s water broke and when a midwife was checking her dilation was at 7cm; unfortunately, for the next five hours, the dilation stayed the same. What Hannah did to this point was impressive, but what she did next went above and beyond the call of duty.

As the shift changed, Hannah introduced us to the evening nurse who would be caring for my wife. As the evening shift nurse attended to other patients, Hannah stayed an extra hour and fifteen minutes next to my wife as she comforted her because my wife was still experiencing pain on the right side of her body. The doctor decided to replace the current epidural with a new one. Hannah held my wife’s hand as she screamed in pain from the contractions until the anesthesia team arrived and placed a new epidural in her back.

I remember Hannah saying in that very hour of discomfort, “I cannot leave my patients like this and go home.” My mother-in-law, who doesn’t speak any English, was in agony and began to cry watching her daughter suffer. Hannah calmly rubbed my wife’s back and hugged her mom, who was on the verge of an anxiety attack. Such compassion was displaced by a nurse who loves her job but loves people even more. Hannah comforted us and said her goodbyes for the evening and let us know we were probably going to undergo a c-section. Later that night, my wife had a successful C-section with our healthy baby girl. After the delivery, we got transferred to the post-delivery floor to recover in our room.

The next day, we had a surprise visit from Hannah, who came to see our little girl. She came with a gift, hugged us, and took pictures. Our family is eternally grateful to those who serve at Winnie Palmer to make it possible, especially to Hannah, who went out of her way to make our lives better. Thank you!