Whether we'd like to admit it or not, we all have a plan or a way we'd like to see things go. Naturally, that plan is usually NOT the way things go. In my story, this was exactly the case. My husband, daughter, and I went to my 38 week prenatal appointment as we had every other appointment in this pregnancy. I was healthy and there had been no complications at all. With my previous daughter, near the end of my pregnancy my fluid levels were lower than what the doctor would like, so they induced labor. Because of this, my doctor had scheduled an ultrasound at this appointment to check my fluid level.
As some background, I work as a nurse in the women's hospital, so this world is quite familiar to me. In the back of my mind, I had a feeling this appointment may ultimately result in us meeting our new little baby. Of course, with working full time and having a little one who's not quite two, I still didn't have everything as ready as I wanted to at home for our new arrival. As I suspected in the back of my mind, the ultrasound didn't go as we would have liked and my fluid level was lower than the doctor would have liked. He had no choice but to send me to triage. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled when I arrived at triage because truthfully I was hoping to go into labor on my own this time and have things happen as naturally as possible.
While in triage, in walks Mindy, to start my IV and draws some labs. She immediately made the anxiety I felt being in triage alone (my husband was home getting our daughter settled for the night before coming to the hospital) decrease drastically. She was making jokes and making me laugh and keeping my mind off of the stress I felt. Once the doctor determined that night was the night to have a baby, Mindy came back down to triage and told me she'd be our nurse that night. Another wave of relief came flooding through me. I just knew she would take the best care of us. Once we went to labor and delivery, Mindy went above and beyond what we could have asked for in a nurse. She listened to my husband and me with our concerns about being induced, answered all of our questions, and spent the time with us to make us feel comfortable. She was open to any way I wanted to labor, and encouraged me to be as active as I wanted despite it making her job more difficult! As I walked the halls with my husband with my IV pole and telemetry monitoring for the baby, Mindy heard me tell my husband to "go ahead in the room and take a nap…I'll walk the halls myself" and immediately said "I'll walk with you" and chatted with me and made me laugh between contractions. (At this point it was after midnight and my husband and I had both been up since 5:30 am with our older daughter plus he had worked most of the day…he was exhausted and needed to regroup!)
She was confident in my ability to deliver this baby and allowed me to do as much as I wanted throughout the process of labor and delivery. As I labored, Mindy stayed with me to encourage me, coach me, give suggestions, and was there for anything I could have needed. She intuitively knew when I needed a rest or when to push me to continue laboring as I was. Mindy stayed calm throughout the entire process, even when the doctor came in and said she was concerned about the baby's heart rate and wanted to do some interventions. She never was flustered and her staying calm allowed me to stay calm as well and focus on what I needed to do to deliver this baby.
As the baby was born, she allowed my sweet girl to remain with me as long as I wanted, even though I knew she had tasks and charting to complete that were more difficult with the baby with me. She helped me to breastfeed her almost immediately and never took her from me to weigh her, do footprints, and ID bands until I said I was ready. Although the birth of our second daughter didn't go "according to plan", we couldn't have been more blessed by the way it ended up with Mindy caring for us. She was our angel sent to us to help us through an unexpected and earlier than planned delivery.
Without her, we wouldn't be able to look back on our experience and have fond memories and know the best care was given to us by an experienced and knowledgeable nurse. Mindy deserves to be recognized for her exceptional care because this is what she lives for. In conversation, she even told me she gave up being in charge that shift to care for me and my baby. That is true passion and love for what you do. It shines through in everything she does as a nurse and Mindy deserves to know just how much she's appreciated and respected. We can't thank you enough, Mindy, and we love you!