I want to thank Heidi for the compassion and care she showed my family during the birth of our daughter. Heidi was my labor and delivery nurse and she did an excellent job of reassuring me I wasn't dying during each contraction. But that's not the reason I'm nominating her. Her shift ended just as it was about time to push, so Heidi said she was going to chart for a little bit and would come back to check on us later. We assumed that she'd walk into a happy scene where we're all smiling and holding our squishy newborn, but that wasn't in the cards for us that night. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's leg, and during one last push, her heart rate dropped so much that the doctors knew we had to undergo an emergency C-section. I was terrified during the minute or two I was being rushed down the hall, but then I was anesthetized and blissfully unaware. My husband had to stay in the hallway, alone and afraid during those scary minutes, and then he had to see our baby girl come out white as a sheet as doctors surrounded her and attached her to medical devices. It still brings tears to my eyes thinking of how terrified he must have felt in those moments. But at least he wasn't alone the whole time - Heidi had heard what happened and came to make sure he was ok. She sat in the hall with him, cried with him, prayed with him, and told him it would be okay when the doctors finally came out with an update. She was done with her shift, no longer on the clock, and instead of going home to her own family she sat with my husband during one of the scariest experiences of his life. Words can't even express how grateful our family is to this day for her actions.
Heidi came and checked on us two days later in our recovery room, and took the time to explain all of the little details and signs that night that led up to the emergency C-section. In the heat of the moment, there wasn't time for much explanation or discussion, so Heidi's debriefing helped us put in context how fragile our situation was. This further reinforced our realization of how fortunate we were to have a great nurse like Heidi on hand that day to help us bring our daughter into this world. We'll forever be thankful for Heidi for being such a caring, compassionate nurse who went above and beyond for a family she had met just hours before, it means everything in the world to us.