On Monday we parked at the Wesley parking garage sometime close to midnight and rushed up to the NICU to check on our firstborn son, who was born prematurely at 33 weeks from western Kansas. We had just driven nearly four hours to get here after a whirlwind week that started with a routine pregnancy check-up and followed up by a diagnosis of pre-eclampsia, two inductions, and then the birth of our son.
Our son was airlifted to Wesley on Monday evening due to breathing and digestion issues. When we arrived at the NICU, we were taken to our son and immediately greeted by nurse Gabi Richardson. Gabi explained everything that they had done so far with our son and what improvements they were hoping to see him make during his stay. She also answered our many questions and did not leave our side until she had answered every concern that we had. She really made us feel at peace when we left the hospital that night to get some sleep.
Our son spent 12 days in the Wesley NICU before getting to go home. We could say positive things about every nurse we had, but Gabi went above and beyond. One evening, my wife was experiencing some back pain from the delivery and so we told Gabi that we were going to leave earlier than usual to get some rest. She knew we watched the webcam, and that night after each feeding she left a little notecard with an update of how much our son ate. She knew we were concerned about how much he was eating, so we were very impressed at the thoughtfulness of that. We also noticed that our son seemed to eat more with her than any other person who fed him. Every evening when 7 pm neared, we hoped Gabi would be working because it put us at much more ease knowing she would be caring for our son that night. We believe she goes above and beyond the call of duty!