My husband and I were surprised to have our baby boy come early at 34 weeks and therefore had a 3-week NICU stay. Those 3 weeks were by far the hardest weeks of our lives. 
As a mother, leaving your newborn and driving home is just gut-wrenching so every day was a struggle and I cried a lot. However, when Sue was our nurse, our day was a little brighter and our burden seemed a little less heavy. Sue is amazing at what she does. She has exceptional clinical skills. She noticed things that the doctors or residents would brush over and even noticed something on a NICU friend's baby that wasn't even her patient and informed the mother to talk to the doctor about the change that she noticed. My friend was blown away that Sue noticed an elevated heart rate in her baby. First, because her baby was not assigned to Sue, but secondly, it was something that was weighing on my friend and she was timid in saying anything about it until Sue had noticed and encouraged her to speak up. When my NICU mom friend did speak up changes were made in the baby's medications. 
Sue not only sees her patients but pays attention to all babies and families in the NICU. Sue is compassionate, and caring, and goes above and beyond for her patients and their families. My husband was with me every day in the NICU for the first two weeks but made the extremely tough decision to go back to work on week three. Both of us struggled as I had to be by myself and he missed our son terribly and couldn't see him until the weekend. Sue noticed this and came up with the creative idea to make little scenes around our son for pictures to send to my husband based on things that my husband enjoyed (all safely monitored and taken down right after pictures). 
So, on the first day, Sue made a little tent out of a blanket and drew some trees and a campfire on a piece of paper for the background and made it look like our son was on a camping trip for a picture, and then told me to caption it "Can't wait to go camping with you, Daddy" and send it to my husband. Not only did this bring a smile to my husband's face, but also allowed me to focus on something other than the medical side of things and be able to look forward to taking our son home and enjoying life with him. So, every day after that we would have an adventure for N to go on--he went fishing, made a spreadsheet of fun things to do with Daddy, and got geared up to work on some cars. These are memories we will cherish forever, even if they were during the hardest weeks of our lives in the NICU. 
Sue advocates for her patients and their families and communicates with care to all involved. Being an ER nurse, I had a little bit more medical knowledge than most parents in the NICU and sometimes seemed to bother doctors and residents with my questions and asking for reasoning behind decisions. After a few days, I wore out and would not always speak up. However, Sue did not miss a beat. She would come to every round with the doctors and either ask the question for me or step in and say "mom has a few questions she would like to ask" which allowed me to inquire about anything on my mind. She communicated with ease to all members of the medical staff. 
Sue also advocated for our son and us by starting the discharge checklist with us before the last day there. My husband and I were eager to get our son home so when we saw the checklist of things that needed to be done before discharge, we wanted to get it started while we waited for our son to be ready to go home-things like car seat test, hearing test, circumcision (if wanted), and hep B shot (if wanted). A few other nurses had told us that those things are done the day of discharge or the day before, which was difficult for us since if he did not pass something or there was an issue, we knew that our stay would be extended for those reasons. When Sue was our nurse, she got things done and that checklist was complete in just a few days. This was after days of asking others to check off just one thing. Those checkmarks gave us hope and we knew that once cleared, we could go home without having another list of things to complete. 
Sue is also an amazing educator. She would teach us as she went along with our son's care. She would evaluate how we were doing and let us try things without making us feel uncomfortable. My husband was not familiar with anything to do with newborns and so was nervous about any care he gave to our son. When Sue was there, it was obvious that he was more comfortable trying because Sue was so calm, respectful, and effective in her teaching. Plus, we had no idea there was education that needed to be completed before discharge until Sue showed us the list of education required. She would check off some each day and inform us when she wasn't there, we should ask other nurses to educate us on one or two topics per day so the list was done before the day of discharge. We asked multiple nurses on other days and were told "we will go over everything when you're discharged" instead of working on that list. Sue had mentioned that it's better to do it during the stay because on the day of discharge parents are so excited to go home that they don't really pay attention and there is no time to think about the information and ask questions. Every day that Sue was our nurse, the day was better, brighter, and less draining. My husband and I prayed daily for the care of our son and the people that were involved with his care. We are convinced that Sue was a Godsend and we are beyond grateful for the blessing of her as our nurse, advocate, educator, and friend.