I went to Christ for my scheduled induction to deliver my first child, my daughter C. Since I was induced, the doctor had prepared us so that we likely would not have our baby until the following day. The weather today was pretty brutal. We had rained the day before, followed by a deep freeze and a snowstorm. The hospital was short-staffed due to many people calling off that day. Emmorlean let us know that she was typically the charge nurse, but would be taking care of us on this day. Boy, am I glad that she was!

The induction process went very quickly. At a certain point, my epidural stopped working. When I let Emmorlean know (because I was having awful contractions) she quickly went and brought the doctor back. Around 4 pm I started to feel pressure. A team of students and a staff member came in to check but quickly left as they said, "Oh we just checked you recently, nothing to check here." Emmorlean came back into the room shortly after and asked what the update was (she had a feeling all along that I was going to go into labor quickly and before the end of her shift at 7 pm). I told her they didn't check me. She said this is not acceptable and grabbed them. Sure enough, I was in full active labor and at +1!!

They called the doctor who now had to drive through the storm to get to the hospital. Emmorleen stayed by my side the entire time just in case the baby had other plans. She continued to check on me and call the doctor for the 90 minutes we had to wait. She did everything she could to make me comfortable and kept assuring me that everything would be okay. When the doctor arrived, it was just in time for a shift change. Emmorlean said, "I promised you I would deliver this baby for you and I am not going anywhere until she is here!"

C arrived in this world at 7:47 pm. Emmorlean stayed another hour and a half to make sure that I was okay and make sure C was okay too. As someone who went through this for the first time and was panicking when the doctor was not there, I knew with her by my side, everything would be okay. On top of that, she sent us a card several weeks later to congratulate us on the birth of our daughter and to let me know what an amazing job I did. Funny enough, I had planned to send her a thank you (but becoming a mom got in the way of that). To have a nurse care for you as though you were her own and to send a handwritten note after the fact is not something you see every day...or ever in my case. I hope when I have another baby in the future, I have a nurse like Emmorlean. She went above and beyond and we are forever grateful!