My daughter was born 9 weeks early at Freeman. We had a very stressful and uncomfortable experience in the maternity ward, and knew our little girl would be spending an extended period of time in the NICU after birth. Hannah was one of our first nurses. She made our experience at the NICU safe, hopeful, and informative. She actually created a sense of community for us for the 33 days we spent there. Hannah soothed all our anxieties while also being honest; she anticipated our concerns and made sure to guide us through the difficult experience of having a premature baby. She took the time to show us how to best take care of our baby, be involved in as much of her care as possible and carefully got to know our family so her care was individualized and culturally competent.

In fact, one beautiful thing Hannah did for us was honor and celebrate Diwali in the NICU. Diwali is our family's biggest holiday, and instead of having a large celebration with family and friends, we were apart (my husband was at work, and I was in the NICU with our daughter). Hannah and another nurse made beautiful decorations for our daughter's room, cooked up some Indian food, and made our daughter's first Diwali an extremely sweet occasion.

Though we never thought we'd end up with a NICU stay, we feel so grateful to have had this special experience with the generous NICU team. We are forever grateful to Hannah for taking phenomenal care of our daughter but also us.