Having your first baby is an incredibly exciting and terrifying experience. On top of all of this, the Birthing Center was completely full and I tested positive for COVID. I still wonder if my COVID test was a false positive because I didn't leave my house much the weeks leading up to my son's birth and I never felt sick during my pregnancy. I explained this to each nurse that would come in, but I still felt the nurses' anxiety being in our room.

Skyla was the opposite and made me feel like a non-COVID patient. She was warm, kind, and very patient, sometimes going over the same information a couple times for me until I understood everything. I was very fortunate to have Skyla as my day nurse for the three days I was at the center. I didn’t sleep well at night. For instance, one night a nurse came in to do a bunch of tests on my son. One of the tests produced a concerning result, my son had higher than normal bilirubin, and she quickly told us about the test result. In retrospect, it was nothing to be so alarmed about, but being a new mom without much knowledge of bilirubin and hearing that one of the results was concerning you can't help but freak out about your baby. Thankfully Skyla started her shift just a while later and when I mentioned my anxiety over the test result (and my lack of sleep), she quickly calmed my fears. She told me how normal it was to get such a result and it's completely treatable even if it comes to that because many times it resolves on its own. She then told me she would hold off on the morning to-dos and would make sure no one comes in our room for the next couple of hours so that I could get some rest.

During my entire stay at the center, whenever Skyla was in the room, she always brought a very calm energy that would ease my anxieties. I never would have guessed the center was as full as it was; when Skyla was in our room, she was completely focused on us and our needs and never rushed. Skyla is the reason I look back at my birthing experience with positive thoughts.