I was on magnesium during labor due to pre-eclampsia. My newborn (just hours old) had to stay in the Observation Nursery while my husband went home to take care of some things for our older children. While he was gone one of the NICU nurses from observation nursery, brought me the baby to try and breastfeed her at around 0630. While the NICU nurse was in the room with me, I kept commenting on how this baby must be really grumpy because she was constantly grunting and restless. I was unable to get her to latch as I was able to previously in the labor room. My nurse was ENS Abby Waller, came in around 0700 to assess me for my hourly checks. She also assessed the baby and told me "her latch is really weak" and listened to her breath. She asked immediately for my permission to take the baby to the charge nurse for evaluation. I agreed not thinking anything was wrong with the baby since she had just been seen by the pediatric doctors hours before and everything was fine. It turns out my baby wasn't just grumpy she was having trouble breathing. ENS Waller later told me she went to a class a few weeks before speaking about this "grunting and singing" sound a baby makes when they are having respiratory distress. Thank goodness she recently went to this class because it triggered her response to get the charge nurse right away. My baby ended up having pneumonia. I am so thankful for her every day that she was on staff that day and most of all that she was my nurse. If she wasn't, we very well may have had a different outcome from the happy healthy baby we have today.
Once they rushed the baby to the NICU, I was unable to see her since I was on magnesium and unable to get out of bed for 24 hours after coming off magnesium. Knowing that I was devastated, ENS Waller went to get permission from the charge nurse for me to be wheeled down to the NICU in a wheelchair without me knowing. She came in and told me, come on, we are going to see your baby.