Ashley was my nurse when I went into labor with my son. When my husband and I arrived at Hackley on that Thursday morning, we were nervous, scared and excited. This was our first child and everything was new to us. Ashley was our nurse from the beginning, and I'm so grateful for this. She immediately had a calming effect, and my husband felt comfortable enough leaving me in her care while he drove home to get our bags.
In the hour that he was gone, my labor progressed quickly and my pain intensified. We had arrived with a "birth plan" of how I wanted my labor and delivery to go but quickly realized that I wanted to get an epidural, which hadn't been part of my plan. Ashley was very respectful of our birth wishes but also intuitive with how I was feeling and how things were progressing. However, she wanted to make sure I was comfortable with my decision, so we talked about my concerns and she enabled me to confidently make the decision without feeling like a "failure" for departing from our original plan. I ended up getting the epidural and was very happy with my informed decision.
After getting the epidural, I was able to relax for a few hours and actually able to enjoy some of the labor experience with my husband. Ashley kept a close eye on me, my husband, and our little one throughout the day but also gave us space to enjoy the time as much as possible alone together. I appreciated Ashley's candidness, humor, and knowledge. At 6:40 pm, our baby boy was born. What should have been an extremely happy moment, quickly became the most terrifying experience of our lives. W came out blue, not breathing, not crying and was making movements that indicated a seizure. The nurses and doctors were exceptional and quickly took action to help W breathe, and after a few minutes, he did so on his own. Because of the seizure-like movements, he was taken upstairs to the special care nursery and I was left on the Labor & Delivery unit for 2 hours of observation without my baby boy or my husband (who followed W upstairs).
One of the most exceptional things Ashley did that day happened for us then: she recognized that I was already replaying the traumatic experience of what had just occurred over and over in my head and I was looking for a way to blame myself for it. She observed this line of thought without me saying a word and she emphatically told me that what happened was not my fault. She made me promise not to blame myself. This was very intuitive on her part and it made a huge difference for how I handled what had happened. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, Ashley helped me tap into an internal strength that I needed right then to care for my son and to navigate the experience; she established a foundation of optimism and courage at every stage of the birthing process, and it was these philosophies that kept our spirits strong as our son fully recovered.
Ashley Herbert is an amazing person. I am also a nurse, and I hope that I am half as great at nursing as she is!