I just had a 5 day stay in the Mother/Baby portion of St. Mary's. We moved from Labor and Delivery just 2 hours after our little baby girl was born. We are first time parents, completely scared out of our minds of what had just happened, but in complete comfort when we met Christi. She was the first nurse we had upon our arrival, she introduced herself and did her normal welcome speech she has done a million times I am sure. She introduced a trainee that she had with her and explained exactly what to expect in the coming days. She said there is a lot of information here I know, and I am going to need a written word for word essay before you leave. My wife and I are little jokesters ourselves, we laughed together. She was informative on what test they were performing on my wife and our new daughter. My anxiety melted away.
I noticed as she worked/trained she was very compassionate for us and her trainee, and treated us with kindness and great energy. I felt like a cared for family member not just a patient's family member. Over the night my daughter had a little choking spell and it scared the daylights out of us. We got Christi the next day and she knew immediately what had happened (great communication between staff) and asked if we were ok, explained what had happened and that everything was going to be alright. All with such a caring spirit and smile.
Testing was that day and test results came back high on my daughter for bilirubin. I had no idea what that was and she showed her knowledge and compassion to me and my wife with such care and integrity that we felt confident that all was ok. We had a little problem with feeding and got scared we were not giving our daughter proper nutrition. We felt hopeless that we were going to fail as parents. She took some extra time out of her busy day, spent a lot of time with breastfeeding with my wife and instilled hope in us that we were doing just fine. She explained what we needed to do to get our daughter well. We knew God put her in our lives to help guide and reassure us through this process.
She had a day off and when she returned, the tests had remained high. That day with no sleep hardly I walked out of our room and saw her and her trainee. She asked how I was and how much sleep I had. I said not much and she had sympathy for me. She helped me understand from a medical and parental view that is was all ok. She did this in the middle of the hall at the beginning of her shift.
Throughout the day we were down and tired, but Christi was hopeful and knowledgeable, which helped us get through the day. At the end of her shift we found out our daughter needed phototherapy, which was again explained with such compassion and hope. Then the computers crashed at the hospital. Christi and her training stayed extra late charting and making sure everything was right without any complaints whatsoever. Such a trooper.
When the test came back normal, Christi's face was lit up when she walked, it was as if it were her own child. I felt overwhelmed with joy and she joined us in celebration! We were discharged that day and she made sure her trainee knew what to do with such amazing patience and mentorship. We shared a prayer together as she walked me, my wife and our newborn healthy baby out.
I believe her trainee got a ton of experience those few days, I saw her grow as a new upcoming nurse because of Christi. She was such an amazing mentor. I could not have done this experience without Christi as our nurse. Her energy while working was so amazing, we smiled every time we saw her. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts Christi.