During the four months that she shepherded the young mother through her premature twins' stay at DHMC's neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU), Lauren Clause, thought she was just doing what comes by nature - and by nurture.
"My way of nursing is to think about if I was the parent or the patient in the bed, how would I want to be treated?" recalled Clause. "How would I want to feel?"
Clause made this mom feel confident and consulted enough to nominate the veteran pediatric nurse for the DAISY Award, which Clause received in June.
"The twins were born at 24 3/7 weeks," the mother recalled in her letter nominating Clause for the DAISY. "I was very scared and lost. I met this nurse who was amazing… She was there every step of the way. She talked to me, not at me. She explained every little thing that was being done to my children… Lauren made me feel like a mom, she made me feel like I was part of the healing process."
Clause describes her true reward as "working with families and their children - babies - watching them together develop and mature so they are able to go home." Which is why the mother of those twins will never forget Lauren Clause.
"There were two separate occasions where twin A had to be resuscitated twice, and both times Lauren was there, and I felt safe," the mom remembered. "Thank you, Auntie Lauren, for everything you have done for my boys. Without you, I don't know where they would be. You are, and always will be, my guardian angel sent from above."