My daughter, N, who was pregnant with twin boys, was admitted for induction. All went status quo throughout the day. At 7:00 pm, Melissa came on as N's nurse. We were all impressed by Melissa's attentiveness to N, her professionalism, and her kindness and patience. I, along with the other three grandparents, left my daughter and son-in-law around 12:30 that evening knowing N was in good hands and planning to return in the morning to meet our new grandsons. Little did we know then, that a crisis would befall and Melissa would end up saving the life of one of our grandsons.
Having four children of my own, as well as being in the labor room with all 6 of my other grandchildren, I know how easily fetal monitor paddles slip around and how babies move in and out of their range. My experience has been that no one worries too much about the monitoring and whenever the nurse makes her way back into the patient's room, she adjusts them. This was not Melissa's protocol, however. She was diligent in making sure the fetal monitor was tracking the babies' heartbeats constantly. My son-in-law told me she spent almost 90 minutes in the room continually moving the paddles to keep track of two very active boys. Because of her tenacity, she noticed that all of a sudden one of the twins went into distress every time my daughter had a contraction. Melissa immediately tried to change N's position to see if it made a difference, but when she didn't see instant results, she ran out and alerted the doctor that the babies were in distress.
My daughter ended up having an emergency C-section. The baby in distress, L, was not breathing when he came out. Because all knew of the urgency of the situation, the NICU team was there ready to jump into action. It took them over five minutes to get him breathing, but thanks to the grace of God and a phenomenal NICU team, our precious L came home 10 days later in perfect health.
I cannot begin to tell you how indebted we are to Melissa. I don't even want to think about the outcome of this situation if she had not been so diligent in her duties! She was L's guardian angel that night and we will be forever grateful to her! No one can explain what happened and has been baffled at how a very healthy baby could suddenly go so bad so quickly. We may never know what happened, and we will have to be content with that. What matters most is that the medical professional charged with the care of our daughter and grandsons did an exemplary job and thanks to her there is a happy ending to this story.
Melissa is a shining example for all labor and delivery nurses everywhere!