My wife and I arrived at Crouse 11 days past the due date for our first child. We were scheduled to be induced so we were fast-tracked into a room and the process began.
All was going well until around lunch the following day when a pair of Crouse employees we had never met, came into the room to administer a cervical balloon on behalf of our doctor who was in surgery. Long story short, the pair was unprepared to do the procedure and, frankly, traumatized my wife. Her words, not mine.
Naturally, I was very upset but kept it low key at the request of my wife and mother-in-law. The next Crouse employee who walked through that door was Nicola Bauer. Admittedly, I was cruel to her when she first walked in. I cursed at her, demanding to see our doctor and to know who just traumatized my wife. Instead of turning on her heel and writing us off, Nicola went and got me the answers to both my questions and reassured us our prior experience was not typical of Crouse but the procedure they did was done properly and gave us an update on our doctor.
From that point going forward, Nicola was by our side in a way unmatched by even the second greatest nurse we had during our stay at Crouse. Nicola's attention to detail to not only the physical health of my wife and child but the mental and emotional health of my wife, myself and my mother-in-law was unexpected but well received. She was worried about my diabetes and my blood sugar getting out of line because I wasn't eating. She was worried my mother-in-law wasn't getting enough rest and was comfortable, having just gone through a minor surgery herself.
Plain and simple, she cared. She cared for people she wasn't getting paid to care for.
Care and attention aside, it was obvious Nicola had taken a special interest in my wife and child. During her single shift, she probably checked in on us twice for every time any other nurse checked in once. And with each visit, she left us with a little more than we had prior to her visit. Some visits left us with something simple and conventional like more pain medication or just her calming presence but the next one came with something like better sitting or bed positions, suggestions for hydrotherapy or (and probably the single greatest thing anybody did for us while on L&D) a massage and pressure point technique to relieve my wife's back labor pain. And it worked!
When it was coming time for Nicola to go home, she gave us ample heads up and began reassuring us that everything is going to be OK with the new nurse, something my wife really took to heart. The words to describe the overwhelming, calming and supportive effect Nicola had on my wife are very difficult to find. But the fact that Nicola going off her shift was something that concerned my wife during her 24th consecutive hour of labor is the most impressive testimonial I can give.
Nicola really brought it home when, the following morning, my wife, daughter and I were resting on the 7th floor and there was a knock on our door. We said "Come, in" and in walked Nicola. She had taken the time to ask around and see where we were and wanted to come down to check in on us. And for a moment I thought this was a kind but commonplace gesture but when our 7th floor nurse asked who she was and we filled her in, she was pleasantly surprised our L&D nurse bothered to come to check on us. I did not cry when I first saw my daughter but I nearly cried when Nicola looked at us three, expressed her congratulations and said we're going to be great parents.
In short, the enduring image and voice of our stay at Crouse is that of Nicola. Without her aid and care, our time at Crouse would have been dramatically different. But since we had it, we left the hospital smiling and fixated on the fantastic care we received from this sweet, sweet woman.