My newborn daughter was born 8 weeks premature and spent 23 days in the hospital. Being a new parent and having your very unexpectedly premature baby hospitalized from birth, the emotions you go through are beyond comprehension. You don't get to make any decisions for your child including just the simple act of holding them. You have to trust in a team of strangers that they are doing everything in their power to keep your baby healthy and safe. It doesn't get harder than that. The nurses in the NICU were phenomenal, but one of them stood out amongst the others.
Tamara took the time to get to know me and my husband. She always referred to my baby by her name and even used the same nickname I do when talking to her. She took her time to show us how to feed and diaper our daughter and more importantly she made sure we knew our baby's unique personality characteristics so we would be more prepared when we brought her home. It is very easy to become dependent on the heart and oxygen monitors in the room to know how your baby is doing. Anytime our daughter's monitor would alert she would remind us not to look at the numbers on the screen, but at our daughter and what she was doing to cause the monitors to alert. That is such an essential skill with premature babies and yet Tamara was the only nurse who stressed how important it was. Now that we have brought our daughter home, I am so thankful that she took the time to teach us this lifesaving skill.
Tamara, we cannot express our gratitude for the care and understanding you provided to our family during the most difficult time in our lives. You didn't just take care of our daughter. You also took the time to get to know me and my husband during our many visits. Going through this experience can be very isolating at times, but our conversations with you helped to ease our anxieties when we left her behind every night. We knew she would be okay when we weren't there because we watched you provide extra care for all the babies in the room and not just our own. You supported us when we worried, celebrated with us when we accomplished milestones, and you even volunteered to help us take our first family photo. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.