Our sweet, beautiful daughter was born at 8:28 a.m. She was fashionably late, arriving seven days after her expected due date. The pediatrician on call examined her and said, "We have a beautiful, healthy baby girl." The rest of the day was spent sharing the good news with friends and family and getting in as many snuggles as we could.

Because she was born during the COVID-19 pandemic, and because both mom and baby were doing so well, there was some talk about being discharged the same day she was born. However, she was jaundiced, which extended our stay by an additional night so she could receive phototherapy.

Staying an extra night allowed us to cross paths with Ashley, the nurse who saved our daughter's life.

The day after she was born, the on-call pediatrician examined her again and said she was healthy and would be ready to go home once her bilirubin levels were in the normal range. Ashley, however, had noticed that something was wrong.

Our little girl had a distended belly, but several staff members at Sacred Heart had assured us that it looked normal and that newborns have large bellies. Ashley was having a hard time hearing bowel sounds. She was persistent, continuously checking on her. She even called the pediatrician who had examined her that morning to ask her to come back.

The pediatrician said something along the lines of, "If the baby is peeing and having bowel movements, then she is fine." What courage it took for Ashley to follow her gut and keep pushing for more people to take a look at her, even after being told multiple times that our daughter was fine.

Ashley found a resident in the building to examine her, which led to an abdominal ultrasound. The ultrasound showed a 9-centimeter mass near her liver and kidney.

Time stood still, and the trajectory of our lives completely changed the moment we heard the ultrasound results. Our little girl was transported to the Children's Hospital of Minneapolis at 9:00 p.m. via ambulance. She was soon diagnosed with hepatoblastoma, a rare pediatric liver cancer.

The chances of having this type of cancer are about 1 in 1,000,000. The prognosis for hepatoblastoma varies depending on many factors. The biggest factor affecting prognosis is whether the tumor has spread. Fortunately, her tumor had not. If Ashley had not caught her cancer so early, our lives would be in a much darker place right now.

The early detection sent us to the Children's Hospital immediately, where she started chemotherapy treatment at 12 days old. As you can imagine, there were many bumps in the road, but she was declared cancer-free in November 2020.

With a two-year-old at home and a newborn with cancer, we were in survival mode. We weren't able to thank Ashley for saving our daughter. As fate would have it, Ashley was the nurse who admitted us to the labor and delivery unit two years later, in 2022, as we were preparing to welcome our third child. We were about halfway through our elevator ride when we realized who each other was. A few tears were shed, and hugs were exchanged. But it's still not enough.

How do you ever repay the person who literally saved your child's life?

As we approach our daughter's five-year anniversary of being cancer-free, we continue to think about Ashley often. We wanted to thank her one more time. Because of her, we have the most amazing, healthy five-year-old: a unicorn-loving, glitter-using, school-obsessed, singing-and-dancing girl whom we couldn't imagine our lives without. 

It's difficult to fully express how we feel and how much we appreciate the role she has played in our lives. So, we will simply say, thank you.