I came into the hospital with consistent contractions. Christine kept everything calm during admission, and after my epidural, she continued to keep me calm. We had our daughter the next day. She did not clear her lungs and was sent to the NICU at BayCare in Green Bay. Christine had come on shift that evening about an hour after our daughter was born.

Once we found out that our daughter was being sent to a hospital 45 minutes away, I wanted to leave to go with her. Christine helped get me up and moving. Helped get me to the bathroom to clean up so I could see our daughter before she was transported. While getting cleaned up in the bathroom, Christine helped me with every single thing while I was bawling my eyes out. She washed me up when I couldn’t. She helped me walk down to the nursery, where I was able to hold our daughter before she left.

During this time, Christine started to talk with the on-call doctor about discharge and whether it would be possible. She was able to coordinate my discharge, so I was able to leave the hospital shortly after our daughter. Because of her hard work in getting me discharged (safely), my husband and I were able to get up to the NICU within a couple of hours and were able to do skin-to-skin as soon as we got there for a few hours. Because we were able to do this, our daughter only had to stay on CPAP for roughly 16 hours after birth, and she was able to regulate her breathing. Her actions that evening impacted our entire stay in the NICU and will likely have lifelong positive impacts on our daughter’s life. What could have been a very long NICU stay turned out to be only 10 days. We absolutely believe that Christine went above and beyond for us that evening, and we appreciate it so much.

Note: This is Christine's 2nd DAISY Award!