The nursing team of the Jersey City Medical Center NICU was top-notch. All of the nurses that we encountered during our daughter's 90-day NICU stay demonstrated the DAISY Award criteria of delivering excellent individualized patient care.

With the arrival of our daughter, coming super early and unexpectedly at 27 weeks gestational, our introduction to the NICU was a bit of a shock at 2 am on Sunday. We were initially greeted by the NICU team in the delivery room as they jumped into action following our daughter's speedy delivery. Along with Dr. Lipener, overnight nurses Nicole and Paige were on the scene to stabilize him in the delivery room. After they got her initially assessed in the delivery room, they whisked her off to the NICU to get her situated in her isolette.

When I was cleared to move to the recovery room and went to the NICU to see our daughter, both Nicole and Paige greeted us and gave us the rundown of how she was doing, and answered the initial questions we had. Their care and approach were very reassuring in a very traumatic time.

Later that morning, nurse Jocelyn (Gigi) was our daughter's nurse for the following few day shifts. Gigi was so kind, compassionate, and dedicated to both our daughter's care and also explaining to my husband and me how the NICU operates and what to expect in the coming days and weeks. Gigi helped us to find some laughs to help lighten the tense feelings we had at the initial introduction to the NICU.

Gigi also made sure that we had a family photo taken within the first few days of our daughter being in the NICU, which we now cherish. Gigi had a trainee with her in the first few days of our daughter's stay as well, named Mary, who was also so caring and helpful to us in navigating those early NICU days.

Kate was the nurse who first encouraged and helped us to hold our daughter skin-to-skin, which was an emotional moment for us as she was initially hooked up to so many tubes and a very bulky NAVA machine. Kate made the process seamless to pull our daughter from her isolette and helped us to understand how to read and react to the monitors that she was hooked up to while we held her.

Throughout the weeks of our daughter's NICU stay, she had so many kindhearted nurses caring for her each day and night. Below are a few other notable moments from her NICU journey and the nurses who made her stay.

Cyrilda was a calming presence and was so patient during our daughter's journey to bottle feeding. Cyrilda was the first nurse to do a bottle feed with her and coached us through the best practices for how to approach feeding her. Cryilda's quiet and calm nature helped us to stay calm and patient during this experience.

Rimah always had a reassuring presence and checked in on her every time we were visiting the NICU, even if she wasn't her designated nurse for that day. She also always made a point to greet my husband and me by name when she saw us and always helped us to find a laugh when we were in the NICU. Rimah was also the first nurse to put her in a cute little hat once she graduated from the CPAP machine, which helped us to see her as the growing and developing baby that she was.

Odalys was always reassuring and kind, and always so helpful with getting our daughter situated and ready for us when we'd come in to do her morning feedings. When Odalys was on duty, she took the time to communicate with us on the plan for the day. Odalys was our daughter's nurse the first day that she finished a full bottle with me, and Odalys was kind enough to snap some photos of the moment for us.

Other nurses that our daughter had regularly were Nana, Luz, Lucy, and Sue. They were all equally caring and compassionate toward her. Nana cared for her in such a loving way and made sure that she was properly fitted with the correct cannulas and equipment. Luz was so friendly and welcoming to us when we came to visit our daughter. Sue always made a point to check in to provide an encouraging remark when she would see us. And Lucy was very helpful in getting our daughter to take more feeds by bottle.

The other nurses who played a big part in our daughter's time in the NICU were the overnight crew. And while admittedly my husband and I spent more "day" shifts at the NICU than night, we still had the chance to meet and observe the work of many of the overnight nurses. The overnight team are definitely troopers when caring for these tiny, needy humans with such care at the same time as often being short-staffed on their shifts. We always felt that our daughter's care overnight was still high quality, and we have to thank the night team for that!

There are many on the team, but those nurses who often took care of our daughter were Shauna, the 3 Melissas, the 2 Alexis', Nilda, Elizabeth, Sharon, and Rita.

In addition to all of the nurses named above, we had positive interactions with several other nurses on the team as well - I unfortunately cannot recall the names of all of them, but I would be remiss not to call out the others that were also part of our daughter's journey.

The nurse management team - Leah, Amanda, Sam, and Andrea - all were sure to check in with us as parents of a patient and as people whenever they would see us.

I am hopeful this nomination form will help to get the NICU team recognition, as they made our daughter's 90-day NICU stay something that we can speak highly of. They turned what was a stressful and trying time in our lives into something bearable and even enjoyable as they provided top-notch care to our daughter.