When you sign up to be a nurse, you never imagine that one day you yourself will be the one experiencing an emergent situation that requires the help of another nurse for you and your unborn child to be able to make it successfully during a delivery. As a first-time mother, my delivery experience was everything I never would have thought would happen. On a Saturday night, I came to the hospital in what I thought was the beginning of labor. Mikayla greeted me with a smile and a "hey girl, hey attitude." She never once questioned me or made me feel that my thoughts and symptoms were underrated. I was not in labor that Saturday, but the next day, on Sunday, the game changed.

I came to the ER in what I knew this time to be real labor. As soon as I wheeled into the unit, Mikayla jumped right in, confirmed my water had broken, and we were going to have a baby. She went into full-blown nurse mode, but still treated me as a momma, not a nurse. Everything was going well after my epidural, then suddenly they were not. Mikayla quickly came into the room, began turning me into different positions, all while maintaining normal conversation, and I had no idea that my baby had begun having heart rate issues. Before I knew it, I had 4 nurses and two doctors in my room taking care of me. Mikayla remained calm that entire time, and when it came time to break the news of an emergent C-section, she never left my side. She explained that she was going to the OR to prepare for my delivery and would be waiting for me. When I entered that room, she was preparing for the delivery of my baby and again reassured me that it was ok as I was put to sleep. As a nurse, I never panicked because of Mikayla's calmness. I did not know the sex of my baby, and it was all supposed to be a surprise, and she made sure to let me know I would still be the first person to know what my baby would be.

When I woke up from the delivery at my bedside, there she was waiting with my family and my precious baby boy. She continued to care for me the rest of that long night in the post-partum unit to ensure I was taken care of till she left. My heart will never be able to express how thankful I am for Mikayla and her clinical skills that prevented a horrible outcome for me and my baby boy. She is a phenomenal nurse, a quick thinker, and a human with a servant's heart. She will forever be part of my son's birth story, and I am thankful to her every day when I look at him. Thank you, Mikayla, for being the nurse and person that you are.