I was admitted into the hospital at 27 weeks and 2 days pregnant and had to have an emergency C-section the very next day due to pre-eclampsia & HELLP syndrome. My son was only born at 1 lb 12 oz and even had to be resuscitated. Rachael was one of the nurses that came to the OR to transfer my son to the ISCU, NICU. She helped make my husband feel confident that  our son was in great hands.

Rachael continued caring for our son for his entire 84 days in the hospital. She helped make this stressful time so much more bearable. She helped me hold my son for the first time, even though he was intubated. She pushed for doctors to consider different approaches to our son's care. She was there the first time my husband held our son, and in the same moment, our son decided to extubate himself. This was a scary situation as he needed to be bagged.

Rachael was there helping keep our son breathing while also reassuring us everything was being taken care of to the best of their abilities. She got the doctors to allow us to see our son before they put a different breathing tube in. We got to see his whole face for the first time! He was just so beautiful, and Rachael helped make that moment happen.

Rachael and a few of the mother nurses would do little things to make our ISCU stay feel more normal and celebrate all the little achievements. Rachael once wrote on a post-it letting us know he was taken off the JET ventilator and placed it under his camera so we could see it when looking at him from home. Rachael is such a kind and hardworking person. She even came on her day off to see our baby on his final day in the ISCU. She helped celebrate his accomplishments and shared in our excitement. We would have been worse off if Rachael were not one of our son's primary nurses.