I arrived to L & D  to have my first baby boy around 11 pm. I was scheduled for an induction the next day, {my due date}, but went early because I was having consistent contractions. Upon arrival, I wasn’t very progressed, but my BP was elevated, so they decided to admit me and start the induction process. I had my first epidural placed early in the morning and they decided to break my water shortly after that. I ended up with chorioamnionitis. I labored all day with very slow progression. Tiffany came onto shift that night at 7 pm. She had an orientee with her. I was starting to get pretty uncomfortable at this point, as they had been titrating my meds to help me progress faster, and my epidural was no longer working well. She advocated for me when I needed a second epidural and again hours later when I needed more medication from anesthesia. Her and her orientee were in and out of my room constantly to rotate me and to help me prepare for pushing.

At 0431, I was delivering my 9lb baby boy when he got stuck, and shortly after, I started to hemorrhage. All I can remember was the chaos of the room, but how calm Tiffany was when I was panicking that my son was stuck and not crying for what seemed like an eternity. After they got him out and handed him off to the nurses, I started to hemorrhage. She remained by my side the entire time, assuring me that I was going to be okay and that my baby was going to be okay as well. In that moment, I truly had no idea what my outcome was going to be. She gave me words of comfort and encouragement during the scariest moments of my life. She explained everything that was happening and didn’t sugarcoat anything. She held my hand when I was screaming in pain from them trying to stop the bleeding. Nurses surrounded me, giving me a ton of medication to help stabilize me. I ultimately needed a JADA device to control my bleeding. After I was finally stable, Tiffany helped me to have skin-to-skin with my son. She held him against me when I was too weak and exhausted to hold him myself.  I have nothing but great things to say about ALL of the staff that took care of me that night. I truly am so thankful to have had the team I did.

I have the utmost respect for Tiffany for being a nurse, a friend, a teacher, and everything in between that night for me.